Mario Kart 8 Developer Inspired by F-Zero, Hopes Series Will Return

Were you reminded of F-Zero when you took a look at Mario Kart 8's anti-gravity segments? Turns out that wasn't exactly an accident. Nintendo developers Hideki Konno and Kosuke Yabuki spoke of how the SNES classic influenced the Wii U racer's creation, and how they'd like to see the series return one day.

Yabuki told French site Gamekult that F-Zero not only inspired Mario Kart 8's anti-grav courses, but also Super Mario Galaxy. Asked why there has been no F-Zero Wii U announcement yet, the developer noted that it was a matter of priorities. "[There] has always been a Mario Kart per console, so we wanted to get a new one to have more people interested by our new system. But I also hope that there will be an F-Zero."

The last F-Zero console game appeared on the Gamecube, and was developed by SEGA using a modified version of Toshihiro Nagoshi's Super Monkey Ball engine. It was awesome. At E3, Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that he had no new ideas that would justify the development of a modern F-Zero just yet.

Konno added that Mario Kart 8 had been in development for a little over a year, and that Wii U GamePad off-TV play is being considered. Track sizes will be much larger than ever before, and customisation options will be better than those found in Mario Kart 7, he said.