Speaking to investors at a financial results briefing, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata announced a new 2D Super Mario Bros. game for the 3DS.

Iwata didn’t clarify whether the game would be part of the New Super Mario Bros. series, but he did confirm that it will be a side-scroller and that it will launch in the next fiscal year.

Source: Nintendo IR page

With the 3DS floundering in the first few months after its launch, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata made the decision to cut the system’s price and sell the 3DS at a loss. It was a gamble made in the hopes of improving the company’s future fiscal performance at the expense of immediate profitability, but it appears to have paid off.

3DS sales, while not living up to Nintendo’s expectations, are still managing to break records and the company is now predicting the handheld to start turning a profit by the first half of this next fiscal term.

While not cited, the quick jump back into profitability can likely be attributed to the surge in 3DS hardware and software sales during the year-end holiday period.

Source: Nintendo Investor Relations Page

Renegade Kid’s highly-anticipated 2D 3DS platformer, Mutant Mudds, makes its eShop debut this week.

A demo for Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games is also available. The demo features a five event medley, and like the Resident Evil demo, it is limited to 30 playthroughs.

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The Wii U will launch in Australia, Europe, Japan and North America before the end of the year, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata told investors at an earnings conference today.

Iwata’s words appear to echo Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime’s comments from earlier this month. With E3 still a ways off, Nintendo has plenty of time to announce a solid release date.

Source: Vooks

Nintendo published their financial forecast modifications for the year along with their third quarter earnings report today.

Even though the company saw success with Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and Zelda: Skyward Sword this quarter, stronger-than-expected yen appreciation and revised sales forecasts have caused Nintendo to lower their net sales forecast from 790,000 million yen to 660,000 million yen. Other changes include altering their originally forecasted operating income from a 1,000 million yen gain to a 45,000 million yen loss. The company is also expecting a net loss of 65,000 million yen.

Source: Nintendo Investor Relations page [via Andriasang]

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Last October, Nintendo brought the Coral Pink and Ice White 3DS to Europe as part of a bundle which included a copy of either nintendogs + cats or Super Mario 3D Land.

Beginning February 10, both colors will be available as standalone units. In addition to the previously released Cosmo Black, Aqua Blue and Metallic Red 3DSes, this brings the total number of colors in Europe to five.

Source: Press Release

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Last June, ardent fans banded together to form Operation Rainfall and petitioned Nintendo to bring Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower stateside. Whether their pleas were actually influential in Nintendo of America’s eventual decision to bring Xenoblade Chronicles to the U.S. is debatable, but that isn’t stopping the group from continuing their efforts to get Nintendo to localize the other two games.

On the Operation Rainfall site and facebook page, the group is urging like-minded fans to contact Nintendo in any way possible to let them know that they want The Last Story to come out in the U.S. The campaign is scheduled for January 27, the one year anniversary of The Last Story’s launch in Japan.

“The anniversary of the Japanese release for The Last Story is January 27th, 2012. We are going to use this day to remind Nintendo that we still want The Last Story as well as Pandora’s Tower by having our members mass email, post on Nintendo’s Facebook page, call Nintendo, and send Tweets. We are going to do this for one day only as we don’t want to come across as ungrateful after Nintendo announced Xenoblade Chronicles. The idea is to let Nintendo know how happy we are to be recieving Xenoblade Chronicles in the NTSC region, but that we would also like to see The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower as well.”

Source: Nintendo Life, Operation Rainfall

Kid Icarus: Uprising will be coming out in Europe on March 23, the same day the game comes out in North America.

The European release will also come with the 3DS stand that’s already been confirmed for the Japanese and American versions of the game. While not required to play, the stand offers extra support for players who, thanks to Uprising’s control scheme, don’t feel comfortable holding the 3DS with one hand.

The game’s official site has been updated to reflect the new release date.

Source: Official Nintendo Magazine, 2

Even though 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors received high praise from critics and fans alike, the game’s U.S. publisher Aksys Games has no plans to bring its sequel Extreme Escape Adventure: Good People Die stateside.

From an Aksys employee on NeoGAF:

Unfortunately we don’t have any plans, but I hope some nice publisher picks it up!

With Aksys not pursuing the game, that pretty much leaves Atlus and XSEED as potential publishers.

Source: NeoGAF [via GoNintendo]