The theme of Super Mario Bros. 2 is gold, with its designers challenging players to complete it multiple times over in order to collect one million of the series's iconic coins.

Impossible? Released on July 28 in Japan, the game had sold 621,000 copies by August 5. Nintendo took a look at overall player progress and concluded that 242 people had already reached the one million coin mark, with 10,000,000,000 shinies accrued by the entire player base.

It's not just about the cash (although if you're swimming in a poolful's worth at Nintendo, it might be), as there's an improved two player mode, a gold flower power-up, the racoon-style flight suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, and a StreetPass function that rewards owners for traveling with their 3DS.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 will be the third Mario game for 3DS this year, after the sports-themed Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games and Mario Tennis Open.

Later this year comes Paper Mario: Sticker Star, while many 3DS owners are still getting good mileage out of Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land, both of which released at the tail end of 2011; with that in mind, Nintendo will need to keep excitement high and fend off the danger of Mario fatigue.