Princess Peach: Showtime!

Princess Peach: Showtime! is an upcoming action-adventure game for the Nintendo Switch. It was first teased during the June 2023 Nintendo Direct, and is set to be released worldwide on March 22, 2024. It is Princess Peach's first starring role in the Super Mario franchise since Super Princess Peach released over 18 years prior.

Overview
The game has a stage play-themed setting. It takes place in a venue called Sparkle Theater, which a Toad invited Peach to. Once they arrive, a witch called Grape takes over the theater. Peach and the theater's guardian Stella team up to take back the theater by battling Grape's minions, the Sour Bunch. At the beginning of the game, Stella gives Peach her power, turning her hair in a ponytail tied with a magenta bow instead of her usual crown. Stella can turn into a long ribbon Peach can use to interact with on-stage elements, such as props and characters. When she stands on a particular spot on stage, Peach is capable of transforming into various costume-like forms that match the stage, such as Swordfighter Peach, Detective Peach, Pâtissière Peach, and Kung Fu Peach. Every form has her own fighting style, such as Swordfighter Peach using a rapier or Kung Fu Peach doing martial arts moves.

Plot
One day in the Mushroom Kingdom, a Toad is sent a flier advertising a show at the Sparkle Theater, and Princess Peach and some Toads decide to go see it. Suddenly, the wicked Grape and the Sour Bunch invade and take over the theater. Peach teams up with the theater's guardian Stella to stop them.

Development
The game was first teased during the June 21, 2023 Nintendo Direct, alongside Super Mario RPG and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. Also teased in the trailer was a new transformation Peach undergoes during the game, which turns her dress pale blue if she stands on a particular spot on stage. During the transformation, Stella, who was still unnamed, turns into a ribbon and twirls around her, taking the color of her dress. The same transformation appears in the September 14, 2023 Nintendo Direct, revealing it to turn Peach into her Swordfighter form.

In Nintendo's financial report for the first quarter of their fiscal year ending 2024, the game was listed in the launch schedule as "Princess Peach will star as the main character in a brand new game". This sentence is explicitly treated as a tentative title for the game.

References to other games

 * Yoshi's Cookie: The cookies Pâtissière Peach holds in the official art are from this game.
 * Super Mario Odyssey: The design of Peach's Castle is based off its design in this game.