But look closer into Mario's eyes. There's something else there... something cold, ruthless, uncompromising. Those are the eyes that represent a corporate ethos which maximises profits, while attempting to crush its competition by any means.
I've been as guilty as anyone of giving Nintendo a smooth ride, but no more... it's time to lay out the evidence, and ask the question: Is Nintendo a dick?
Consequently, Nintendo intentionally created shortages of both games and hardware. While this might have avoided another crash, it limited profits for third-party publishers, left many punters unable to get their hands on the hottest new games, and churned up a brouhaha of hype.
Contrast this with the state of the Switch's eShop, where over 10,000 new indie games arrive every day, like a sort of reverse-online-Black Friday, whatever that means.
DICK-RATING: 6/10
Nintendo is still using propriety storage mediums today, which is why games cost more on the Switch than on other consoles.
In short: Nintendo is like a jealous and controlling lover. Also: its Switch cartridges taste disgusting.
DICK-RATING: 7/10
Rather than stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sega, in a gesture of games industry solidarity, Nintendo instead affirmed that, unlike its competitor - then backed into a corner over the release of the supposedly ultra-horrifying Night Trap - it had never released any violent games.
Night Trap is currently available for the Nintendo Switch.
DICK-RATING: 8/10
You know: like a spoilt child called Graham not letting his friend Marcus play with his football, because he found out that Marcus went round Tot's house at the weekend instead of going to Graham's house, but Marcus had said he couldn't go over to Graham's house, because he was going to a clown's funeral.
In some cases, this would've been catastrophic for retailers; over one in every five dollars spent at Toys R Us during peak-NESmania was on a Nintendo-branded product.
DICK-RATING: 8/10
The very next day, Nintendo - neglecting to inform Sony of its intentions - announced to the world that they would be partnering with Philips instead. It all proved to be a dastardly ruse, with Nintendo using the supposed Philips partnership to gain leverage over Sony in additional negotiations.
DICK-RATING: 6/10
However, it doesn't always turn out in Nintendo's favour.
Some of the companies it has attempted - and failed - to sue include Codemasters/Galoob over their Game Genie cheat device, and Blockbuster (because it rented out Nintendo games). However, Nintendo recently won a long-running case against a small Japanese company called MariCar, which offers Mario Kart-themed tours of Tokyo.
In addition, Nintendo has been sued a number of times by others, and even lost a patent case relating to the Wii's motion control technology.
DICK-RATING: 7/10
However, rather than issue cease-and-desist notices requesting to have its games removed from these sites, Nintendo recently succeed in getting several huge, and long-running, ROM sites taken down entirely - including all the games (many of which were out of copyright) not belonging to Nintendo.
Nintendo is basically the East India Trading Company of gaming. Or something.
DICK-RATING: 6/10
DICK-RATING: 4/10
When faced with criticism over their policy, Nintendo established its creators program - allowing YouTubers to use its games, but giving Nintendo a percentage of any profits they make on the video.
In short: "Advertising revenue for any YouTube video that contains Nintendo intellectual property is currently sent directly to Nintendo, according to YouTube rules. The Nintendo Creators Program is a program that Nintendo has created to return a percentage of that revenue back to the YouTube video creators."
How very kind of them.
DICK-RATING: 8/10
Thanks to the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, this is the only form of slavery still allowed in America. And Nintendo uses it.
ACTUAL PRISONERS COULD BE BOXING UP YOUR NINTENDO GAMES.
DICK-RATING: 9/10