VB Mario Kart

VB Mario Kart
Literally the only official reference to VB Mario Kart.
Information
Developer(s)	Nintendo
Distributor(s)	Nintendo
Platform(s)	Virtual Boy
Released	Never
Genre(s)	Racing Game

VB Mario Kart (VBマリオカート) was a proposed Mario Kart game for the Virtual Boy console. It was canceled sometime during its production because of Virtual Boy's lack of success.

Barely anything is known about this scrapped Mario Kart title, other than a few details from a German gaming magazine, The Big N.

VB Mario Kart also reuses lots of visuals from previous games like reusing the title screen from Mario Kart: Super Circuit.

The Big N Information

In August of 2000, there was an article about the Virtual Boy console in The Big N, a German magazine about video game stuff. One of the sections, "Die verlorenen Spiele," or "The lost Games," gave a rundown of all the canceled games for the failed gaming system.

One of the titles on the list was VB Mario Kart. The only information given on the page is that Nintendo was to be the distributor, the genre was "Rennspiel" ("Racing game"), and that the USA was the land of origin. No pictures, character rosters, or track ideas are given—that's all The Big N says...

Trivia!

• "VB Mario Kart" seems to be just a BETA name for the proposed Virtual Boy title. And using context clues, it obviously stands for "Virtual Boy Mario Kart."
• According to the Super Mario Wiki, VB Mario Kart was in the planning stage in 1995.[1] If it had been released that year, it would have been the second Mario Kart, ahead of Mario Kart 64.
• In 2008, a homebrew video game developer named DogP created Mario Kart: Virtual Cup, a tech demo for the Virtual Boy. There wasn't much to this project, although it wasn't really meant to be a complete game. Some have speculated that Mario Kart: Virtual Cup is actually the game Nintendo was planning on releasing for the Virtual Boy, but the fact is that Nintendo had nothing to do with DogP's homebrew. Many of the incomplete elements from this game were inspired by Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit... here are a few of the homebrew's features:
  • A very similar Title Screen to Mario Kart: Super Circuit, differing only in the subtitle and color (the entire game is red and black because of the hardware).

    

    Toad drifting around a SNES Mario Circuit 1 corner in Mario Kart Virtual Boy.

    3 Modes: Cup Race, Time Trial, and Battle Mode. Only Time Trial functions.
  • 8 Racers: Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Toad, Wario, Peach, Yoshi, and D K.
    • All of the drivers have the same design animations from the original Super Mario Kart during races.
    • The character animation for Donkey Kong in races (not on title or selection screen) is actually Donkey Kong Jr., from Super Mario Kart.
  • 4 Cups: The Mushroom Cup, which included SNES Mario Circuit 1, the Flower Cup, which included SNES Ghost Valley 2, the Star Cup, which included SNES Rainbow Road, and the Special Cup, which doesn't work.
  • SNES Mario Circuit theme for all courses.

Gallery

Zooming into The Big N magazine page, we see VB Mario Kart (3rd down).

Why make a new title screen for Mario Kart: Virtual Cup when Mario Kart: Super Circuit's will do just fine?

No new characters for Mario Kart: Virtual Cup. But what do you expect?

A screenshot from Mario Kart: Virtual Cup. The blur at the bottom is an unfinished animation of Bowser.