Nintendo hints at new Super Mario game as fans hope for June reveal

It’s been almost six years since the last Super Mario game – Super Mario Odyssey – and while you didn’t need Shigeru Miyamoto herself to tell you that a new one is in the works, everyone is naturally curious about when they will get to see it.

With the Super Mario Bros. movie now in theaters and surprisingly no video game or DLC tie-in in sight, Miyamoto was recently asked when the next Mario game will be released.

Miyamoto’s response was to advise fans to tune into the Nintendo Direct showcases, as that’s where every new Mario game will be revealed, which some say means Nintendo’s traditional non-E3 June event.

In a video interview with Variety, when asked about the next Mario game, Miyamoto responded by saying, “Well, all I can say is stay tuned for future Nintendo Directs.”

However, it has been suggested that this is not an entirely accurate translation and his answer is a bit more detailed than that.

This is according to Gematsu’s Sal Romano, who claims that Miyamoto’s full answer was, “As you know, I can’t make any announcements in advance. We usually have Directs every two to three months, so look forward to them soon enough.’

This has led some fans to claim that a new Mario title will be revealed before the end of the year, probably in June.

Nintendo has traditionally held major Nintendo Directs during the summer as part of the E3 season. But even if E3 2023 hadn’t been cancelled, Nintendo reportedly skipped the event due to a lack of games, which could indicate a quiet second half of the year for the company.

Or they could just be sparing with the truth, especially with rumors and speculation pointing to a Nintendo Switch 2 launch this year or next. In fact, many have guessed that Nintendo is saving the next Mario game for the newer hardware.

However, it doesn’t necessarily have to be Super Mario Odyssey 2, or anything like that, as a new Donkey Kong game from the same team has been rumored for years, which could easily be what Miyamoto is referring to.

For now, the Mario movie should be more than enough to satisfy fans, though it’s getting pretty critical.

The Los Angeles Times calls it “Mildly amusing, fast, noisy and unrelentingly paced,” and The Telegraph goes so far as to say it’s somehow worse than the 1993 live-action flick, describing it as “shallow, sterile and blindingly pointless. ‘

At the time of writing, it holds a 54% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, lower than both Sonic The Hedgehog movies and Detective Pikachu. Although that won’t matter if the ratings are currently 100%, anything but a guarantee for a blockbuster and a sequel.