In an interview with IGN, Shigeru Miyamoto acknowledged that while there continues to be fan demand for a new F-Zero game—despite its decade-long drought—it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be seeing one anytime soon.
He said:
“I can certainly understand that people want a new F-Zero game. 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 turn it into a really great game again.”
While there have been futuristic elements added to the upcoming Mario Kart 8, it’s neither intended to be the new F-Zero, nor an indication that a new one will never happen—it’s more that Nintendo doesn’t want to make just another F-Zero game. They’d rather bring something new to the table, adding to the experience in a tangible way.
And when asked whether the surprising lack of ideas for a new version of the game may mean that the franchise is simply better suited to the older kind of hardware gaming, Miyamoto acknowledged that it doesn’t seem that way—fans continue to ask for new games out of old franchises, but at this point rather than allowing someone else to step in and make a new game, they’d rather keep it on home turf.
“We’ve obviously, as I mentioned, been working on what we can do to increase our internal staff in a way that 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.”
So a new entry isn’t out of the question… we just might not see it for a very long time.
