Nintendo announces online Wii Mario Kart, Wii Wheel

by Kyle Orland on Jul 11th 2007 12:51PM

At Nintendo's E3 press conference today, Reggie Fils-Aime announced the first online-enabled console Mario Kart will come out for the Wii in the first quarter of 2008. Fils-Aime said the game is "not your father's Mario Kart," and hinted that the game will have a large number of characters. He also announced a "Wii Wheel" peripheral which will be packaged with the game and "level the track for beginners." More pictures of both the game and the wheel after the break.

Tags: breaking, breakingnews, e307, mario kart, MarioKart, online, wheel, wii, wii wheel, WiiWheel

Reader Comments (38)

I CANNOT WAIT!

I hope Online on this game rocks....

And I hope the graphics are top quality (that is for the Wii).

Here are some early screenshots from the game

SCREENSHOTS:
http://mariokartwii.com/viewtopic.php?p=1337#1337

ZOMG NINTENDO HATE ONLI.... oh

Wow, I love Mario Kart, but I don't know about that wheel....

haha, yeah...the wheel looks just a bit cheap.

Yeah... i'm a bit confused by all these peripherals.

Surely the whole POINT of the wiimote was that it could duplicate lot of varied actions. But now we have WiiFit with it's balance pad, RE with it's Zapper and MK with it's wheel.

If every darn game for the wii comes with it's own peripheral then that is gonna be (a) expensive, (b) messy and awkward to find, and (c) confusing for beginners.

History has shown that buyers don't like having to splash out on peripherals that they'll only use with one or two games.

I completely agree. I'd be more than happy to use my wavebirds with this one as well. That controller worked just fine for DoubleDash.

Wow...a Wii wheel...i havent seen one of those since....the Wii launched...

The Reginator holding that dinky little steering wheel looks hilarious.

First Moore with the Halo 360, now this.

A Wheel for the Wii? Great, it'll be even MORE useless than the wheels for the 360! How many titles are going to use it, again? Hopefully it'll be cheap...

According to the Joystiq posting one wheel comes with the game.

It comes with Mario Kart, so I'm guessing most people will have one.

Vidikron/John - what about the other people playing at my local console? Kinda sucky if only one player gets a wheel advantage?

At least each MK game has been pretty good, IMO. It's their one series of which I have enjoyed each iteration even if the formula doesn't vary much. And it does make a great game to play with friends. Not sure about that wheel though. Seems a bit small. At least one comes with the game.

come on Ninty, it's a WIIL... Take advantage of the Wii name already! (wiimote, Super Marwii-o, etc)

Hahah... Wiil... nice one. Much better than Wii Wheel.

come on Ninty, it's a WIIL... Take advantage of the Wii name already! (wiimote, Super Marwii-o, etc)

that thing looks like my ex-girlfriends diaphragm.

'bout the same size, too.

wow those screens behind reggie looks magnificent!!! Can't wait for 2008 so I could do some next generation karting Mario style!!!

LAME dammit this whole E3 is lame.

Unless Sony announces it has cured AIDS or that they have solved the israeli-palestine conflict, E3 has totally sucked.

btw, only the Cell(tm) processor has the power to cure aids. Waggle can't cure AIDS.

Are you implying that PS3 owners can cure AIDS because they don't have sex?

BAZIIIING!

There are 5 Mario Kart titles dude, two for handhelds. Nintendo has had 2 more generations of consoles and 3 generations of handhelds ahead of Playstation and even more ahead of Xbox. This naturally means there will be more iterations of a given franchise. You can bet that if Halo had come out in the SNES/Genesis generation and Microsoft had handhelds there'd be a Halo on every system.

How many final fantasies have there been?

I count 6 Mario kart games. 1 per console.

Snes,n64,Gc,wii
GBA,DS

There have only been five MK games before this one; SNES, N64, GBA and the Cube version. The final fantasy series numbers 13 games, and sure they changed a bit every game, but the first ones especially are very similar. Does it have an excuse because it's not a racing game? Well, one cannot forget that Project Gotham 8 is coming out soon, along with Nascar 08. And what about those MLB, Madden, golf and even Mario Party games that come out every year? Aren't they the franchises you should be going after.
Mario Kart releases one game per Nintendo console, not 3, so it's not a big deal.

Nintendo will stop making Mario Kart as soon as people stop buying it. Kart 64 is fun, Kart DS is fun, and if Kart Wii is fun, I'll buy that, too.

Compared to sports games or first person shooters, 5 iterations of a game is nothing.

I've been buying Madden religiously every year for more years than I can count and the only thing that ever changes is the rosters (and they pretty up the graphics a little).

And, despite some graphical treatments, aren't most FPS games just another rehash of Quake?

I probably won't use the wheel attachment, But i'm glad it uses the exite truck style control

Honest question: How is this wheel different from the wheel Ubi packaged with those two launch rqacing titles? Just that hole on the back to secure the wrist-strap? Or does it house a new set of accelerometers or something cool like that?

I think its smaller, allowing you to use buttons. Ant there might be a trigger or button on the back.

The wiimote appears to actually dock (using the expansion/nunchuck port) into the wheel. One reason for this is there seems to be an actual trigger on the back of it. Also unlike the other wheel(s) there's a hole so that the IR sensor is not blocked.

I won't be getting the stupid wheel, but the game can't come soon enough.

oh a wii wheel...you gettin this joystiq? this is a good time to come up with a clever wii acessory name.
wii-L possibly?

By the "level the track for beginners" comment, it really sounds like the Wii Wheel (Wiil... haha, nice) is not the only way to control and can only really get you so far. Hopefully, hardcore gamers will still be able to use more traditional controls (the Classic Controller) for precision hopping, steering, and mini-boosting (please let the hops still be in there).

If Smash Bros. is supporting four different control schemes, I can only imagine Mario Kart is gonna do something very similar.

I'm largely in the Nintendo camp, but I have to somewhat agree with you. I've played every Mario Kart game that's come out, and frankly, the original and the DS one are really the only ones that are any good. And the best is still the original.

I saw Reggie talking about the wheel on TV, and he was so full of hubris I could barely stand it. That wheel is about as exciting as and will "level the playing field" about as well as the wheel Ubisoft packaged with their racing games at launch. I think Reggie was just trying to pretend that a piece of cheap plastic was a worthy substitute for REAL skill-based online matchmaking.

Apparently, some people here are forgetting about the arcade Mario Kart...

I bet they spoil it by making it more suited for non gamers rather than focusing on the hardcore gamers who love mario kart.

test

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Nintendo announces online Wii Mario Kart, Wii Wheel

Reader Comments (38)

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