14 DAY TRIAL // SEGA and Nintendo have officially announced that they plan to cooperate on creating a new game partnering up Sonic and Mario. The new game will be titled Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and will be developed for both the Nintendo Wii home console and the Nintendo DS handheld. It is set to be based on sporting events that will be seen at the 2010 edition of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The game based on the Beijing 2008 Olympics has so far sold more than 10 million units.
Shigeru Miyamoto should guide the development team, and the cast of characters from the previous game is set to get some additions. The Balance Board will be used for the first time in some events, while SEGA is also emphasizing the multiplayer modes that will be available on both platforms, locally or over the network. Co-op play on the Nintendo Wii is also planned.
SEGA and Nintendo have said that they are very happy with the partnership between the two iconic videogame characters. Naoya Tsurumi, the CEO of SEGA of America, revealed that “We are extremely happy to again team up with Nintendo and ISM on what promises to be another global success. Sonic will partner with Mario once more beneath the spotlight of the legendary Olympic Games. Together they will face new athletic challenges that will provide gamers with more of the exciting experiences unique to this series,” while Reggie Fils-Aime from Nintendo declared that “SEGA has been a valued publishing partner of Nintendo for many years and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is the ultimate representation of that relationship.”
The game should arrive in the second half of 2009 and SEGA is expecting the title to be a bigger success than the first one. Let's hope that the characters can brawl during ice hockey matches.