Despite the summer almost being over, Nintendo still insists Mario Kart Tour will be released on iOS and Android before the fall.

Since the dawn of the franchise all the way back in 1993, Mario Kart has become perhaps the most successful spinoff of all time. Its titles never fail to sell copious amounts of copies, regardless of the platform they're released on. However, later this year, the racing game may face its toughest challenge yet in the form of Mario Kart Tour.

Mario Kart Tour will be the franchise's first foray into mobile gaming and is scheduled for release on iOS and Android this summer. However, the summer is about to come to a close and there's still no sign of an official release date. The last news we heard about the game was via the lucky few who had the chance to play the beta earlier this year.

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via gamesindustry.biz

Despite the summer quickly drawing to a close, Nintendo remains adamant that Mario Kart Tour will be released before it ends. It confirmed as much while discussing its financial results last week, reports VGC. That's all well and good, but it still declined to give an exact date, which makes us think it will likely not be rolled out until the fall since summer is basically over.

Despite only a handful of players getting the chance to play the game so far, it has already been widely criticized. That's due to it using a gacha monetization system which will likely require players to pay real money to get their hands on rare racers. That's bad enough if those racers don't give players a competitive advantage, but it seems that they actually will.

As the war regarding loot boxes rages on, Mario Kart Tour's developers are being incredibly brave by toying with that pay-to-win line. Perhaps the game's release has been delayed so that these mechanics can be altered. Dr. Mario World was released on mobile earlier this year, and even though it has raked in more than other titles in the genre, it's the worst-performing Mario mobile game to date.

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