NINTENDO AND THE LAWN TENNIS ASSOCIATION SERVE AN ACE WITH MARIO POWER TENNIS PARTNERSHIP

18 February 2005: To celebrate the launch of the brand new Nintendo GameCube game Mario Power Tennis, Nintendo is teaming up with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) this summer for an integrated sampling and sponsorship campaign, giving fans and gamers at all the biggest tennis events across the UK a chance to play Nintendo’s latest sports game.

The Mario Power Tennis tour will hit Birmingham (6-12 June),Nottingham and Eastbourne (13-18 June) and Wimbledon (20 June – 3 July), the world’s greatest tennis championship. The LTA sponsorship deal not only includes on-site sampling, but also gives Nintendo branding at the events, brand profile in the official brochures and website and official endorsement for sampling at the country’s top thirty tennis clubs from the beginning of March.

In the run up to the Wimbledon championship, Nintendo and the LTA will be promoting Mario Power Tennis at the Nottingham 10tele.com Open, with a 10m x 10m branded gaming tent, Nintendo banners and a large number of sampling pods on site. Nintendo characters will be present at key stages in the tournament to keep the crowds entertained. Mario Power Tennis sampling will also be present at the Hastings Direct International Championships and the Birmingham DFS Classic, with manned pods onsite at both events.

The Wimbledon championship is without a doubt one of the highlights of the tennis year, attracting visitors from all over the world. Young tennis enthusiasts will be able to practice their backhand in the Wimbledon ‘Play Tennis’ Zone, where they will find Nintendo GameCube Mario Tennis sampling pods. Mario and his friends will also be making an appearance on site, so the queue won’t seem so unbearable with everyone’s favourite Nintendo characters on hand to offer light entertainment.

The official LTA publication ACE Magazine will also be fully supporting this deal with adverts for the game and a competition giving readers the chance to win Nintendo hardware and software.

Mario Power Tennis is an arcade style tennis game giving players a chance to hit the courts as one of their favourite Nintendo characters, including all time greats like Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Donkey Kong. Players are spoilt for choice with a starting line-up of 14 characters to choose from and over 8 different courts to play on. This is a great pick-up-and-play game that players of all ages will love.

Character choice is an essential part of victory in this game. Not only do the different characters each have varying strength, reach and speed, but they also have a selection of special moves to get them out of sticky situations. Each character as two special moves, one for offence and one for defence which can be charged up during games. At certain points in a match a character will flash and pressing the X button will activate a special move. These range from moves which propel them across the court in time to stop a shot, to special serves which help ace the opponent. The game can also be enjoyed with or without the special moves as you wish!

Mario Power Tennis goes on sale across the UK on 25 February 2005 at the estimated retail price of around £40.

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