Nintendo: Mario Kart 3DS completed as "act of emergency"

By Tom Phillips Published 25 November, 2011

Metroid Prime developer rushed in to help.

Nintendo considered completing Mario Kart 7 on 3DS by the end of this year "an act of emergency", the game's producer has admitted.

Mario Kart 7 initially started life as an internal project staffed by eight people, producer Hideki Konno revealed in a new Iwata Asks interview (via NeoGAF).

But several production designers were moved to work on 3DS launch title Nintendogs + Cats to ensure that game was ready for the handheld's release line-up.

Nintendo eventually called on the services of Metroid Prime Trilogy and Donkey Kong Country developer Retro Studios to make sure Mario Kart 7 was finished this year.

Nintendo previously stated Retro had helped design a Donkey Kong Country-themed course. It now appears Retro worked on revamping the game's entire 16 classic courses line-up, leaving Nintendo's team free to create the game's roster of 16 fresh tracks.

Mario Kart 7 is released next Friday in Europe. Alongside last week's Super Mario 3D Land, the two Nintendo titles are the company's big hopes of securing strong Christmas sales for its fledgling handheld.

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About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 6 months ago

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  • Buenos_Estente #1 6 months ago

    Shall be interesting to see how the classic courses match up to the new ones then... though of course the new ones are designed entirely to take advantage of new features

  • George-Roper #2 6 months ago

    Mario Kart 7 initially started life as an internal project staffed by eight people...

    And that's all you need to know about Nintendos strategy on new hardware releases.

  • nickthegun #3 6 months ago

    Yeah. You would hope that a new mario kart would be a more important release title than nintendogs.

    Its a weird strategy. You can kind of see why they did it but at the same time anyone interested in nintendogs would probably still be happy with their DS versions.

  • Whitster #4 6 months ago

    Normally this wouldn't fill me with confidence, but Retro havn't done much wrong so far.

  • wizlon #5 6 months ago

    Retro need to get on a Donkey Kong game for the 3DS, or a new F-Zero or a new WaveRace or a 3DS Metroid.

    Can't wait for MK7 though, just hope the online is up to it.

  • skowhegan Verified Staff Writer, Eurogamer Network #6 6 months ago

    @wizlon I think you mean a new Metroid Prime trilogy for Wii U, with tablet-based scanning abilities. Yus.

  • Toothball #7 6 months ago

    @nickthegun

    Yeah, you'd have thought they'd have done better moving the Nintendogs team over to get Mario Kart finished for launch rather than the other way round. The people who buy Nintendogs don't seem like they would be early adopters. It's gamers who are most likely to be there at launch, and they generally like to play games.

    Nintendogs would probably have done better if it were released around this time. Right after the 3DS dropped in price and right before Christmas.

  • roz123 #8 6 months ago

    It looks like Retros have added some nice touches to some of the classic tracks such as underwater areas where you would previously have drowned and Thwomps causing the snes rainbow road to shake.
    Its also gave EAD time to develop some spectacular tracks, you can see footage of some of the new cups being played on youtube and they look fantastic.

  • MrMarbles #9 6 months ago

    So some of you think that Nintendo using small R&D teams to create game prototypes for upcoming unreleased hardware (at the time) is a bad thing and worthy of bashing them over?

    The mind boggles.
    Edited by MrMarbles at 25/11/11 @ 09:54

  • arbok #10 6 months ago

    How does Nintendo do this? The 3Ds games look like my butt (like not pretty). How can anyone be convinced to buy new hardware after seeing the same games over and over?

  • kirinnokoshin #11 6 months ago

    @arbok

    Try actually playing some of their top games without graphics-nerd prejudice and the said phenomenon will start to dissipate.

  • MattEdWithCheese #12 6 months ago

    @arbok I like the look of the first-party 3DS games but yes, your arse is rather ugly

  • Tomnd #13 6 months ago

    Getting a little worried that Retro's talents are being squandered on not great projects. The guys who reimagined metroid basically porting already created tracks onto the 3ds!!?

    And when i say not great projects i don't mean mario kart isn't great (it is) just they could be off doing more interesting work.
    Edited by Tomnd at 25/11/11 @ 10:13

  • Raiko101 #14 6 months ago

    @arbok, I think 3DS games look pretty stunning at times, but its clear that the shit oozes out of your mouth rather than your arse, so your statement might well be true.

  • kirinnokoshin #15 6 months ago

    @Tomnd

    You'd have to bet they are working on a Wii U title right now. New IP? (holds massive breath)

  • cawley1 #16 6 months ago

    Apparently, Famitsu has given it 37/40, which is good enough for me!

    Looking forward to picking this up next Friday, don't expect it to be as good as Mario 3D Land, but still AAA Nintendo.
    Edited by cawley1 at 25/11/11 @ 10:19

  • nickthegun #17 6 months ago

    The notoriously reliable famitsu.

  • HerrQwerty #18 6 months ago

    So now that MarioKart7 is coming out does that mean two of Nintendo's top teams are about to have a lot of free time to make other games? UNLEASH HELL!!!!

    Haha, I hope they go on to some serious WiiU development cos I dont want a repeat of this nonsense next Xmas.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #19 6 months ago

    I don't see a problem to be honest. Nintendo focusing on Nintendogs first is ok, I don't care too much about the game but I don't think it's a bad thing that Retro had to jump in. They are very talented guys and for me are shaping up to be the 2nd party developer that Rare once was.

  • Ryze #20 6 months ago

    They were like:

    'Quick - let's port Mario Kart Wii to the 3DS, and add some bells and whistles!!!

    QUICK!!!! We've got to save our new console by shoving on the same games as all our other consoles have!!'

    I'll never understand Nintendo. I've stopped trying, and just have a quick blast of their great games every so often.

  • Raiko101 #21 6 months ago

    When Mario Kart Wii sells 28 million copies, which happens to be over twice as much as the highest selling 360 game, why wouldn't you want to release a 3DS version? Those games sell well for a good reason.

  • WinterSnowblind #22 6 months ago

    This was pretty obvious, Nintendo normally wouldn't release two big name titles so close together, but they really had no choice.

    It's a shame Nintendo made the same mistake Sony did with the PS3, and simply expected people to buy an expensive system with no games. If they had things like this out sooner, they easily could have avoided that nasty price drop.

    The game looks great though, anyone calling it a "quick port of the Wii game" has no idea what they're talking about.

  • deez #23 6 months ago

    @WinterSnowblind I still haven't got over Zelda and Mario being released on the same day..

  • riz23 #24 6 months ago

    A team of eight people is perfectly adequate to start concepting and prototyping a game. Why pay 50 people to sit around twiddling their thumbs?

  • knocker #25 6 months ago

    @riz23 Don't get it either. 8 is a pretty good number in my experience.

  • Ironic_War_Criminal #26 6 months ago

    'Quick - let's port Mario Kart Wii to the 3DS, and add some bells and whistles!!!

    QUICK!!!! We've got to save our new console by shoving on the same games as all our other consoles have!!'

    I'll never understand Nintendo. I've stopped trying, and just have a quick blast of their great games every so often.

    Everyone point and laugh at how wrong this person is.

  • camo_kill #27 6 months ago

    @MrMarbles Not really...they should have had a substantial team working on MK7 in the first place so that it could have been a stellar launch title.

  • Stratix #28 6 months ago

    Rushing a game with the same team is bad, especially considering Nintendo games cannot be patched.

    However, if you bring in other teams like this lot have, then I am sure this will still be a fantastic game. Considering there is generally only one Mario Kart game per console, they wont want to mess this up!

  • JeroenZM #29 6 months ago

    Is there anything Retro can't do? That's the third franchise they saved. Put them on a new Star Fox, Nintendo.

  • Ryze #30 6 months ago

    Looks like the Nintendo crowd know how to disagree without being dicks about it.

    No problem at all with that.

  • Mister-Wario #31 6 months ago

    @wizlon Actually I wouldn't mind trying a new F-Zero game.

  • jhpeter #32 6 months ago

    Retro studios is far the best 1st party developer, hope a new metroid is coming from her. Mario Kart 7 is here now to save the 3DS skin, since the line up is lacking good titles.

  • gav082 #33 6 months ago

    But what are they working on now? Games I need (thats right need) for my 3ds:
    F Zero
    New Star Fox
    smash bros
    new Zelda 4 swords
    mario football
    wario ware (with 4 player multiplayer like the gamecube version)

  • Fozzie_bear #34 6 months ago

    @gav082

    You're just holding out for rehashes of games you've already played then?

    Nintendo aren't going to bother doing anything new so long as they've got a hardcore of fans willing to pay good money for the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, are they?