Once considered the videogaming word's biggest rivals, today a game featuring Nintendo's Mario and SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog has been unveiled for release in November of 2007. The announcement of Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games would have been unthinkable a decade ago (like Microsoft teaming up with Sony nowadays, for instance), but SEGA's demise in the console hardware market has since seen the Japanese developer sharing its biggest franchises across all videogame formats - today's news is that the title will appear on the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS.

The game has been licensed through a global partnership with International Sports Media (ISM), the exclusive interactive entertainment software licensee of the International Olympic Committee.

"We are thrilled to partner with Nintendo and ISM on this groundbreaking title," said SEGA's president and COO Hisai Oguchi. "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."

Sounds like the gaming equivalent of fictional bouts between comic book heroes will soon be settled in the modern world's own form of a gladiatorial contest.

Nintendo's creative guru Shigeru Miyamoto offered: "Mario and Sonic have been respectful rivals since the early days of videogames. In fact, for a long time they have been discussing the possibility of one day competing against each other. Now they have been given the perfect opportunity to meet at the Olympic Games, we can finally learn who is the faster, Mario or Sonic?"

"The Olympic Games represent the true spirit of competition and passion," added ISM's chairman and COO Raymond Goldsmith. "Bringing together intensely competitive and fun characters like Mario and Sonic in an Olympic setting helps showcase the sports of the Olympic Games in a new and compelling way for all generations."