The next Mario should be in 2-d

[scottie]

Sega have just announced a wiiware parody of the 2d super mario bros games, perhaps that will satisfy the itch for 2d Mario.

Looking on wikipedia, the guys who made NSMB NEAD Software Group No. 4 made

Super mario 64 - Nov '04
Diagasso band Brothers Dec '04
Yoshi Touch and Go Jan '05

Big Brain Academy June '05
NSMB May '06
Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree April '07
Daigasso! Band Brothers DX June '08

Looking at that, we see (ignoring the first 3 games because they clearly scheduled to get lots of release games for the DS) that there has been one game per year, in April, May or June.

Clearly they won't release another Daigasso game in '09
It also seems very unlikely that they will release a Big Brain Academy in '09.

So either they will be making a Mario game, or a new IP.

Now, we already know that EAD Software Group Tokyo is currently making a 3d platformer Mario referred to as Mario Galaxy 2, so EAD4 clearly aren't working on a 3d Mario platformer.

It seems you may get your wish