Hotel Mario - Release Date Investigation

A commonly-cited fact about Hotel Mario is that it was released on April 5th, 1994 - the exact same day that Kurt Cobain took his life.
What a morbid little fact! Is it actually true, though? Was this the release date for Hotel Mario?

No

Sections:

The Telltale File Dates -- Magazine Reviews And Guesswork -- The ACTUAL Release Dates

The Telltale File Dates

A cool feature about CD/DVD-based games is that the files stored on their disk reflect the last time they were updated. For example, the released version of Zelda's Adventure had its last files updated on March 27th, 1995, while Link: The Faces of Evil's latest file date was June 24th, 1993. This is handy as it both points to when a specific game went gold and disproves any "release date" that occurred before it.

With that, I present the latest file dates of both the English and French versions of Hotel Mario:

And the English version is dated two days later than this alleged release date. I always had a feeling in my gut that this fact sounded too good to be true.

In this era of gaming, a completed video game usually takes a couple of months to be released, if not more. Think about manufacturing, packaging, advertising, reviews, and so on... they were not instantaneously released like today's games. This factoid is important for both dates as it gives us a lower limit for the game's US/Europe release (June 1994?) and pushes the French release to sometime in 1995. I don't know of any reviews of French Hotel Mario, let alone ones that have a estimated release date, so I can't narrow it down any further. (If you do, let me know.)

But for the initial release, can we narrow it down further? Well, my friends, you should never fear...

Magazine Reviews And Guesswork

...Because the CD-i magazines are here! Or, rather, the CD-i magazine.

There were a couple of CD-i-related publications that ran during the console's lifespan, but the one that was actively going when Hotel Mario was released was the British CD-i magazine by Haymarket Publishing. A couple of minor CD-i magazines had already ceased publication by that point, while the Dutch CD-interactief magazine wouldn't start until October. This seems like our best bet for narrowing down the release date for Hotel Mario.

After scouring through the first few issues of the magazine, I found a review for Hotel Mario in its sixth issue, dated June 2nd, 1994. And in its ratings box is a release month:

July. July 1994.

This is really great news, as it gives a concrete month where Hotel Mario was expected to go on-sale. Even better is that, in the following issue dated August 4th, Hotel Mario is in the CD-i bestsellers list. It was actively being sold by then, and helps back up the July 1994 release date.

However, I must state that this is the month when the game was released in the United Kingdom and Europe, and not the United States. But, to be honest, I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where the game gets released earlier and later than that month. There's nothing requiring the game to be delayed, and it needs a couple of months to get ready for launch. Maybe late June, if you really wanna push it?

In the end, I do believe that Hotel Mario was released in the United States around the same time as the Europe. If there's an old Hotel Mario review out there with a US release date, let me know!

The ACTUAL Release Dates

With my evidence presented, I conclude this CD-i research article by displaying - in big letters - the proper release dates for Hotel Mario:

Now you can pester all your favorite wikis, game sites, and friends who bring up the Kurt Cobain fact! Yay!