Retro Studios president Michael Kelbaugh and Nintendo’s own Kensuke Tanabe sat down for an interview with ONM to discuss how these two companies collaborate with each other, as well as the process of developing Mario Kart 7 and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze at the same time.

“Tanabe-san and his team at SPD are our primary contacts at Nintendo. Please let me be clear: games developed at Retro Studios are a collaboration between members from Retro Studios, SPD and other entities throughout the Nintendo family. It’s a symbiotic relationship that consists of members from all over the world; we are very honoured to be working with such a talented team.

“When we worked on Mario Kart 7, we were working on Tropical Freeze at the same time. Part of the team was working on creating assets for Hideki Konno’s group, the Mario Kart team, and part of our team continued making progress on Tropical Freeze in conjunction with Tanabe-san and SPD.”

Here’s where it gets interesting…

“We consider Retro as part of the Nintendo family and a very capable game development studio. As a Nintendo development team, they will keep working not only with SPD, but also with the teams in Kyoto. They might even work on a title that Miyamoto-san leads directly in the future.”

What game would you like Shigeru Miyamoto and Retro Studios to make if they were to team up?