The last game released in Nintendo's ludicrously speedy futuristic series F-Zero was Gamecube's F-Zero GX and arcade counterpart F-Zero AX, both developed by Sega in 2003. Interestingly, a mini game based on the franchise was included in Wii U launch title Nintendo Land.
With Mario Kart 8 taking to more outlandish track layouts due to hovercrafts, many are wondering when the series staring Captain Falcon will ever make a return.
According to an IGN interview with Nintendo's iconic designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the future of the series is uncertain at the moment.
"I certainly understand that people want a new F-Zero game," said Miyamoto. "I think where I struggle is that I don't really have a good idea for what's new that we could bring to F-Zero that would really turn it into a great game again. Certainly I can see how people looking at Mario Kart 8 could see, through the anti-gravity, a connection to F-Zero. But I don't know at this point, what direction we could go in with a new F-Zero.
Part of the problem for Miyamoto is that he feels that older franchises like F-Zero or Wave Race seem better suited for Nintendo's older hardware than its next-gen console. He also mentioned that if they were to create next-gen titles for its console, it would be developed internally instead of being lent to a third-party developer.
"Obviously in the past we've tried to work with other companies, where we've let them develop games for us in franchises like Star Fox and F-Zero, but the more we think about it, the more we prefer to be able to create those games internally, on our own," Miyamoto said. "We've obviously, as I mentioned been working on what we can do to increase out internal staff in a way that all will allow us to have more projects going at the same time, so we can create new games and work on additional old IP and still maintain the other primary franchises that people want to see."
Can Nintendo make the a next-gen F-Zero relevant? Comment below.
