February 18^th, 2005 (1:21am) - Nintendo and Namco have once again teamed up and this time it’s to bring Nintendo’s infamous Mario Kart franchise to the arcade scene with Mario Kart Arcade GP.

Mario Kart Arcade GP is being developed by the arcade racing gurus at Namco for the Triforce arcade board, which is based on the architecture of the GameCube, created in a joint venture between Namco, Sega, and Nintendo. The game will stay true to the item battle concept introduced with the original game on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and will be developed under Nintendo’s supervision. However, Nintendo has given Namco the creative freedom to develop the game as they see fit. Mario Kart Arcade GP made its public debut earlier today at Namco’s booth at the AOU 2005 Amusement Expo and contained Namco’s Pac Man as a playable character.

The game has introduced some new technologies and gameplay features unseen in previous installments of the series. One of these new technologies in the NamCam 2. The NamCam 2 takes pictures of player’s faces and puts it above their carts during a race for all their competitors to see on their respective screens. In addition, Namco is also implementing a "rubber band system" that keeps the mobility of the karts consistent, as seen in games such as Sega’s OutRun 2, and will include a rewriteable magnetic card feature that allows players to save their progression, items, etc. to continue at another time.

Mario Kart Arcade GP is scheduled to hit Japanese arcade in the fall. No word on whether we’ll see the game overseas.