And so they've got big things ready for the holidays.

I noticed that too, there are no 1st party titles announced for August/September but 4 in October/November.

To be honest, it's so surprising that it took Nintendo this long to release a new 2D Mario took them 11 years. It's clear that this franchise is easily one of Nintendo's biggest selling franchises ever, you had NSMB DS & Wii both sell 30M+ which was super rare to do during that era, only the MK & Wii Series sold numbers that high. Although it didn't sell as well on Wii U, what could you expect from a 13M install base. It's weird that Nintendo didn't capitalize on this juggernaut that is 2D Mario earlier.

And while they did two Mario Makers in that 11 year gap, Mario Maker clearly isn't the same as a story mode 2D Mario, it's a hassle to find well-designed levels in that game with the simplicity & accessibility of the NSMB games. The sales numbers proved that people clearly didn't see MM as being anywhere close as being a good replacement for the story mode 2D Mario games, where we saw a completely unambitous port of NSMBU on Switch outsell the ambitous Mario Maker 2 game by twice as much, despite Mario Maker being marketed more heavily.

But finally after 11 years we're seeing a new 2D Mario, and it looks amazing. It seems like Nintendo looked at every complaint the NSMB series been getting all these years and fixed it. Finally a whole new artstyle thats interesting with facial expressions,better movement animations, 3D moving backgrounds, overall far more textures, new power-ups, new enemies, and totally new ways to interact with levels. Even the music is totally different. I'm excited, while I enjoyed the NSMB series, I agree that those games were becoming far too safe and unambitous, SMBW is looking far better.

I could also see this as being a much bigger holiday title than people think, like I said earlier 2D Mario is a huge seller, having 2 games selling over 30M and even NSMBU port as lazy as it was, still sold an amazing 15M even with little marketing. Imagine a 2D Mario that finally looks new and interesting for the first time in nearly 2 decades with far more marketing and on an install base that's gonna be at around 130M by the time it releases, it could sell 30M+.
I also could see this being a system seller for many casuals who played the 30M selling 2D Marios on Wii & DS returning toNintendo by buying a Switch just to play that game, while the port of NSMBU is on Switch, I felt like the game didn't get that much marketing or really felt different enough for some of those original Wii & DS NSMB players to go out the way to get a Switch, I feel like SMB Wonder with better marketing and with it being more interesting could be a bigger system seller than even other big Nintendo franchises like TOTK & Pokemon cause we've never seena 2D Mario like this on any other platform before. The increased engagement of Mario from the movie should also help.

This looks great - looks like a breath of fresh air compared to all the NSMB games and more like a true successor to SMB series (1, 2, 3 and World).

I like it!

The timing is pretty predictable. 

They likely have been sitting on this game or had it in a state where they could work on it/tweak it, but also release it as they please in whatever target date they wanted. 

What they wanted is to have it for the same year as the Mario movie. 

Mario movie is a big deal for Nintendo (and rightfully so), it's a big turning point in the history of the company, they were always IMO going to have a new Mario game, probably a 2D Mario, ready for whenever the movie was ready to go. 

When they opened Super Nintendo World in Japan they had Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury ready to release right alongside it which has basically the same exact aesthetic as the Mario area in Super Nintendo World. Definitely not a coincidence. 

The next big Mario platformer is probably an early gen Switch 2 game because they're going to need it with no new Zelda. 

Sorry for the strange comment, but I'm sure r34 artists are going to traumatize a lot of people... cof cof Mario Elephant

Looks kinda weird, but definitely the 2D game with the most different feels since Super Mario World.
Looks like a first playthrough must be pretty fun as you experience stuff you just don't expect.

About time - Looks great to me! 2D Mario is one of the things Nintendo does best, and is one of their biggest hits. I see they're fully embracing the colorful, trippy vibe of Mario, which is sort of how the franchise originated anyway. NSMB was ok but somewhat underwhelming and cookie-cutter to me. Wonder looks a lot more imaginative and exciting.

Like @znake mentioned, they probably want to give Pikmin all the spotlight for the summer to see what that series is truly capable of w/ a brand new entry on a very successful console that still has juice left in it.

Then come October, it's all aboard the Mario train, presumably for the last time on the Switch.

Between Wonder, RPG, WarioWare, and the Mario Kart bundle again, it's gonna be a very Mario-heavy holiday this year.

Far out it's a breath of fresh air to finally get a 2D Mario that's not in the same mold as NSMB after all these years.
I like how trippy it looks, the wonder seed mechanic has a lot of potential for creative level design, hopefully the execution lives up to it.

Looks like another excellent addition to the Switch's library. We haven't had that many first party platformers on Swith in recent years, so it definitely fills a vacant spot.