With the Skylanders series enjoying impressive levels of success over the past few years, publisher Activision is no doubt hoping for more of the same from Skylanders Trap Team. The franchise has often performed well on the Wii, particularly, and Nintendo would love to see the Wii U become one of the top-selling platforms, too.

Nintendo of America has today retweeted an announcement from the game's official account that confirms a free download code of the Wii U version with copies of the Wii iteration; a surprising offer.

The link goes to an Amazon product page for the starter pack that doesn't mention the free download code, and we'd expect the deal to apply to all SKUs. As figurines and portals work across platforms this makes sense from a technical standpoint, yet it's still an odd offer — if you buy the Wii version it's likely you don't yet have a Wii U, and if you do have the latest home console there's likely no need for the Wii entry. The hope is surely to encourage Nintendo gamers to offer one or the other as a gift to friends and family, promoting the brand even further.

Free games are always welcome, naturally, and this introduces a relatively rare case of cross-platform promotion between Nintendo's systems. Let us know what you think of this deal, and whether you plan to pick up the Wii version to take advantage.