Star Fox (arcade)

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Star Fox (working title) was an announced but never released arcade title in the Star Fox series of video games, which was first announced at a press conference in May 2002, unveiling the Triforce arcade board. Nintendo had been out of the arcade market for a long time, so this new venture did indeed turn heads; however, Nintendo's plan wasn't to actually start manufacturing and distributing cabinets. It's strategy was instead to license its hardware technology and also, the IP's of its very popular game franchises.

Though Nintendo had previously allowed external development studios to produce it's games (the first major occurrence being Paradigm Systems work on Pilotwings 64), this was unusual as it was actually working with rival publishers.

Like with F-Zero GX/F-Zero AX, the plan seemed to be to release the title both in arcades and on the Nintendo GameCube. The provisional title of the project was "Starfox Armada", a name that was used for certain previews of .

Reading between the lines

The website N-sider reported the following:

Starfox Armada is being developed by the team behind the Ace Combat series which appeared on PlayStation and PlayStation 2. The project manager, Atsushi Shiozawa, who was responsible for Ace Combat 4 will be participating in the Starfox development.

However, Atsushi Shiozawa is only credited as "Special Thanks" on the final game credits [link]. It's possible that the title completely changed direction, at a stage that could have come after early prototyping.

Also from a Japanese press release (Feb 2002):

Triforce, the mother board for next generation arcade machines, will be developed jointly by Namco Ltd., Sega Corp. and Nintendo. It utilizes the applied architecture of the Nintendo GameCube. With the high computer graphics performance of Nintendo GameCube, software developers will have a very cost effective development environment. In addition, the technology is user friendly and allows not only end users but also amusement facility operators to enjoy the advantages of the product. As a result, the companies expect to see more arcade software developed and increased investment efficiencies.

Spin offs

Considering the later Namco colaborations with Nintendo, such the inovative Pac-Man Vs. and the character of Link featuring exclusively in the Nintendo version of Soul Calibur II, it shows the two giants had a strong bond of trust when it came to handling each other's IPs.

The Triforce arcade board did eventually bear additional fruit in the form of Mario Kart Arcade GP. However unlike the original intentions of the project (that games developed for the Triforce platform would end up on the GameCube), this title was developed entirely separately from and released a year later. It's not as if Nintendo would want or permit a home conversion of the former to be released, considering how Namco's efforts were somewhat of a step back from the dual character gameplay of Double Dash!!.

External links

• [Report on the May 2002] joint press conference of Nintendo and Namco
• [Full credits on MobyGames]

 

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