Nintendo peripherals don’t just grow on digital trees. Real live people have to design them. Whether it’s the Zapper or the steering wheel, a ton of research and thought goes into them. During the design process for the wheel, Nintendo studied steering wheels from many go karts to make sure they got things just right.

They tried roughly 30 designs before they got it the way they wanted. I personally can’t wait to play some Mario Kart and if I know Nintendo, their final wheel may not look as cool as some of the ones above, but it should perform very nicely.

[wired] VIA [Slashgear]