They said the Mario team, which i would imagine to be EAD Tokyo (which i think is EAD Group 6? help me out here) is back to work, which could mean anything.

Could mean more Donkey Kong, since Jungle Beat was an EAD Tokyo work.

ahh, it's EAD Group 5, according to wiki

I would not mind a Super Mario Galaxy 2. This would give me more Mario for now, while Nintendo reinvents the Super Mario platformer for the next real version.

Zelda needs a lot more work than Mario. Galaxy was great and the next one doesn't NEED a huge reinvention. TP was great but they need to update the franchise to keep pace with the times...And so it should take more work. Also, expect neither for this holiday.

I think it's a real possibility that Mario comes out before Zelda and I think that one will come in Q2 of 2010 and other will be kept for the holiday season of 2010..

Zelda needs the time and effort to make it a generation defining game.

Mario has the engine there and Miyamoto did sa he wants to make a sequel that is more compelling and not so conservative - whatever that means :P

While I think a new Zelda would come first, it's possible with the success of New Super Mario Bros on the DS, that Nintendo might make the next Mario a 2D platformer, which would be easier and quicker to make.

NOTE - Im just calling it SMG 2 like people say Trico. Even I highly doubt there will be another Mario in space.

Most of your reasons are flawed. Even if they have the resources and all that for a sequel to SMG 2 its still going to take years to perfect whatever it is theyre going to make. The next Zelda I believe has been in development for at least 2 1/2 years. There is not way Ninty would release 2 Mario games so soon and before Zelda. They know how important the Zelda series is.

I also believe its gong to be released this year.

^SMG2 is coming. Miyamoto said himself that he wanted to make another, incorporating lots of power-ups and ideas that there wasn't time to include in Galaxy.

I still believe we'll see Zelda Wii for christmas 2009. This game will have been in development most likely since 2005 or 2006 - just because they ported over the Gamecube Zelda (TP) to tide Wii owners over doesn't mean they weren't developing a Wii version as well all along, even if it was only preliminary at that stage. The two gens 'crossed over' in terms of development at that time so its not unreasonable to assume they were both ongoing.

I didn't realise anyone expecte this, but reading Dodeces post it makes sense.

Still, I doubt either will be with us until 2010, perhaps one as a big hitter in early 2010 and the other as a Christmas hit, or maybe the first as Christmas 2010 and the second as a 2011 title.

Some good points made but all we know for sure is that both teams are working, thats it. I fully expect the new zelda to be radically different from TP so that is gonna take some time. How much time? Well lets speculate a little.....

Zelda TP came out at the end of 2006 after 4 years of development, so lets say the ground work for the new zelda started early 2007..thats exactly 2 years ago. Phantom hourglass doesnt matter as it was a side project for the zelda team. By the end of this year it would be at nearly 3 years in development (bare minimum development time for a main zelda project).

My prediction is we could very well see the new zelda trailer at this years E3 followed by a late 2010 release date, probably Q3 2010 or as early as summer .

As for mario it all depends on what they want to do with it. If its a straight sequel to galaxy then development time should be minimal(approx. 2 years) so in this scenario expect a new mario by end of this year(xmas 2009). However this is nintendo we are talking about,they love to surprise so anything is possible, even a completely new direction on the mario franchise. The only sure fact is that E3 should be something special this year..here is to hoping.

My speculated prediction for both titles is;

New mario Q3 2009
New zelda Q2/Q3 2010