Former Nintendo Dev: F-Zero Hasn’t Been Revived Due To Development Costs And Mario Kart’s Popularity

For many years now, Nintendo fans have been clamoring for Nintendo to develop a new F-Zero racing game for modern audiences – although most of their pleas have seemingly gone unheard by the company. Well, it may not happen any time soon either – according to a former big name at the company.

In a recent interview with VGC, Star Fox and F-Zero character designer Takaya Imamura shared his thoughts on the current state of the F-Zero franchise. In particular, he cited two reasons that could possibly be dissuading Nintendo from making a new F-Zero game – that being the cost of development and the existing popularity of the Mario Kart racing games.

In addition to this, Imamura also added that F-Zero might be getting even less attention than Star Fox due to Shigeru Miyamoto’s closer attachment to the Star Fox series in general:

Q: So why do you think F-Zero gets less attention from the company than Star Fox does? There hasn’t been a new F-Zero game for almost 20 years now.

Takaya Imamura: “I think it’s because Mario Kart is Nintendo’s most popular racing game, and a new F-Zero would cost a fortune. My impression is that Miyamoto-san is very affectionate about Star Fox.”

While Imamura’s statement might merely be opinion, it’s not hard to see why Nintendo would want to focus its investments into the Mario Kart series instead of F-Zero. Currently, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the Nintendo Switch is estimated to have sold around 53 million units to date, with no signs of slowing down.

As it stands, it looks like F-Zero fans will just have to keep waiting and hoping for their wishes to come true.

What do you think? Feel free to share below.