Yes, the real Super Mario Bros. 2 is being released to the North American Virtual Console this week, for 600 points.  Now you too can play the infamously difficult chapter of the Super Mario Bros. series, for a mere 100 point markup.

While later ports of the game have been released in the Americas before (as "The Lost Levels" in Super Mario All-Stars and in a rather chopped up and altered version in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe's extra mode), the original Famicom/NES version has never hit our shores... until now.

While the European VC release has disappeared from the European Shop Channel, it sounds as though the North American release will remain available permanently.

(Oh, yeah, Sin and Punishment for the N64 is available too. 1200 points, no Mario, but supposedly fantastic.  In fact, I'll probably buy that first, given that I've played the SMAS port of SMB2j before.  Beating any version of SMB2j just seems to make me never want to play it again.)