They are star-shaped creatures combining 'Rabbids' with 'Lumas', characters from the game 'Super Mario Galaxy'. Ubisoft, though, said it had been given real leeway, even to create new crossover characters in the form of 'Sparks'. Issues of rights and royalties cause headaches, he said, and the studio loaning its characters is likely to make onerous demands to ensure its brand is protected.

Julien Pillot, an economist specialising in cultural industries, told AFP this kind of collaboration in video games was rare and tricky to pull off. This is much closer to the idea of Spiderman and Superman walking into each other's storylines, as happened in 1970s crossover comics and many times since. Occasionally two studios join forces, like in the 'Kingdom Hearts' series, which matched up 'Final Fantasy' of the Japanese publisher Square Enix with characters owned by Disney. In video games, Nintendo has created mash-ups featuring its own characters, like the 'Super Smash Bros' series that brought together the likes of Pikachu, Donkey Kong and others. Superheroes, for example, have a long history of showing up in a rival's storylines. The idea of fictional universes colliding - characters from one popping up in another - is far more developed in cinema franchises and comic books than in video games. 'It attracted a lot of attention because there are not many brands that do a pair-up with 'Mario', that's for sure.' A history of mash-ups 'I don't think we would have bet on that in 2017,' he said. The first game in the series, 'Mario Rabbids: Kingdom Battle', has garnered more than 10 million players since its release in 2017, said Manzanares. 'That's where it's interesting, so we had real creativity, really interesting room for manoeuvre.' 'Nintendo told us very early on: 'This is your game, this is your vision, we respect it,'' Ubisoft's Xavier Manzanares, who is overseeing the new game's development, told AFP. Only fellow Japanese studio Sega has been entrusted with characters from 'Mario' before, for special editions games celebrating the Olympic Games where they compete with 'Sonic the Hedgehog'.

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