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.

在競爭者世嘉和任天堂已經初步合作將他們的明星頭像“索尼克”和“馬里奧”用于即將命名的游戲《馬里奧與索尼克在北京奧運》里。

玩家們可以任意選擇所扮演的角色參加比賽，比賽出現場景都是基于北京2008年奧運會的真實場館來設計的。

《馬里奧與音速小子在北京奧運》的發行將由世嘉負責歐洲和北美，日本則由任天堂負責。

游戲將得到國際體育多媒體的世界級合作關系許可，這也包括來自國際奧委會的專用交互娛樂軟件許可。

世嘉董事長兼首席營運官Hisao Oguchi說：“能夠與任天堂和國際體育多媒體破天荒的成為合作伙伴，我們很振奮。”

世界上兩大最著名的游戲角色第一次相聚在世界的大型體育賽事上同場競技，這讓我們再激動不過了。

任天堂高級執行董事和總經理Shigeru Miyamoto補充道：“在早期的視頻游戲里，馬里奧與索尼克就已平等的對抗過。”

長期以來，他們一直討論和對方同日競技的可能性。現在他們得到了絕佳的機會在奧委會相逢，我們可以最終知曉到底誰跑得更快些。

這款游戲將由任天堂Wii和DS平臺發展而來并會在圣誕及時投放市場。