It's been 25 years since the lovable Mario made his first appearance in the first Super Mario Bros. - and ever since then, despite going through a few changes over the years, he's been a massive hit as Nintendo's prized mascot. You'd think after 25 years though, he might be a bit less surprised when Princess Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser again. Women.
He doesn't seem to have aged much in 25 years...
Thinking it would be a bit rude of them to let the portly plumber's 25th birthday pass by without making a fuss, Nintendo have pulled out all the stops. Along with the TV and in store advertising campaign, featuring celebrities from Sir Patrick Moore, through the Diversity discussing their love of all things Mario, Nintendo are going to be marking Mario's special day with the release of two special edition consoles - a DSi and a Wii, both in his trademark red colour.
The Limited Edition Mario 25th Red DSi XL features several little Mario-themed icons on the outside of the console, next to the camera, and comes bundled with a copy of the New Super Mario Bros. DS game. This bundle should be available in the UK from the 22nd of October this year.
A week later, on the 29th October, the special edition Red Wii bundle will hit the stores. Coming bundled with a copy of New Super Mario Bros Wii, and Wii Sports, the console even comes pre-loaded with the Donkey Kong virtual console game, which marked Mario's first video gaming appearance - even if he was known only as "Jump man" back then. Interestingly, the console also comes sporting a matching Wii Remote Plus - a new remote from Nintendo, which combines the Motion+ unit into a normally sized remote, which you can read more about here.
Both bundles will be available in stores at the end of the month - but if you're interested, you'd better act fast, as seeing as both consoles are Limited Editions, we'd expect them to fly off the shelves pretty fast.
