User:Gary/Mario Kart 7

Forming the relationship
Mario Kart 7, the seventh game in the Mario Kart series, marks the first game in the series to involve a company from outside Japan. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD) was one of two companies involved with Mario Kart 7, although its Software Development Department (SDD) was the team that actually handled the game's development. The five key people from SDD that was involved with the game were Kosuke Yabuki, Hideki Konno, Yoshihisha Morimoto, Masaaki Ishikawa, and Yuji Ichijo. Kosuke was the director for Mario Kart 7, and Konno its producer. Morimoto, the game's art director, helped coordinate the game's graphics, and also worked with Retro on the game's course designs. Ishikawa was the game's lead artist for characters and karts, and also worked with Retro on these aspects. Along with other staff from both EAD and Retro, Ishikawa also worked on model and animation production. Finally, Ichijo was the primary coordinator between EAD and Retro Studios, making him responsible for translating all communications between the teams and supervising the game's planning.

Retro Studios was the second company involved with Mario Kart 7. The company, based in the United States in the city of Austin, Texas, was established in 1998 and has been involved in the development of video games including the Metroid Prime series and Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Nintendo Wii. For the Mario Kart 7 project, its three key personnel were Ryan Powell, Vince Joly, and Tom Ivey. Powell was the game's lead artist for Retro, and therefore worked on the game's environments and courses. He was also in constant communication with Morimoto for most of the project's duration. Joly was the art director for Retro, which meant that he oversaw all artwork for the courses, characters, and karts that Retro created. Finally, Ivey was the lead planner for course designs, making him in charge of creating courses in coordination with EAD staff.

Planning for Mario Kart 7 began in early 2010, around the same time that work began for Nintendogs + Cats, with the latter being scheduled for an earlier release. This meant that more effort was put into creating Nintendogs + Cats rather than Mario Kart 7. Because of this, a team of only eight members worked on Mario Kart 7 early on. When the game's development began to pick up, so many other games were being developed at EAD that there simply was not enough staff available to work on Mario Kart 7. In addition, because production for the Wii's The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was extended, many staff members who were supposed to work on Mario Kart 7 suddenly became unavailable. This was one of the major reasons as to why EAD eventually decided to get help from an outside studio.

Konno discussed the problem of a lack of developers with Kensuke and Shinya, both from the Nintendo Software Planning & Development (SPD) department, asking, "Can we make it with one of the companies [Kensuke's] in contact with?" At the time, Retro Studios was working on Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii, and it ended up being perfect timing that they would finish the game around the same time that Mario Kart 7 needed help. The physical distance between both studios made the project a challenge to work on, especially because of the large time difference; Japan was fifteen hours ahead of Retro's home town of Austin. However, the working relationship between Retro and Nintendo was close because of the number of past projects that Retro had worked on for Nintendo, including the signature title Donkey Kong Country Returns. This made the decision to work with Retro on Mario Kart 7 much easier for Konno and his team.

When Ivey from Retro Studios was first offered to take on the project, he thought that it would be difficult to work on because of how important the series was to Nintendo. At the time, after completing Donkey Kong Country Returns, Retro employees were thinking of spending time relaxing, and they figured that working on Mario Kart 7 immediately afterward would instead be a stressful experience. However, Ivey admitted that the Mario Kart series as a whole was special to him because he grew up playing the games, so he considered the project an exciting opportunity for his team. Initially, the Retro team felt nervous about the project because of their unfamiliarity with the team from EAD. Retro had worked with SPD before, but never with EAD. Ivey also recounted that the first meeting between members of both teams was formal because the teams were not yet comfortable with each other. However, after both teams went out to dinner together, the director Kosuke gave a very inspired toast to the group, and Ivey thought, "It'll be nice working with these guys. They seem to be really nice." Subsequently, after both teams familiarized themselves with each other, they finally felt ready to work on the project and were looking forward to the collaboration.

When the EAD team was told that they would be working with Retro on Mario Kart 7, Morimoto, who had worked on three Mario Kart games in the past, did not believe it at first. Up until that point, he had only worked with companies from inside Japan. Ishikawa first assumed that Retro was based in Japan, since the Mario Kart series had always been done in-house at EAD. Upon learning that Retro was based in the US, he quickly became concerned on whether or not the project could succeed by collaborating with a company outside the country. Since the EAD team overall was nervous about this relationship, they wanted to bring someone to their team who had experience working with teams from overseas, and with Retro in particular. Subsequently, they brought over Ichijo, who had previously worked with Retro on Donkey Kong Country Returns, from Kensuke's SPD team to join them at EAD.

Miscellaneous

 * Mario Kart 7 is a racing game set in the fictional Super Mario world. The first game in the series was released in September 1992 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
 * Nintendo instructed the EAD team to make Mario Kart 7 "completely different from the previous games".