Miyamoto cold on Mario Kart 7's customisation options

Mario Kart 7's vehicle customisation features made it into the finished game despite getting a lukewarm reaction from Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto, according a new Famitsu interview.

As translated by 1Up, Miyamoto explained that he thought the ability to tinker with your kart deviated from the "core fun" of the series.

"I was actually pretty well against some of the customisation features of the game," he explained.

"It can be fun to win money for racing and use it to buy parts and such, but I didn't think that had much to do with the core fun of the series."

However, Miyamoto allowed the feature into the final build on the condition that the rest of the game was top notch.

"The idea for that [feature] came from the studio staff, though, and my final response was 'If you can build this customisation on top of a solid control and gameplay foundation, then go ahead.'"

Elsewhere in the interview, Miyamoto revealed that there was no intent for the game to be a huge leap forward for the franchise. As he sees it, the basic Mario Kart gameplay is already near-perfect, so it was just a case of making a bigger, better version for 3DS.

"Sometimes people yelled at me to look at things more closely, but like I said, the core of Mario Kart is pretty solid at this point and I think it's safe to have it evolve in a pretty staid and traditional manner," he said.

"The basic message here is 'Mario Kart has been powered up for the Nintendo 3DS,' and I think the online upgrades in particular are pretty neat. A lot of time was spent on how to get all the individual components working together - Wi-Fi and Street Pass, local and Internet play."

Finally he revealed the thinking behind the game's rather unambitious title.

"Coming up with the title was actually a lot of trouble for us, but it is the seventh game, and so it just sort of came down to what felt best. Besides, seven is supposed to be a lucky number, isn't it?"

Take a look at our recent Mario Kart 7 preview for more on the game, which is due out on 2nd December.