Honest question, since this is by default the thread where discussions about Japanese development fit the best, but this is something I've been wondering the past few days: are we expecting a brand new Mario & Sonic to appear this year?
Next February is the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics will take place, and usually this means that a M&S should make an appearance on shelves in the next few months. Given how the games are usually released a bit before the actual sport events, that would make a Fall / Holiday release a pretty good fit for the game. Also, if it's going to happen, I'm expecting it to be a Switch/Nintendo 3DS release, the classic dual release: the only exception to the rule was the last Winter Olympics game, M&S @ Sochi 2014, but I suppose they won't try that again (the game bombed horribly everywhere). But do we have any idea if the Nintendo/Sega/CIO partnership is still on? Or if there are specific details that would allow a Winter Olympics game to miss the schedule? I can see a scenario where the different parties decide to forfeit the Winter Olympics game to focus all their attentions to the next Olympics game, for Tokyo 2020, in order to create a game that can recapture at least part of the audience that made the first games big successes but that failed to show up enough for the latest iterations: M&S at Rio Olympics 2016 did fine in Japan, but Western numbers were quite low, I believe, and that's what could bring a decision to focus resources on Tokyo 2020. Your thoughts on the matter? Also, posting Famitsu numbers for a Japanese context (source: Gamedatalibrary).
WII Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 67.054 594.157 Nintendo 11/22/2007
NDS Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 90.793 383.558 Nintendo 1/17/2008
3DS Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games 44.024 268.480 Nintendo 2/18/2016
NDS Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games 25.663 254.341 Nintendo 11/19/2009
3DS Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games 46.357 236.480 Nintendo 3/1/2012
WII Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games 24.330 221.542 Nintendo 12/8/2011
WII Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games 24.476 194.916 Nintendo 11/5/2009
WIU Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games 21.041 124.784 Nintendo 6/23/2016
WIU Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games 5.149 51.341 Nintendo 12/5/2013