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F-Zero

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Luigi Dude:
The problem with F-Zero is the series peaked sales wise with the original on the SNES.  The original sold 2.85 million, but then the sequel on the N64 only did 1.1 million.  To make matters worse, both Wave Race and 1080 Snowboarding sold better with Wave Race 64 doing 2.9 million and 1080 Snowboarding doing 2 million.  I mean Mario Kart was always gong to do better, but when F-Zero is being outdone by other racing franchises that are performing closer to what the original SNES game did, that's not a good look at the strength of the franchise.

Now Maxium Velocity which was a GBA launch title managed to do 1 million, so there's consistancy between the 2nd and 3rd game.  This is probably why they were willing to give Sega a blank check to create GX which is one of the most graphically impressive Gamecube titles and has insane production values, with things like over 40 characters all getting their own theme song with vocals, and only putting these songs on their character bio pages that most people might spend a few second looking at.  Also every character got special CG ending sequences that can only be viewed by beating the game on the highest difficulty setting that 99% of players wont even be able to do.

Well needless to say, F-Zero GX despite all the love from critics and hardcore fans, didn't even sell a million units.  Despite all the money spent on it, F-Zero just wasn't catching on.  Then they tried one last minute save by making a low budget anime aimed at a younger audience along with a GBA tie in to the show, since the GBA was still popular at the time and Maxium Veloticy had sold a million copies a few years earlier.  Well, that anime tie in game ended up being the worst selling Nintendo published GBA game in North America.  Back when there were NPD leaks, I think it was revealed it only did around 50k in North America, which is why NOA didn't even bother to bring over the last GBA game, which only sold about 12k in Japan.

So even though it sucks for F-Zero fans, you can't say Nintendo didn't try.  Unlike something like Star Fox where they've done some pretty dumb things, F-Zero had a natural progression going from the original, to X and then GX that were all loved by the fans.  But like I said earlier, no matter what Nintendo did, the franchise never came close to the sales of the original.  If something like X taking the series into 3D, and GX ramping up the production value and content, isn't enough to make it more popular then the Mode 7, sprite based, hardware restricted original, then what else can they do?

Order.RSS:

--- Quote from: Luigi Dude on February 17, 2022, 04:28:20 PM ---So even though it sucks for F-Zero fans, you can't say Nintendo didn't try.  Unlike something like Star Fox where they've done some pretty dumb things, F-Zero had a natural progression going from the original, to X and then GX that were all loved by the fans.  But like I said earlier, no matter what Nintendo did, the franchise never came close to the sales of the original.  If something like X taking the series into 3D, and GX ramping up the production value and content, isn't enough to make it more popular then the Mode 7, sprite based, hardware restricted original, then what else can they do?

--- End quote ---

The Star Fox comparison is also apt in the sense both series have a tendency to release their biggest projects on unsuccessful systems. While I'm not saying Starfox Adventures/Assault/Zero or F-Zero X & GX would have been blockbusters on Wii or Switch, it's a little disappointing neither was really offered the opportunity to try.

By now I've accepted FAST Racing Neo/RMX as the de facto F-Zero successor. It doesn't quite have the personality, but it's pretty close. Hopefully F-Zero GX one day escapes the GameCube ecosystem, whether it's a port, remaster, or just the ROM in a hypothetical Switch Online wrapper.
In my ideal world the Mario Kart team (or maybe Retro Studios?) gets to cut loose and make a proper new one, but that's a (half)pipe dream at best. I'd be really happy with a GX port of some kind.

ThePerm:
I bet porting Starfox Zero to Switch is just a 6 week job by a team of 5.

And if they're so worried about it's sales, just make it digital.

NWR_insanolord:
Porting Star Fox Zero would require completely overhauling the control scheme, it wouldn't be a simple job. I think that's the biggest reason we haven't seen it make the jump.

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