Nintendo will re-release its 1993 Super Nintendo game Super Mario All-Stars on Wii in Japan to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series, according to reports.
A news leak from a retail event in Japan, reported by the indispensable Andriasang, says that Nintendo will release a Wii disc containing the SNES game for 2,500 yen (about $30) that comes packaged with a Mario history book and a soundtrack CD featuring music from games spanning the entire history of the series. Nintendo has since added the game to its release schedule for October 21.
Known as Super Mario Collection in Japan, Super Mario All-Stars contains reprogrammed, enhanced versions of Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3, including both the U.S. and Japanese versions of the second game. It is one of the few games that Nintendo has not released on its Virtual Console download service, most likely because the collection would cut into individual sales of the original versions of the games, which are some of the biggest-selling downloads on Wii.
While slapping a Super Nintendo game onto a Wii disc and calling it a day might seem a bit cheap, these sorts of re-releases are not uncommon in Japan. I own a similar reprint of the arcade game Haunted Castle. In these cases, it’s not so much the content on the disc but the bonus materials included that make it worth the money. If the book and CD are awesome, it’ll make the whole package quite appealing at the bargain 2,500 yen price.
That said, releasing this in America would prove to be more of a challenge.