New Super Mario Bros. Wii due this holiday

E3 2009: Nintendo uses press conference to reveal co-op heavy platformer featuring popular plumber will debut later this year.

Despite Nintendo's best efforts to keep the game under wrap, rumors of a new Mario game on the Wii have quickly spread across the internet.

At Nintendo's E3 press conference today, the company confirmed that New Super Mario Bros is indeed coming to Wii.

According to Nintendo, New Super Mario Wii offers a "new way to play Mario Bros that's never been done before."

The all new Super Mario Bros for Wii include four player multiplayer. It's a competitive multiplayer Mario game, where players run through the classic style levels, fighting each other for coins and powerups.

Nintendo demoed the four player mode, with Cammie Dunaway and three other Nintendo employees.

Players can jump on each other, shoot each other with fireballs and other attacks. Item boxes generally produce one item per character. Killed players reappear in bubbles and players can free them, or leave them stuck for a while. One of the new powerups is the Propeller Suit, a jump suit that has a helmet with a propeller. Shaking the Wii-remote will let players fly in the air.

When a player goes into a warp pipe the game forces the other players to follow in, where they fight over the coins in the secret room.

At the end of the level, as soon as one player grabs the flag pole, the other players have about three seconds to grab it for bonus points. The points are tallied up and the players are ranked.

New Super Mario Bros Wii is scheduled for a Holiday 2009 release. The game is on the show floor, so look for our hands-on later today.