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Mario smashes blocks in Minecraft: Wii U Edition in free May 17 update

Mario comes to Minecraft in a Microsoft-approved way.

Image Credit: Nintendo

Mario does love destroying blocks, so I guess this makes sense.

Nintendo revealed today that Mario-themed content is coming to the Wii U version of the popular block-building game Minecraft. The Super Mario Mash-Up pack is available for free on May 17. It includes Mario skins, music, and items. Across all of its platforms (which is pretty much every platform), Minecraft has sold over 70 million copies, making it one of the most popular games on consoles, PCs, and mobile in the world.

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The Wii U is struggling (its successor, the NX, comes out next March) and doesn’t have many games coming out for it this year, but this Minecraft deal could give Wii U owners something to mess around with while they wait for their system’s inevitable death.

The strange thing about all of this is the fact that Microsoft, which has its own system (the Xbox One), also owns Minecraft. That means that Nintendo and Microsoft had to work together for this content pack. Of course, Minecraft makes a ton of money largely because it’s available on so many platforms, something Microsoft seemed to realize when it bought the company for $2.5 billion in 2014.