3D Mario and Mario Kart games in development, playable at E3 2013

The Mario franchise will be getting two new games for the Wii U — a new installment to the Mario Kart franchise and a new 3D Mario action game.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata confirmed both games during the Nintendo Direct presentation today, but didn't say too much about either title aside from some brief background details about the development team.

The new Mario game is being worked on by Nintendo EAD Tokyo Software Development, the same team that created the Super Mario Galaxy games for Wii and Super Mario 3D Land for Nintendo 3DS. Meanwhile, the new Mario Kart game will fall directly in line with Nintendo's pattern of releasing a different karting game on each platform. The GameCube, DS, Wii, and 3DS have all seen Mario Kart games released — now it's time for the Wii U.

The big news, however, is that both of these games will be shown off in playable form at E3 2013. That should give us a good idea of how these series have evolved on the Wii U.