Last week Nintendo surprised fans when they released a Direct presentation that focused on the Super Mario Bros. series, as they celebrate the franchise's 35th anniversary, and revealed information about the products they will be launching in the near future.
As it is to be expected from any Nintendo Direct, this surprise presentation revealed a bunch of games that will be releasing soon, including the long-rumoured Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, as well as some other titles that are expected to come out in the coming months.
The Super Mario 3D All-Stars had been rumoured for quite a while now, and the fact that Nintendo still hadn't released any official information about the game made people doubt the veracity of the sources; sources that had accurately leaked Paper Mario: The Origami King's announcement.
New information suggests that Super Mario 3D All-Stars, and all of the other products that Nintendo announced in the Super Mario Bros. 35th Anniversary Direct, could have been announced, and released a lot sooner than they did.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, and spotted by Resetera user Atheerios, this information actually comes from Nintendo's official website, and reveals that last week's announcements could've well been made as early as April of this year.
Below we've posted an image that reveals that a special Super Mario Maker 2 Ninji speedrun event was supposed to take place in April, and this event was one of the announcements that Nintendo made during last week's Super Mario 35th Anniversary Direct.
The Super Mario Maker 2 Ninji speedrun event will now be taking place in November, but the main point here is that if this was initially expected to take place in April, most, if not all, the other announced products/events would've also taken place at an earlier date.
This also agrees with information we reported last week, which suggested that Nintendo would've pushed back the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, at the time unannounced, beyond the Super Mario Bros. series' 35th anniversary.
As a matter of fact, Super Mario 3D All-Stars is launching only two weeks after its official announcement, which is probably the first time in history that Nitnendo has announced a game this close to its release date. While not confirmed by Nintendo, this delay is likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.