Colour us surprised, but Shigeru Miyamoto has reportedly misspoken and revealed that we’ll be seeing a new entry in the Super Mario Bros. franchise at E3 2012 this year. And it’ll be for their new console, Nintendo Wii U.
Of course it is to be expected that we’d see something from the world’s favorite plumber this year, but the fact that it would be a new entry in the Super Mario Bros. series tells us the game will be a major landmark release and likely not follow the Super Mario Galaxy series.
It is also interesting to note that Super Mario 4 was just registered by Nintendo by way of the URL www.supermario4.com this week. Most speculation leads us to believe that whatever that turns out to be, if anything, will be a portable title for Nintendo’s 3DS platform. However, it is of course entirely possible that it becomes a console title, or even better yet, some sort of dual-title with a 3DS version and Wii U version, although we see Nintendo focusing on their newer consoles features ahead of any cross-compatibility right out of the gate.
It’s odd that Miyamoto would let something like this slip. We still have incredible games on the horizon like Luigi’s Mansion 2 and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, and given the fact that the Wii U hasn’t been given any more press-time since E3 and CES this year, it’ll be interesting to see just how much more information we get in the next month before we hear what should be the veritable word from Nintendo come E3 in June.
Nintendo is still planning on launching Wii U this holiday season for a rumored price of $299.
- Update: Miyamoto-san has also confirmed that Pikmin 3 will finally be revealed as a Wii U title at E3 this year in addition to the new Mario we’re all waiting for now.