Who needs a merry-go-round when you can ride a Mario-go-round?

Nintendo and Universal Parks & Resorts announced Thursday that they're partnering up to bring theme park attractions based on the video game publisher's beloved characters and worlds to Universal properties. The collaboration is still in its embryonic stages, so that's about the extent of what's been revealed.

See also: Theme parks are trying incorporate tech to lure you off the couch

It's the latest move from a Nintendo that seems set on reinventing itself as a response to the slow adoption of its latest Wii U game console. The Wii successor continues to have the weakest sales of the "big three" console competitors, with less than 10 million sold as of early fall 2014, two full years after its release. By comparison, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, both released in fall 2013, managed to reach or exceed 10 million sales by the end of 2014.

Nintendo surprised the gaming world earlier this year when it announced a partnership with Japanese mobile game company DeNA. The partnership, which aims to bring Nintendo experiences to phones and tablets, amounts to an about-face for a company that had long resisted the lure of the massive mobile market.

The announcement was accompanied by the news that DeNA would help Nintendo build a global membership service to cover computers, mobile devices and Nintendo hardware. The game publisher has traditionally shied away from the kind of unified account system that services like PlayStation Network and Xbox Live offer, to avoid bringing the sometimes-toxic behavior that's present in competing online communities to family-friendly Nintendo devices.

The Universal deal is yet another indication that Nintendo is starting to see the danger of sticking with its old ways. Whether or not the Wii U's situation is salvageable — an abundance of critically acclaimed games helps — the house that Mario built seems intent on turning its fortunes with fresh, unexpected approaches in 2015 and beyond.