I think that is highly wishful thinking. I’m sure Nintendo has been going through the whole back catalog to find ways to make a battle royale of a game. Once someone saw the risk/reward that F-zero had with boosting depleting your life energy, it becomes a big an instant click. Plus, the racing environment allows all 99 players to interact in a way that none of the other games allowed (the other games were merely sending garbage to the other player.). F-Zero 99 is a good concept for the developers of the 99 games to try and apply. It wasn’t designed as a test to see if the community actually cared about the franchise.

Miyamoto has said that the reason we haven’t seen F-Zero again is that the developers haven’t found a way to differentiate the series in a way that will attract players. Although I feel like any of us could come up with a way (HD, Online play, randomized equipment drops,), Nintendo is convinced that these are not strong enough to justify the development cost.