Start at 10:42 to hear about the Community feature.
The Community feature is not that far removed from the dedicated server. Someone hosts a ‘community’ (where the person can define the rules like what tracks, what karts, and what power-ups are used), and anyone can join that ‘community’ so long as they have the code (that the community originator creates).
This is incredibly solid. The most important thing is that players are defining how they wish to play Mario Kart instead of Nintendo. What if I don’t want to play with that blue shell? What if I don’t want to play on Rainbow Road? Now I can play Mario Kart the way I wish to play it. This customization has been something we’ve been looking for in Mario Kart for a long, long time. In First Person Shooter games, for example like Unreal Tournament, you can choose which maps you want or which power-ups. Why not the same with Mario Kart?
When it comes to buying game consoles, my rule has always been three games that are currently out that I wish to buy with three other games (that are upcoming at least) that I wish to buy. I want to buy Mario Kart 7. So in order for me to buy a 3DS, there would need to be at least two more games for me to wish to buy and three more (already out or upcoming) before I take that plunge.
With the DS, the three games were Mario Kart DS, Meteos, and Castlevania DS with the three upcoming ones were NSMB DS, Final Fantasy 3, and Tetris DS. Seeing how there will be no 2d Mario on the 3DS and no real RPGs (I don’t like Dragon Quest or Monster Hunter), the 3DS still seems very barren to me.
Konno really has his head on straight unlike the rest of the Nintendo developers (Miyamoto, Aonuma, Sakamoto, etc.). He is giving gamers what they have been desiring for with Mario Kart. No ‘surprise’ here. What a concept!
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