E3 2012 to play host to new Mario game

If you’re ready for more plumbing platforming, then get set for Nintendo’s Wii U console.

Not that it should come as much of a surprise to anyone, but Nintendo has apparently made it official that it will unveil a brand new Mario Bros game for its upcoming Wii U platform at the E3 trade show in June.

Perhaps more than any other character in the history of video games, the mere presence of Mario is enough to make a new console worth buying. At least, that has been the case up until this point. We’d have to assume the Wii U will be no different.

The confirmation came from a Spanish publication called El Mundo, which quoted Nintendo bigwig Shigeru Miyamoto directly. English-speaking Nintendo representatives have confirmed the validity of the statement, with Eurogamer.com quoting a spokesperson as saying:

“In a recent interview, Mr. Miyamoto confirmed that a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U system will be shown at this year’s E3 Expo. We’ll have more to announce about our plans for the E3 Expo at a later date.”

There had been no previous confirmation of a Mario game on the Wii U, but no one would have seriously believed it wasn’t on the way. The fact that Miyamoto is already talking about it now, though, hopefully means that it will be coming out early in the console’s life cycle.

And in fact, if the company managed to get it out as a launch title, sales would be through the roof. Because Mario games take so much care and precision, though, they usually aren’t expected to be launch titles for a Nintendo system.