The rumoured Direct presentation will apparently feature announcements for a coupld of classic Nintendo franchises, based on hints recently dropped on Twitter by leaker Pyoro, who accurately leaked Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG Remake ahead of their announcements earlier this year.

In one tweet, the leaker wrote, “Let’s just say fans of a certain MATLAB function will be happy with the upcoming Direct.”

MATLAB, a numeric and programming platform developer by MathWorks, doesn’t have a link to any of Nintendo’s franchises, but many have speculated that the tweet references MATLAB’s “fzero” function, and that Pyoro is potentially suggesting that an F-Zero game will be announced.

Meanwhile, in another (much more straightforward) tweet, the leaker included only a gif showing Donkey King from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, potentially indicating an upcoming announcement of a new Donkey Kong game.

In additional tweets, the leaker has also claimed that Nintendo will reveal new details for the upcoming Princess Peach game, and that a Game Boy Advance F-Zero title will also be announced for Nintendo Switch Online.

Of course, with a company as notoriously secretive and unpredictable as Nintendo, it’s always wise to take any and all leaks with a grain of salt- for now, at least. We’ll keep an eye out for more new details, so stay tuned for further updates.

Let's just say fans of a certain MATLAB function will be happy with the upcoming Direct

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) September 8, 2023

pic.twitter.com/qMW86bL92Z

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) September 8, 2023

yep

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) September 8, 2023

It will come to NSO but I'm not teasing it.

— Pyoro (@Pyoro_X) September 8, 2023

“I think it’s because Mario Kart is Nintendo’s most popular racing game, and a new F-Zero would cost a fortune,” said Imamura when asked about a franchise like Star Fox getting more attention than F-Zero. “My impression is that [Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto] is very affectionate about Star Fox.”

F-Zero, originally released on the SNES back in 1990, had seen a few follow-ups. The most recent title in the franchise, however, is F-Zero: Climax on the Game Boy Advance. The most popular game in the franchise, F-Zero GX, sits on the GameCube.

Last we heard of F-Zero, Nintendo brought Nintendo 64’s F-Zero X to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service back in 2022. Since bringing the game to the Nintendo Switch, however, Nintendo has been largely quiet about F-Zero.

The F-Zero franchise is known for its unique take on fast-paced futuristic racing. The franchise is also home to iconic characters, including Captain Falcon, who currently lives on in the roster for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2

Of the many titles that convinced fans of the GameCube’s power, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2 sits near the top. Improved texture work, more detailed ships and increased draw distance all provided substantial upgrades over its predecessor. But it was the addition of bump-mapping that provided that extra bit of oomph, pushing photo-realism that much closer to the films. Even if you weren’t a Star Wars fan, Rogue Squadron 2 had to be seen to be believed.

While Toshihiro Nagoshi is best known for the fantastic Yakuza games these days, before he did Yakuza, he worked with Nintendo on F-Zero GX, the Gamecube version of Nintendo’s futuristic racing franchise that is cited by many to be the best example of the genre to this day (Wipeout who?).

This was a collaboration between Sega and Nintendo on the title, and it came almost right after Sega had bowed out of the hardware market with the discontinuation of the Dreamcast. Speaking to EDGE (Issue 322, September 2018), Nagoshi recalls a desire to impress Nintendo as he was working with them on F-Zero– to show them that even though Sega had lost to them in the hardware war, the company was worthy in other areas still.

“Compared to us, in the big picture, we are similar,” he said. “But in the finer details – their decision-making and timing – things are different, and I learned a lot from them. In short, it’s about objectivity. (…) It’s hard to describe, but when I’d say about some part of the game, “It’s okay like this, isn’t it?” they’d say, “Our company does not allow this kind of thing. Ever.” I didn’t manage to change their minds about anything. Not even once. But that’s why Nintendo has such a solid brand, even after all these years. That is why we lost the hardware war.”

“Even though we’d lost the war in the hardware market, I wanted Nintendo to see how great Sega was as a company,” he continued. “We made lots of characters and courses, and we did the best we could for the graphics using the best technology of the time. Even though we’d tried really hard making games for Sega hardware, they never sold too well, but F-Zero sold over 1.5 M copies worldwide. We realised the only thing we needed to admit was that Sega did not have the ability to sell hardware (laughs). That as a developer (…) we did not need to be pessimistic at all.”

In the end, it turns out Nintendo was impressed with his work. Nagoshi recalls receiving a call from Nintendo, who wanted to understand just how he and his team had achieved what they had achieved. “After it released, I got a call from Nintendo,” he said. “They said they wanted to see all the source code for the game, and wanted me to explain how we’d made that game, in that timeframe and with that budget, in detail. They were wondering how we’d done it – they couldn’t figure it out. We were able to achieve something a lot higher than what Nintendo had expected.”

F-Zero GX still remains the best game in the series, and as mentioned, probably the best game in the genre period- so Nagoshi definitely achieved what he wanted to achieve. It’s a shame that, after F-Zero, Nintendo was not willing to work with him on Yakuza– but hey, that series ended up going to Sony instead, and thrived as a result. Someone’s loss is always someone else’s gain.