Nintendo wasn't sure about Mario Kart: Double Dash's central 2-driver gimmick, so the devs made a single-driver version simultaneously as an "emergency escape hatch"
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Mario Kart pretty quickly became one of Nintendo's flagship franchises, to the point where Mario Kart World is now both the biggest launch title for Switch 2 and the subject of the publisher's first experiment with $80 games. The devs were feeling the pressure of that position as far back as 2003 with Mario Kart: Double Dash, and they were frightened enough of rocking the boat that they were developing two different versions of the game simultaneously.
In an interview with the Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, which was published ahead of Double Dash's release and recently translated by Shmuplations, producer Shinya Takahashi said that it was a "monumental challenge" to build an innovative take on the series "while not destroying what makes Mario Kart unique."
"Yeah, Mario Kart has turned into a flagship title for Nintendo, and each console has to have its own Mario Kart game," fellow producer Tadashi Sugiyama agreed. "'Well, of course it's going to sell big, it's Mario Kart!' - that pressure is huge."
The innovation for Double Dash was, of course, the two-driver concept, where each kart is controlled by two different drivers who you can swap between during the race. That opens up a co-op mode where two players can work together, with one controlling driving and the other using items, swapping positions whenever you like.
"You've got all these expectations, and you've got to add something new," Sugiyama continued. "The 'two drivers' concept, therefore, was something we came to at the end of a veryyy long process of brainstorming. We were a little worried about it though, so at first we were developing a single-driver version too, in parallel with the two-driver development."
Takahashi joked that it was "our emergency escape hatch," but ultimately, the team settled on the two-driver concept, and the final year of development was entirely devoted to the two-driver version. Sugiyama said the "majority of our staff" just "really wanted to do something new."
Double Dash will forever be one of the best GameCube games.
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