Rials Sega and Nintendo have teamed up for the first time to bring together their star figureheads, Sonic and Mario, in the upcoming console title Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.  

Players will assume the role of either character and compete in events that take place in environments based on the official venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games will be published by Sega across Europe and North America, and by Nintendo in Japan.

The game will be licensed through a worldwide partnership with International Sports Multimedia, the exclusive interactive entertainment software licensee of the International Olympic Committee.

"We are thrilled to partner with Nintendo and International Sports Multimedia on this groundbreaking title," said Hisao Oguchi, president and chief operating officer at Sega.

"For the first time, two of the world's greatest games characters come together to compete in the world's greatest sporting event and we couldn't be more excited."

Shigeru Miyamoto, senior managing director and general manager at Nintendo, added: "Mario and Sonic have been respectful rivals since the early days of video games.

"For a long time they have been discussing the possibility of one day competing against each other. Now that they have been given the perfect opportunity to meet at the Olympic Games, we may finally learn who is actually faster."

The game will be developed for the Nintendo Wii and DS platforms and will be available in time for Christmas.

在竞争者世嘉和任天堂已经初步合作将他们的明星头像“索尼克”和“马里奥”用于即将命名的游戏《马里奥与索尼克在北京奥运》里。

玩家们可以任意选择所扮演的角色参加比赛，比赛出现场景都是基于北京2008年奥运会的真实场馆来设计的。

《马里奥与音速小子在北京奥运》的发行将由世嘉负责欧洲和北美，日本则由任天堂负责。

游戏将得到国际体育多媒体的世界级合作关系许可，这也包括来自国际奥委会的专用交互娱乐软件许可。

世嘉董事长兼首席营运官Hisao Oguchi说：“能够与任天堂和国际体育多媒体破天荒的成为合作伙伴，我们很振奋。”

世界上两大最著名的游戏角色第一次相聚在世界的大型体育赛事上同场竞技，这让我们再激动不过了。

任天堂高级执行董事和总经理Shigeru Miyamoto补充道：“在早期的视频游戏里，马里奥与索尼克就已平等的对抗过。”

长期以来，他们一直讨论和对方同日竞技的可能性。现在他们得到了绝佳的机会在奥委会相逢，我们可以最终知晓到底谁跑得更快些。

这款游戏将由任天堂Wii和DS平台发展而来并会在圣诞及时投放市场。