All Articles: Mario Kart Tour

Nintendo has announced that the first Mario Kart game for mobile devices, Mario Kart Tour, will be available to download beginning on September 25.

It looks like in addition to familiar Mario Kart locales like Rainbow Road, Mario Kart Tour will give players the chance to race around real-world locations like the Eiffel Tower and Arc De Triomphe in Paris:

In Mario Kart Tour, players can experience the endless racing fun of Mario Kart while collecting drivers, like Mario, as well as karts and gliders. Players can choose which drivers, karts, and gliders to use in races across a variety of courses, including new takes on classic courses and special City Courses. City Courses, special in-game event courses inspired by real-world locations, will be available during specific time periods at launch and beyond. In addition to courses based on iconic locales, some Mario Kart characters will get variations that incorporate the local flavor of cities featured in the game.

Like most of Nintendo’s mobile offerings, Mario Kart Tour will be free-to-play with some kind of microtransaction-based ecosystem on both iOS and Android devices. While we don’t know how all the costs will shake out just yet, you can sneak a peek at a new Teaser Video and Gameplay Trailer for the game after the break. (more…)

Nintendo plans to launch Mario Kart Tour for Android and iOS devices sometime this Summer, but first they want to put the mobile racing game through its paces in an upcoming Closed Beta.

Android owners in Japan and the United States can head over to the game’s official website and apply for an invitation now, though registration for the limited number of Beta slots will remain open through May 7.

Mario Kart Tour’s Closed Beta will be available beginning on Wednesday, May 22, and run through Tuesday, June 4.

Nintendo announced last year that the Mario Kart franchise would race onto mobile devices in Early 2019, but it looks like the company has put the brakes on that plan for now.

As part of a Consolidated Financial Highlights document the company released alongside their latest quarterly financial report, Nintendo confirmed that Mario Kart Tour will now launch sometime this Summer. If all goes well, this delay will allow Nintendo to “improve [the] quality of the application and expand [the game’s] content offerings after launch”:

In the smart-device business, Mario Kart Tour was scheduled to be released this fiscal year, but in order to improve quality of the application and expand the content offerings after launch, the release date has been moved to summer 2019. As we endeavor to develop future planned applications, we will also focus on continued service operations for applications that have already been released so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.

Aside from its rather snazzy logo, we currently don’t know much of anything about Mario Kart Tour. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

Nintendo’s first batch of mobile games haven’t set the world on fire, but the company has built up a steady following with Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

However… excuse the hokey wordplay… but they might be turning a corner this year.

Nintendo has said they’ll release Mario Kart Tour for mobile devices sometime during their next financial year (April 2018 – March 2019). No other details about the game were announced, but Nintendo has promised to reveal more information about the kart racer in the coming months.