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Nintendo never approached Criterion Games about making a new F-Zero, new interview reveals

Deleted member 10737

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this is a deconfirmation of a nintendo life "exclusive" that they posted in 2015.

https://www.nintendo-insider.com/new-f-zero-game-was-never-in-development-at-criterion-games/
When he was first shown the Wii U, Ward met a "quite junior" Nintendo of Europe employee who later emailed him about their "pipe dream" idea for Criterion to revive F-Zero. It was never a formal proposal, with Ward redirecting them to someone at EA who could discuss it. After that, he didn't hear anything else.

"Once and for all, Nintendo didn't come to Criterion and ask us to make F-Zero. Nothing of the sort at all. Complete false," Ward explained.

"Somebody quite junior in Nintendo of Europe – who isn't there anymore – sent me an email, and said 'Hey, some of us were talking!' Some of us. What does that mean? That could be [at] the water cooler. 'We're talking about games we'd love to see come back, and we thought you lot would be great to do F-Zero. Wouldn't that be awesome?'

"This guy just sent me an email out of the blue. So, then I take that email and I replied. He must have maybe thought we were an independent company and we weren't, we were wholly owned by EA. One, we're owned by EA, two, if you want to talk to EA – and those companies have those discussions all the time – you have to contact this guy, and I gave him the email address. That's it."
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GuEiMiRrIRoW

GuEiMiRrIRoW

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Whats funny is that he says that he doesn't care about f-zero. So there's some catch in this. I wonder what he really replied to this Junior who doesn't know shit but has the power to talk to the leader of a development company.

If the nintendo employ is a shit junior but has the power to contact him, so he is a shit too right?

I wonder...
 
5taquitos

5taquitos

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audisio said:
Whats funny is that he says that he doesn't care about f-zero. So there's some catch in this. I wonder what he really replied to this Junior who doesn't know shit but has the power to talk to the leader of a development company.

If the nintendo employ is a shit junior but has the power to contact him, so he is a shit too right?

I wonder...
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Lol.

Some people need to find a conspiracy in everything.
 
OP
OP

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audisio said:
Whats funny is that he says that he doesn't care about f-zero. So there's some catch in this. I wonder what he really replied to this Junior who doesn't know shit but has the power to talk to the leader of a development company.

If the nintendo employ is a shit junior but has the power to contact him, so he is a shit too right?

I wonder...
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...what?
 
PepsimanVsJoe

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Criterion is a godawful fit for F-Zero anyway.

I for one am not a fan of watching cut-scenes of a burning wreck every 10 seconds.
 
Gartooth

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So bad news here is that the "Nintendo is still interested in F-Zero, so long as they find the right partner" thing is complete crap.
 
Captain of Outer Space

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audisio said:
Whats funny is that he says that he doesn't care about f-zero. So there's some catch in this. I wonder what he really replied to this Junior who doesn't know shit but has the power to talk to the leader of a development company.

If the nintendo employ is a shit junior but has the power to contact him, so he is a shit too right?

I wonder...
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You don't need secret permissions to email people.
 
steviestar3

steviestar3

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PepsimanVsJoe said:
Criterion is a godawful fit for F-Zero anyway.

I for one am not a fan of watching cut-scenes of a burning wreck every 10 seconds.
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MercurySteam sounded like an awful fit for Metroid too going off of their track record but they managed to pull it off. I wouldn't discount the value that collaborating with Nintendo can bring to a project.

Not that it matters in this case, since this deal was never actually in the cards...
 
OP
OP

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reading the article now, it's so clearly full of ridiculously made up bullshit.

"We can now confirm that the Wii U nearly launched with an F-Zero title"

"Back in 2011, Nintendo of Europe asked Burnout studio Criterion to work on a pitch for a new F-Zero, which would have been shown at E3 that year alongside the official unveiling of the Wii U itself."

"The objective was to show off a playable vertical slice of the game at E3 which would give fans a taste of what the full release would entail."

"A quick turnaround was essential, but sadly Criterion was hard at work on bringing Need for Speed: Most Wanted to multiple platforms and therefore couldn't spare the resource at the time."

"Our source on this particular piece of information wishes to remain anonymous, but we've since had it verified by Criterion founder Alex Ward." (ward is the person being interviewed here)

"He confirmed that the conversation between Criterion and Nintendo of Europe did indeed take place, and that time was of the essence for Nintendo."

"Because Criterion had prior commitments, nothing came of the idea - and it joined the untold legions of game pitches which went absolutely nowhere."

embarrassing stuff from nintendo life.
 
cw_sasuke

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No one really cared about the rumor anymore but he decides to finally clarify it for some headlines around the Dangerous Driving release xD

Rumor was always BS anyway - Criterion would be one of the last people Nintendo would ask for any kind of exclusives.
 

Deleted member 8593

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audisio said:
Whats funny is that he says that he doesn't care about f-zero. So there's some catch in this. I wonder what he really replied to this Junior who doesn't know shit but has the power to talk to the leader of a development company.

If the nintendo employ is a shit junior but has the power to contact him, so he is a shit too right?

I wonder...
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I think you cracked the code.

F-Zero for Labo VR next week in game magazines.
 
Crushed

Crushed

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Oct 25, 2017
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On the one hand it's a bummer because this story was used to prove that Nintendo still cared about F-Zero.

On the other, it's yet another helpful demonstration that a lot of the Nintendo insider stuff may be someone having a friend (or friend of a friend) inside NoE who likes to talk office gossip, and someone in that chain having no filter between idle talk and massive scoop on concrete plans.
 
Cantaim

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Oh hey I remember this rumor. I completely believed it at the time haha. Didn't even know who Liam Robertson was at the time. Ah how innocent I was back then.
 
Kingpin Rogers

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I find it odd that Liam is getting shat on here but this site is so protective of other insiders. I'd say he's more reliable than 99% of the rest of them in what he reports.
 
Kingpin Rogers

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mazi said:
is he? in this case, it's clear he heard something and embellished the fuck out of it.
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In this case which was 4 years ago sure, he made a mistake but in general he's as reliable as other insiders who use this site.

Sagadego17 said:
again no he is not. resetera's insiders are more trustworthy then him.
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I can think of many times the insiders here have got things wrong or not completely as they said. They have a similar track record to Liam.
 
ILikeFeet

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Gartooth said:
So bad news here is that the "Nintendo is still interested in F-Zero, so long as they find the right partner" thing is complete crap.
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no, Miyamoto mentioned that they'll do F-Zero if there's a way to make it successful. it's not off the table, but there just aren't avenues to pursuit it. and with other futuristic racers that it competed against dead, that's even less reason to try
 
Imran

Imran

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Oct 24, 2017
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cw_sasuke said:
No one really cared about the rumor anymore but he decides to finally clarify it for some headlines around the Dangerous Driving release xD

Rumor was always BS anyway - Criterion would be one of the last people Nintendo would ask for any kind of exclusives.
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No, we had an interview with Alex Ward and were deciding on questions and I wanted to know what was up with that F-Zero thing. Simple as that.
 
OP
OP

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Imran said:
No, we had an interview with Alex Ward and were deciding on questions and I wanted to know what was up with that F-Zero thing. Simple as that.
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what do you think about the original nintendo life article from 2015 saying they confirmed the story with Ward? is that just straight up lying on nintendo life's part, or has Ward changed his story?
 
Ridley327

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ILikeFeet said:
no, Miyamoto mentioned that they'll do F-Zero if there's a way to make it successful. it's not off the table, but there just aren't avenues to pursuit it. and with other futuristic racers that it competed against dead, that's even less reason to try
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I maintain that they're still reeling from how much their push of the IP failed back on Gamecube and GBA. They really did everything they could to make that one of their new mainstays, only for the market to tell them "nah, we good." It's really tough to come back from something like that, even if they were to go about doing something quite different with the format of the series.

Honestly, I don't think Nintendo minds much that Captain Falcon has stronger associations with Smash at this point. Who are they to argue otherwise?
 
Imran

Imran

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Oct 24, 2017
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mazi said:
what do you think about the original nintendo life article from 2015 saying they confirmed the story with Ward? is that just straight up lying on nintendo life's part, or has Ward changed his story?
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Not sure. Maybe he confirmed that "Nintendo" reached out to him about it with no more details. Maybe no one asked him for more details.
 
higemaru

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mazi said:
reading the article now, it's so clearly full of ridiculously made up bullshit.

"We can now confirm that the Wii U nearly launched with an F-Zero title"

"Back in 2011, Nintendo of Europe asked Burnout studio Criterion to work on a pitch for a new F-Zero, which would have been shown at E3 that year alongside the official unveiling of the Wii U itself."

"The objective was to show off a playable vertical slice of the game at E3 which would give fans a taste of what the full release would entail."

"A quick turnaround was essential, but sadly Criterion was hard at work on bringing Need for Speed: Most Wanted to multiple platforms and therefore couldn't spare the resource at the time."

"Our source on this particular piece of information wishes to remain anonymous, but we've since had it verified by Criterion founder Alex Ward." (ward is the person being interviewed here)

"He confirmed that the conversation between Criterion and Nintendo of Europe did indeed take place, and that time was of the essence for Nintendo."

"Because Criterion had prior commitments, nothing came of the idea - and it joined the untold legions of game pitches which went absolutely nowhere."

embarrassing stuff from nintendo life.
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Hahaha, I was about to defend Robertson because an investigative journalist can only be as reliable as their sources are, but goddamn that is some out and out bullshit
 
Nairume

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Ridley327 said:
I maintain that they're still reeling from how much their push of the IP failed back on Gamecube and GBA. They really did everything they could to make that one of their new mainstays, only for the market to tell them "nah, we good." It's really tough to come back from something like that, even if they were to go about doing something quite different with the format of the series.

Honestly, I don't think Nintendo minds much that Captain Falcon has stronger associations with Smash at this point. Who are they to argue otherwise?
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I think that is the sad thing about people railing against Miyamoto for wanting to find new ways to do F-Zero and Star Fox. While, sure, the gimmicks for Star Fox Zero were terrible, he's not wrong about thinking that doing really nice looking high budget full price F-Zero and Star Fox games aren't exactly as viable as they used to be.
 
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