Mario and Sonic back to DS for the Winter Olympics

With the original Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games game selling over 10 million copies (more on the Wii than the DS we’d reckon), it’s little surprise that with the real winter athletes well into their training routines for 2010, Sonic Team (under the guidance of Shigeru Miyamoto, of course) is limbering up with a Winter Games version of the Nintendo versus Sega head-to-head.

As before, a range of characters from the Mario and Sonic games will be available as playable options.

The only events to be announced to date are alpine skiing and speed skating, but more will be revealed as the clock ticks down to a late 2009 release for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.

Surely the bobsled, figure skating and ski jump will also be included. Ice hockey would be great too: imagine Knuckles and Bowser getting all slaphappy on the ice.

In terms of other gameplay features, multiplayer modes are being hyped for the DS version of the game, which is good news as this was the elements we enjoyed most in the Summer version.

The games themselves will be held in Vancouver, Canada, in February 2010.