Ask the Developer Vol. 18: Mario Kart World — Part 1

From Nintendo.Com's Ask the Developer Volume 18, the developers of Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World, Kosuke Yabuki, Kenta Sato, Masaaki Ishikawa, Shintaro Jikumaru, and Atsuko Asahi revealed that the reason Switch 1 never got its own Mario Kart after getting a port of Mario Kart 8 is because World was originally meant to be that game and development started 8 years ago, all the way back in 2017.

The developers' ambitions proved to be too ambitious for the Switch 1's hardware, but they could not decide on what features to cut or graphical settings to lower to make it work.  In particular, 60 FPS would not have been possible consistently.  The Switch 2 solved this dilemma by being powerful enough to do everything they wanted.

The article goes into more detail about things like the music, the design of the open world, the day-night cycle, and more.

Had Mario Kart 8 Deluxe not been as successful, they absolutely would've gone for a less ambitious follow-up for the sake of getting something out and making a lot of money.
Since it's such a smash hit, a sequel wasn't needed for a while.

Hmmm, I was a few minutes late creating my thread Didn't see any when I began making it

It's sad we have had to wait a whole generation without a new Mario Kart, but here we are ready to burn some tires on the wall !

An indictment on the state of the industry. In no universe could Nintendo have been developing Super Mario Kart for the NES or MK64 for the SNES. The tech at the time just wouldn't allow for it. Now, only us game nerds can tell the difference between gens. And that's mostly only if we squint.

To be honest I'm one of those people that focuses most on playability so would have been happy to see a game slightly compromised with perhaps a 540p resolution, reduced quality textures and only 30 fps if the game could still be done. However I guess the gaming industry would have seen this as highlighting the weak spec of the Switch and probably would have got a lot of negative press. I still enjoyed playing weaker versions of games that were on the PS3 and Xbox 360 despite much nicer versions being on the Xbox One and PS4.

Welp, the MK Team had to be doing something since Arms released in 2017, which now is completely laid bare for us to understand that the success of MK8 DX managed to get them a prolonged development period because it wasn't before the Switch 2 was slightly locked in internally that they could actually answer the ambitions they had with the World formula, therefore the Booster Course Pass was invented to pad such time even more.

Btb, the announced 200 live music tracks arrangements is also one of the best news we got !

We're basically getting a huge music album with this game haha. Free roaming with that music in the background is gonna be sooooo good !

While it was a bit of a bummer that we didn't get an all new (mainline) Mario Kart on Switch, (it's one of the only real downsides of what's overall an amazing console) I am kinda glad we're getting the full fledged experience the developers envisioned rather than a compromised version held back by the current Switch.

TLDR: It's a Switch 1 game with improved framerate, assets and res

But not releasing on Switch 1 because Switch 1 already have its own MK and Nintendo wants to sell hardware

I know it's unrelated to the thread, but my perception is all the games released early on Switch 2 were in reality Switch 1 games, but Nintendo wants to avoid the perception they don't have new games for Switch 2. Looking to them none feel "next gen" to me, one of the reasons I'm not feeling the urge to buy the Switch 2 yet

Have a feeling DK Bananza followed the same script. Nothing wrong with that.

Honestly? I would not mind at all if Nintendo opted for similar graphics as seen on NSW in exchange for consistent 60/120fps @1440p output. MKWorld having originally been a NSW game doesn’t bother me, so long as Nintendo is really taking advantage of the extra power in the performance.