As part of a recent “Ask the Developer” column on its official website, Nintendo has revealed some new information about the development process for Mario Kart World. The premiere launch title for the Switch 2, Nintendo originally conceived the game as a Switch 1 title eight years ago with the same 24-player, open-world concept that the final product has. As you could likely expect, performance was the main concern here, and despite the team’s best efforts, it was impossible to get that concept running on the original Switch without major compromises.
Kenta Sato, world programming director for Mario Kart World, stated, “It was difficult for us to incorporate everything we wanted, so we were always conscious of what we were giving up in return.” Admitting it was a tough situation, Sato continued, “We discussed things like toning down the visuals, lowering the resolution, and we even considered dropping the framerate to 30 fps in some cases.”
Kosuke Yabuki, producer for Mario Kart World, added, “We worked on it while kicking the can down the road in terms of deciding what to give up on, so at some point, we knew it was going to get messy. But as we’d decided to release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Booster Course Pass, we thought that would give us a bit more time to continue development.” That’s certainly interesting, especially since that DLC pass was announced in February of 2022 with a planned conclusion of late 2023.
As for when the team knew World would be shifted onto Switch 2, it reportedly happened at some point in 2020. Nintendo had a rough idea of what the final specifications of the system would be, so it made changing platforms much easier. As Sato explains, “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… But once we decided to release this game on Switch 2, we expected our worries to evaporate all at once.”
“It was truly a ray of hope,” Yabuki said. It’s not hard to see why, either. While the Switch 1 is impressive for what it is, no one would claim that the console was a powerhouse at any point in its history. Expecting that device to run a massive open-world with tons of racers at acceptable levels of performance is a fool’s errand. Thankfully, progress always marches on, and Nintendo isn’t left with the same console indefinitely. Whether or not the game will be worth $80 is still up in the air, but at least we know that it couldn’t have possibly happened without the Switch 2.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
