Mario's making new friends

If you're heading to the SXSW expo in Austin, Texas this weekend you may be lucky enough to grab yourself some play time with a handful of the big Wii U and 3DS releases of the year. The best part? Quite a few of these games haven't even hit the shelves yet.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf will make its North American debut as a guided demo while eShop titles Kersploosh and Game Freak's Rhythm Hunter: HarmoKnight will also be playable.

Game Freak is, of course, best known for giving us Pokémon, so we think expectations will be high for its new rhythm-based sidescroller.

You'll also be able to shake things up on on the Wii U. Players will be able to break and build their way through the streets of LEGO City Undercover, burn rubber in Need for Speed: Most Wanted U and take down titanic beasts in the hotly anticipated Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.

Wii U games and applications scheduled to be shown include:

Pikmin 3 
The Wonderful 101 
LEGO City Undercover 
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate 
Need for Speed Most Wanted U 
Wii Street U powered by Google
New Super Mario Bros. U 
Nintendo Land 

While the Nintendo 3DS lineup features:

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (guided demonstration)
LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
Kersploosh!
HarmoKnight
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate from Capcom
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate
Fire Emblem Awakening

The SXSW Gaming Expo runs from 8-10th March in Austin, Texas. Nintendo is at Booth 500, so don't forget to bring your 3DS for those all important StreetPass hits!