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Title: Mario Kart World was initially planned for the original Switch

Date: Wed, 21 May 2025 17:47:04 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/mari...

The upcoming Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World was originally intended
for the OG Switch console, according to an interview with the game's
developers. This was the goal until the dev team realized that the console
couldn't handle it.

"It was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were
always conscious of what we were giving up in return,ΓÇ¥ said programming
director Kenta Sato. A big sticking point seemed to be that the original
Switch would have had to run the game at 30FPS. Mario Kart games have always
run at 60FPS, for obvious reasons. You can't simulate speed without, uh,
simulating speed.

Developers pecked away at the "tough situation" until finally deciding to
create more DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as a way to bide time as the team
figured out what to do.

"As weΓÇÖd decided to release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ΓÇö Booster Course Pass, we
thought that would give us a bit more time to continue development," said
producer Kosuke Yabuki. "ThatΓÇÖs when the conversation of moving it to the
Nintendo Switch 2 system came up, and this suddenly opened up a bunch of
possibilities on what we could do. It was truly a ray of hope.ΓÇ¥

This interview also revealed that the game has been in development since
2017, which is a heck of a long time. However, it makes a certain amount of
sense given that the original Mario Kart 8 came out in 2014.

The upcoming racer was always set in an open world and it was never going to
be called Mario Kart 9. The developers wanted to "take the series to the next
level." The big, connected world seems to do just that.

"I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that
weΓÇÖd been following in the series up to that point, where players race on
individual courses," Yabuki continued. "ThatΓÇÖs why, this time, we wanted
the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began
creating a world map like this.ΓÇ¥

I personally think the company made the right call by delaying this game
until the Switch 2. Recent first-party Switch titles have experienced massive
framerate issues, and there's no way the console could have handled races
with 24 participants. In any event, we only have a couple of weeks until we
get to play Mario Kart World, if you've successfully reserved the Switch 2
for the June 5 launch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/mari...
planned-for-the-original-switch-174704456.html?src=rss

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