I remember when people were sore about Waluigi not being in the game even though he had a course. I like Waluigi, but I don't see what the problem is. Koopa Troopa wasn't in MK64, but it had a Troopa-themed stage with Koopa Troopa Beach. So it's not like that was a new phenomenon.

I think I may have a possible reason for why Waluigi was cut from Mario Kart 7.

The character models in Mario Kart 7 have legs, of course. However, the legs are assigned to a single bone, named "waist", which was most likely done to save on either performance or memory. Most characters worked perfectly well with this limitation, while some had to have their legs shortened; namely Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, Bowser, and DK. Waluigi would have problems with both of these. His legs are quite long, meaning that he would look really awkward trying to fit in the kart, and his leg movement would likely have to be incredibly restricted. However, shortening them would make him look really off. It's possible that the devs didn't want to find a solution for making him look right, so they just scrapped him.

I haven't seen any proof or evidence Waluigi was planned or reasons he wasn't in the game. The only evidence I've seen comes from someone online "claiming" they sent an email directly to the Mario Kart director and got a personal response, which is incredibly hard to believe. They also claimed that the same response said Koopa Kid (from Mario Party) was "retired." While sadly that seems plausible, there's no way in hell a Nintendo rep would just blurt that out in a personally written email response to a fan.

@ZTO Waluigi's looking better than ever now

Just pretend Luigi is purple and pointy, problem solved

Probably to make this entry more different from the others, despite the amount of mechanics it introduced anyways.

Still don't get how they thought "Honey Queen/Wiggler" instead of Waluigi.

@Fawfulthegreat64 Waluigi was planned for mk7. Unfortunately Nintendo ran out of time to add him so they replaced him with metal Mario instead.

Waluigi is infamously not playable in this game (sadly)

EDIT: Oh crap I just noticed that the space at the end of the character portraits has his icon though... is that actually in the game? If so that's a huge proof he was planned at some point.

waluigi? also i didnt know those other colors of shy guy as i only ever played with enough people to be green

I could have sworn there was a Bullet Bill Icon for when someone has that item active.