Let's just be upfront: The blue shell in "Mario Kart" is a frustrating, obnoxious item that we all wish would go away. It's the number one cause of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in any given race.
Nintendo
Watch your back, Wario!
There you are, ahead of the pack by a mile, when suddenly a blue shell comes flying out of nowhere. It crashes down on you, explodes, and drains your coins as kart after kart races past you. With the finish line in sight, you're now in twelfth place. The dreaded blue shell strikes again, and all you've got is your frustration.
The man behind the most recent games in the series, "Mario Kart 7" and "Mario Kart 8" (as well as "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe"), understands your frustration. He's just not going to take out the blue shell because you're upset.
"You know, sometimes life isn't fair. Sometimes in life you have something where you feel that's not right, and that's frustrating," Kosuke Yabuki told Eurogamer in a recent interview. He's kidding, of course. (But also he's clearly not and the blue shell isn't fair.)
Nintendo
Always in the third lap. Always.
Jokes aside, there's precedent for removing the shell: As "Mario Kart" games have evolved over the years, new items have been added while older ones were taken away. The blue shell was not part of the original "Mario Kart" on the Super Nintendo, for instance. Yabuki said that Nintendo continues to experiment with dropping the blue shell:
"We have tried - or we are trying - to see what the game's like without the blue shell. When we've experimented without the blue shell, actually it feels like something's missing."
Maybe fairness is what's missing? Sorry, sorry, that's unnecessary. Anyway, read the full conversation here at Eurogamer.