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Wario video games have been developed by several companies, including Nintendo, Suzak, Good-Feel, and Intelligent Systems. All Wario video games have been developed exclusively for Nintendo video game consoles and handhelds dating from the Game Boy to the seventh generation of video game consoles. The first game to feature Wario as a playable character was Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Game Boy, although he had previously appeared as the antagonist in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and other games.
The Wario series has effectively split into two directions: a series of traditional side-scrolling platform games, and a series of party games under the WarioWare moniker. The platform games are a spin-off from the Super Mario Land series of games for the Game Boy. The changes from the Mario Land series, both stylistically and storywise—with anime-style cutscenes and a greedy protagonist—make the games unique from other platformers in the genre. The latest Wario platform game to be released is Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (known as Wario Land: Shake It! in North America and Wario Land: Shake (ワリオランド シェイク) in Japan) for the Wii, and is a 2D platform game like the previous Wario platform games. The WarioWare games are minigame compilations in which the player is required to perform a series of short activities at a quickening pace. The latest game in the WarioWare series is Game and Wario for the Wii U, released in 2013.