Mario Hoops 3-on-3

Mario Hoops 3-on-3
North American box art
Developer(s)Square Enix
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Director(s)Shin Azuma
Producer(s)Toyokazu Nonaka
Hiroyuki Miura
Artist(s)Gen Kobayashi
Composer(s)Masayoshi Soken
Series
Platform(s)Nintendo DS
Release
  • JP: July 27, 2006
  • NA: September 11, 2006
  • AU: October 26, 2006
  • EU: February 16, 2007
Genre(s)Sports
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Mario Hoops 3-on-3, known in Europe as Mario Slam Basketball and in Japan as Mario Basket 3on3 (マリオバスケ 3on3, Mario Basuke 3on3), is a 2006 sports game developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. The game is the first in which Mario and Final Fantasy characters appear together as playable characters, and the second Mario game developed by Square Enix, the first one being Super Mario RPG. It is the first Mario basketball game ever to be released, although characters from the series have appeared in the GameCube version of NBA Street V3. The game was released on the European Wii U Virtual Console on May 26, 2016 and it was released on North American Wii U Virtual Console on November 3, 2016.

The game features a series of three versus three basketball tournaments on different courts, each of three games. The game uses the Nintendo DS's touch screen extensively and features items and coins from the Mario series. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the game for being amusing and fun, but criticized the weak AI and limited multiplayer options, with full basketball games only being playable across two players locally who each had a copy of the game.