With Mario Kart World as the flagship launch game for Switch 2 this year, it’s an unusual time for Sega to be working on its own kart racer starring its iconic blue blur. But Takashi Iizuka, head of the Sonic Team at Sega, not only acknowledged the elephant in the room during this year’s Summer Game Fest — he also tried flexing on the Nintendo franchise.
Following a trailer featuring new characters for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Iizuka took the SGF stage to highlight one major difference between his game and Mario Kart World.
“Unlike the another kart racing game, this game will have online cross-platform matchmaking so you can race against all your friends across all of the platforms,” Iizuka said amid a roaring cheer. As fans know, Mario Kart is a first-party Nintendo franchise that’s exclusive on the Japanese publisher’s own console, so there’s no way to enjoy it with people who own other modern consoles. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, on the other hand, will be on all major platforms when it releases on September 25 — including, ironically enough, the Nintendo Switch.
In addition to unveiling Sega-owned characters like Persona 5’s Joker, the latest trailer for Sonic Racing also revealed that the game will see none other than Minecraft Steve as a playable racer. That’s a major get for Sega, and also highlights another difference between the two racing games. Where Mario Kart only includes major Nintendo characters, Sonic Racing features some rad crossovers, like Hatsune Miku.
Not Iizuka reviving the beef between Sega and Nintendo. It’s all in good fun, of course.
Correction (June 6): This story originally included a misspelling of Iizuka’s name. It has been updated to reflect the correct spelling.