SEGA says Mario Kart World and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds are “fundamentally different”, talks Nintendo Switch 2
Although Nintendo Switch 2 just received a big racer in the form of Mario Kart World, SEGA believes it can can coexist with its own upcoming game Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.
In a recent interview, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka said these two titles “are going in different directions”. He brought up how Mario Kart World is featuring an open world. Iizuka ultimately feels “the design itself is fundamentally different.”
He told VGC in the interview:
“Yeah, with Mario Kart World they did the whole open world racing, that’s their new way of playing a Mario Kart game, and we really think it’s a great, interesting direction for them to go in.
We even started at a different point. Our development team, the people who developed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, is our SEGA arcade racing team.
They have tons of experience making racing games, and the whole focus about what we wanted to do from the very beginning was about taking that racing game and improving it and modernizing it and putting all these new, fun, crazy ideas into what a racing game could be, and developing that as our product.
So even from the conceptual level, I think both of the titles are going in different directions and offering different experiences to people, so the design itself is fundamentally different.”
Iizuka went on to talk about Nintendo Switch 2. As expected, with the new console, “you don’t have to make as many concessions”.
His full words are as follows:
“The original Switch is a great machine. A lot of people play portably and [have had] experiences that were really solid. When we talk about Switch 2, because the performance of the hardware has been improved, a lot of the decisions we had to make when getting a high-performance game onto a Switch 1, you don’t have to make as many concessions [on Switch 2].
You’ll get improved frame rate and improved resolution, so a lot of those experiences are going to better just because the performance of the hardware is so much improved. So we’re really looking forward to bringing more games out on Switch 2.
For Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, on September 25 we’re releasing the game, but unfortunately it will only be on Switch 1 on the 25th. But the team is hard at work at making sure we’re getting the game onto Switch 2 as soon as possible, so we really hope a little bit after September 25 you’ll see that Switch 2 version coming to market, and we hope everyone gets to purchase it, play it and enjoy it.”
Iizuka also said that SEGA is “currently thinking about that Switch to Switch 2 kind of progression”. That hopefully means progression between the two platforms will be supported.
There was a lot of Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds with the game revealing different collaborations, including Minecraft DLC. There’s also news about the collector’s edition and more here.
