In what will be the best day for Wii Virtual Console releases since launch, Nintendo announced today that five new games will be released this Christmas Day, December 25.

This Monday will see a stocking truly filled with classics, beginning with the original Super Mario Bros. for NES. This is no doubt one of the biggest releases for the Virtual Console yet, even if it has already been re-released in a number of different forms. Super Mario Bros. will retail for 500 Wii Points ($5), and is a steal at that price for anyone that's never experienced perhaps the greatest platform game of all-time.

Things only get better from there however, as the oft-neglected SNES finally gets some new releases in the form of Super Castlevania IV and Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. Super Castlevania IV is a personal favorite of mine, as it featured "state of the art" (for its time) Mode 7 graphics and of course classic vampire whippin' action. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior also needs little introduction to most gamers, although with SNES titles retailing for 800 Wii Points ($8) this re-release seems a little high given how often it has been made available in other forms (including Xbox Live Arcade). Still, for Wii-only gamers it should be a good pickup.

Rounding out this week's stellar lineup are Toe Jam & Earl for Genesis (as we previously discovered), and R-Type for the TurboGrafx-16. Both are considered classics in their genres (platform and shooter, respectively), but unfortunately may get overlooked going against the first three. R-Type will actually be the first TurboGrafx-16 title to retail for 800 Wii Points, whereas prior TG-16 releases have been only 600 Wii Points. We have confirmed with a Nintendo representative that is indeed correct and not a typo, so one can only assume that the higher price is either because a port was also released on the SNES (whose titles normally retail for 800 Wii Points), or strong sales of other TG-16 titles such as Bonk's Adventure have convinced the company to bump up the price. Hopefully that move will pay-off and "hardcore" gamers will still snatch it up, but that price point has me concerned that it'll be overlooked amongst the other great releases on Christmas Day.

Finally, Nintendo went ahead and revealed two of the titles to be released on New Year's Day. Unfortunately, it appears that the N64 will continue to be neglected, while instead we get NES duds Baseball and Urban Champion. Baseball was actually a pretty good game for its time, but isn't even close to being the best baseball title on the NES (both Bases Loaded and RBI Baseball are better), much less on all VC platforms. Of course, if the company is going to release them at all, best to do so following such a strong Christmas Day lineup.