F-Zero future uncertain, says Miyamoto

Nintendo visionary Shigeru Miyamoto has cast doubt on the company returning to its sci-fi racing series F-Zero in the near future.

Speaking to IGN, Miyamoto said a lack of new ideas was stopping Nintendo from making a new entry in the series. "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."

The debut trailer for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U showed sloped and vertical courses in a fashion similar to F-Zero's futuristic tracks, and Miyamoto acknowledges the connection. "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."

The last F-Zero game, F-Zero GX on the GameCube, was developed by Sega and released in 2003. Miyamoto also adds that Nintendo would rather not have its games developed externally now.

"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."

"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."