in this version). Carlos Pesina, who played Raiden in the first two games, did not appear in MK3 as a penalty for his involvement in the rival game Tattoo Assassins, but was still employed by Midway and his character would return in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, although through the use of recycled sprites from MKII and new sprites performed by Sal Divita. Release {{quote box|width=30%|quote=Q: The abandonment of icons like Scorpion and Kitana ultimately provoked revisions to the MK3 game. What was the impetus for leaving them out, and did you feel it was the right move to add them back in? A: Actually, leaving them out had nothing to do with provoking UMK3. UMK3 was done to appease arcade operators and make up for the sooner than usual release of MK3'''s home version by keeping the arcade version fresh. |source=—John Tobias for Mortal Kombat Online|}} Accompanied by a massive promotional campaign (given the world record for the "largest promotional campaign for a video game" in the 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition), Mortal Kombat 3 was originally released to the North American arcades in April 1995. The game was soon ported to three home consoles, namely the Genesis, Super NES, and PlayStation. The PlayStation version was described as identical to the arcade original by Ed Boon. As part of a deal with Midway, Sony Computer Entertainment gained exclusive worldwide rights for the 32-bit version of the game up through the end of the first quarter of 1996 (hence why the Sega Saturn, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, and Atari Jaguar versions were all slated for release in the second quarter of 1996). According to a Sega spokesperson, Sony paid Midway $12 million for these timed exclusive rights. Continuing a tradition of simultaneous home version releases from the first two games in the series, it was announced that the Genesis, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Gear versions would all be released on "Mortal Friday", October 13, 1995. However, not all of the versions made the planned date, and the Game Gear version was never released in North America at all. The publishing for the 16-bit console ports and portable versions in North America was handled by Williams Entertainment, rather than Acclaim Entertainment (who handled the console ports of the previous titles), although Acclaim still handled the publishing for Mortal Kombat 3 in Europe. On the Game Boy, only nine of the original