It could have been a Google search (or whatever search engine that Nintendo used) that one of the devs had done and it was the result. They might have not got it directly from tSR. The other alternatives would have been going through the archives and finding 1990 era tools of viewing the sprites or sprite ripped it themselves, both take far long than a 5 minute job especially when you need to do something quickly to meet deadlines.

Not the first time they had done this, one of the WarioWare games took a screenshot from VirtualNES and tried to cropping it for a Punch-Out minigame. Was Smash Bros. Ultimate they had to change a couple of assets since it was incorrect and matched a rip or something?

(Besides they do have the right to use their own sprites and Nintendo aren't the only company that has done this.)

i think its because nintendo was lazy or something, or nintendo just knows this website exists

What's wrong with Nintendo getting the sprites from TSR? I mean, they own the sprites.

An interesting fact about this page I just learnt: one of the sprites used for Mario in the Super Mario World game style in Super Mario Maker (and it's sequel) has a stray pixel above Mario's hand.
This pixel's hex color (#FF8040) is actually an exact match to the background color on an older sheet on this page, meaning Nintendo likely just snatched the sprites from this page rather than getting them from the actual game.

@Bavoomian Map art

@Supuruu: H-how did you put that in Minecraft?! I can't believe my Bavoomian eye!

This sheet has the most hits on this site.

@GamesAlt34Testing Boy, I miss the good old days I used to use Scratch. (┬┬﹏┬┬)
Please send me the project link if you can. I have a lot of nostalgia from Scratch games.

I wil use this in a scratch project.

As you look noticed for the net punching sprites (both front and back), the half on Mario's arm was pink and with black outline (probably due to an error).

omg this re-rip is beautiful! I'm always happy when a spritesheet is on a grid, and this one even shows the bounds of the original sprites. Big props to Mister Man!

small mario wall run sprite is so funny

=D

the latest version before the update is sep 2nd 2019

guys i used the wayback machine and was able to download the old sheet

The sprite sheet isn't even that big, though...

I agree with oxygen.
Cape Mario (and Luigi) should be separated into their own sheets, it'll take up less space.

I just realized that diagonal mario sprite is there

love the re-rip