Nintendo honours Super Mario

Another Wii Remote Plus bundle is being released, on 11 November in Japan and 3 December in Europe, this time to honour Nintendo's one and only, Mario, writes Gaming Union.

Nintendo is releasing a decked-out Mario Wii in order to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary. The fiery red console will also include a red Wii Remote Plus and a matching red nunchuk.

Also, the Wii will feature a preloaded version of the original Super Mario Bros in honour of its anniversary. All of the coin boxes in the game will have the number '25' instead of the normal '?'.

Games comprise a substantial chunk of Facebook's applications, many of which have simple static text-based platforms, form a burgeoning multibillion-dollar industry, reveals The Bendigo Advertiser.

Soco Games, creator of the just-released Earth 2.0, thinks creating a Facebook game is more than just an avenue to striking it rich. In what could be a first for a Facebook game, the company says it will donate a portion of Earth 2.0's profits each month to charities, and will let gamers decide to which charities.

Company co-founder Jeff Bogensberger says Earth 2.0, a static futuristic game about a quest to find a suitable alternative to the fast-decaying earth, will help people to make a difference by merely logging on and playing.

With Gears of War 3 delayed by five months, its maker, Epic, is using the extra construction time to release an Xbox Live multiplayer beta, writes CVG.

The beta, which will run sometime early next year, will give Xbox Live users their first hands-on time with the sequel's new dedicated servers, which 'Gears 3' will use for ranked and social matchmaking games.

Speaking at a US press event, producer Rod Fergusson admitted that Epic's already been using Gears of War 2 as a sort of informal beta for version three, by subtly adjusting the weapons to be closer to their 'Gears 3' counterparts and even running small-scale dedicated server tests.