This year Santa is getting some competition from another jolly guy with a big belly and a red cap. We’re talking about video game icon Mario, of course. As a special holiday surprise for Wii owners from Nintendo, the original Super Mario Bros. game for the NES will appear in the Wii Shop Channel and be downloadable for 500 Wii Points (is $5). Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points to download the game. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets.
The classic game will make Christmas morning extra special, just as it did more than two decades ago. Super Mario Bros. reigns as perhaps the best-known and most-played game on any video game system in history. More than 40.2 million copies of the game found their way into homes worldwide.
In addition to Super Mario Bros., other top-notch offerings available on December 25 include:
* Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Super NES, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points = $8): This game revolutionized the fighting-game genre with characters that had unique fighting skills, speed, special moves and unique endings.
* Super Castlevania IV (Super NES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points = $8): Simon Belmont uses his trusty whip to fight the powers of evil on his way to Dracula’s Castle.
* Toe Jam & Earl (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points = $8): Two fun-loving aliens crash on Earth and must find 10 pieces of their spaceship so they can get back home to Planet Funkotron.
* R-TYPE (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points = $8): This is a completely faithful port – right down to the character details – of the famous shooting-game masterpiece.
Games available on January 1 include:
* Baseball (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points = $5): Play nine innings of fierce sandlot competition with classic NES graphics.
* Urban Champion (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points = $5): Don’t let the big, bad bully of the neighborhood push you around! Players fight for the right to walk the street.
In just five weeks the library of classic games available through the Wii Shop Channel has grown to 33 titles. Every Monday at 9AM Pacific, Nintendo adds more classic games to the channel.