"Wave Race 64" was developed by Nintendo EAD and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto as one of the first Nintendo 64 games. It is a follow-up to the 1992 Game Boy title "Wave Race". Development of the game was led by Shinya Takahashi, who had been working with Nintendo since 1989. Takahashi, along with Yoshiaki Koizumi, who worked with Miyamoto on "Super Mario 64", is credited for helping the company effectively make its paradigmatic leap from the 16-bit 2D graphics of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo 64's 3D capabilities. Since the game's engineers only had experience with the 2D graphics of earlier Nintendo consoles, Takahashi had to guide them through the first stages of development. While experimenting with the Nintendo 64's Silicon Graphics technology, one of the programmers created a tech demo that served as an example of the game's wave programming. The tech demo caught the attention of Miyamoto, and soon the team began to figure out a way to create "something fun" from it.