Yeah, It doubled from 3D Land from about 50 to almost 100. And while Miyamoto supervises their software development division, I don't think it means that Miyamoto couldn't be contributing a lot to a certain game as a producer a bit more than the others. 

He's saying that the SM64 team is Miyamoto's team, and is suggesting that they're working on the new figurine games. By that logic though, they'd be working on Miyamoto's new IP, not the figurine game. Either way, not Mario.

Actually, I did a bit of research. It seems that the Tokyo groups are newer. The Tokyo studio was opened after the development of Sunshine, so they didn't do anything before that. But yes, the people who did Galaxy are a different team from Galaxy 2's team.

It's not wishful thinking. There's no reason why three completely different types of mario games can't come out in three years. And they're not saving their flagship Mario game for the forth year, then the Wii U will most likely only have a 4-5 year life cycle.

Alright then, but when E3 comes and goes and there's no 3D Mario announced for this year, I'm going to roll my eyes at you and say "I told you so." They might announce a true 3D Mario (it would be about time), but it won't be for this year, but next. That would put it in Wii U's 3rd year, along with Zelda U, the perfect time for both titles. Mario Kart and Smash gains the momentum here during the second year, and Mario and Zelda send Wii U to what will hopefully be a nice peak.

I know its sad that people see it as Linear. I did notthink it was at all. you actually had to search for stars even in sunshine the game showed you where they were.

I just noticed you asked about my own hunches that might as well be fact for me. For me, I think Nintendo will reveal 3 new IPs this E3. One will be the one Miyamoto has been working on. The second will be the first game made exclusively to take advantage of the new Nintendo Figurine Platform. The third will be Code Name S.T.E.A.M. Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace, the trademark Nintendo filed recently. I think these will be three separate IPs. If two of them ended up being the same, I wouldn't be horribly shocked, but I think they're all separate and all will be revealed at E3.

So basically 7?  Wow 7 out of 100 is really bad.
Thats what Nintendo gets for making games for the vocal majority thats mainstreamers that actually dont care about Nintendo :)

What you aim for in a specific level has nothing to do with linearity.   Mario 64 or sunshine. Open areas. No time limit thus you can do whatever is possible for as long as you can.  You can start a level with the intention to get star 1 but then by coincidence you e.g collect 100 coins and another star shows up and you finish the level without doing what you actually wanted to do. (happened alot to me)

The Mario 3D series on the other hand has 1 goal. Reach the end of the map and on your way try to collect some stars. You walk from the lower part of the map to the top part. Or from left to right etc. Untill you reach the end.

You can compare this to this:




But in case of mario it looks like this (the linearity is nowhere near the level of shooters but its a huge downgrade nontheless)

Mario 64                                                                                          Mario 3D Land.

Imho a big part here plays the stupid time limit.  Nobody dies because of the time limit it seems its just there to prevent you from enjoying the game/visuals/artstyle/level music etc.  Its way to much time to actually die and not enough time to enjoy the level as much as possible.
I love to just do nothing and watch mario do stuff like this:

But that stupid time limit makes it impossible.

If they would remove that time limit the game could be so much better. And if you really insist on the time limit make a second playthrough with time limit.

I want 2D Metroid on Wii U, even if it's just an eShop game. Not 3DS.

And there is zero chance of another new 3D Mario this year, when 3D World JUST launched last holiday season.

It isn't really fair to compare the first level of Super mario 3D Land to Hazy Mazy Cave, the most complex level in the game. The thing is that save for the time limit, the only real difference is that Mario 64 kicks you out of the level before you can get back to the additional stars  and 3D World allows you to get them in one run. If Mario 64 didn't kick you out, it would have a much simpler game. 3D Land's levels are on average just as large as 64 levels and 3D World levels are even larger.

I wouldnt bet in a new mario this year.
SM3DW and mario kart is enough.
Maybe they will include SM3DW in NSMB bundle, and sell it for 300$
(and also cut the mario kart bundle to 300$ too).