Nintendo published an extensive “Ask the Developer” interview with the development team of Mario Kart World, revealing that the game was first planned for the original Nintendo Switch. Due to hardware limitations, the project was able to be fully realized when it moved to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2020.
According to producer Kosuke Yabuki, Mario Kart World was prototyped back in March 2017. Development on the title would eventually reach its crossroads around 2020, according to developer Kenta Sato. Due to the hardware limitations of Nintendo Switch, the developers found it difficult to incorporate everything they wanted, including a max of 24 players at once, and considered dropping the frame rate to 30 FPS in some cases.
Yabuki said, “We were thinking about what to do for the next Mario Kart game even during the development of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and we began prototyping in March 2017. It was at the end of that year when we officially started work on it as a project. I felt that in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, we were able to perfect the formula that we’d been following in the series up to that point, where players race on individual courses. That’s why, this time, we wanted the gameplay to involve players driving around a large world, and we began creating a world map like this.”
Sato added, “When we were developing for the Nintendo Switch system, it was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return. We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the frame rate to 30 fps in some cases. It was a tough situation.
“Yabuki-san first brought it [Nintendo Switch 2] up around 2020. Back then, we already had an idea of the next system’s expected specs, but it wasn’t until a bit later that we actually received working development units. Until then, we just had to proceed with development based on provisional estimates.
“When we were developing for Nintendo Switch, we often worried whether we could find the right balance between planning and performance. Of course, the Switch system’s performance is sufficient for developing different kinds of games, but if we had included everything we wanted to in this game’s vast world, then it wouldn’t have run at 60 fps and would have suffered from constant framerate drops. I think there were a lot of people on the team who were worried about whether we could really manage it. But once we decided to release this game on Switch 2, we expected our worries to evaporate all at once. I remember being overjoyed when I discovered we could express even more than we’d originally set out to.”
Nintendo Switch 2 will launch on June 5 for $449.99. A bundle will be available for $499.99 featuring Mario Kart World. Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 at Best Buy, Walmart and Target went live on April 24 and quickly sold out within just a few hours. However, Nintendo and other retailers will periodically replenish stock leading into launch. Other games like Cyberpunk 2077 and upgrade packs for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom will also be available.
