LEGO and Nintendo Reveal a Buildable NES Set, Complete with a TV Playing Super Mario Bros.
Photo via LEGONintendo and LEGO are teaming up to create a new set featuring a buildable NES console and CRT television, complete with a rotating screen featuring a level out of Super Mario Bros. A “bricked” console, if you will.
Along with the aforementioned console and TV, the set also includes a cartridge of Super Mario Bros. and NES controller, all in LEGO form of course. By turning a crank on the side of the TV, you can have a movable Mario jump through the rotating course, hopping on Goombas and hitting question blocks.
The set releases the same day as the “Adventures with Mario Starter Course,” which features a simple LEGO stage with various obstacles and enemies from the Mushroom Kingdom. It also includes an electronic Mario figure which can change its expressions and sounds by reacting to its surroundings through a color sensor. The figure can also be used with the LEGO NES by placing it on top of the TV, where Mario will make all the typical sounds of the game as they scroll by. For example, if Mario collects a coin in the set, the figure will detect that and make the iconic sound. It’s some pretty neat tech.
The course also has 10 additional expansion sets, from King Boo’s haunted yard to Bowser’s Castle, as well as five “power-up packs” which give Mario different suits or add LEGO minifigures of Mario characters.
“Super Mario has been a cherished figure in the gaming world for over thirty years now,” Maarten Simons, Creative Lead for the project Maarten Simons said in a PR statement. “Many adults still fondly remember that first time they saw Mario leap across the small screen, even if the graphics were a lot simpler than they are today. With the LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System, we’re letting them truly indulge in that nostalgia, recreating one of the most-loved consoles of all time so they can see the Super Mario from their childhoods once again – and even to share the experience of gaming in the 1980s with their own children.”
The set includes 2,646 pieces and is recommended for those 18 and up, so this seems to be quite the complicated project. It also has a price tag that reflects that complexity.
The LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System set and Adventures with Mario Starter Course launch Aug. 1, with the former being exclusive to LEGO retail stores and its website until 2021. The LEGO NES will set you back a whopping $229.99, while the starter course costs $59.99. The various expansion sets and packs all launch Aug. 1 as well at various prices, but together they’ll set you back $485, bringing the total cost of all Mario sets to around $775. Mama mia!