After a few months of eagerly awaiting anything in the form of news, earlier this week Nintendo finally hit us with a release date for Mario Kart Tour. The first foray onto iOS and Android for the iconic franchise, which in itself is a spinoff of an even more iconic franchise. Either way, we're excited for it, even if it does seem that - like other mobile Mario games - we will have to pay for extras very early on in the "free" game.
As excited as we are for Tour, we have asked ourselves whether it is really needed. It might be Mario Kart's first mobile game, but it is not the first time gamers have been able to play a Mario Kart title on the move. We can do that right now via Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch. Plus - and we don't mean to disparage Tour before it has even arrived - we'd imagine the Switch offering is more in-depth than its mobile cousin is going to be.
It's not as if interest in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is dwindling either. Even though the game is more than two years old and is effectively just a juiced-up version of Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, the game's sales are still sky-high. Not only is it the Switch's best-selling game full stop with almost 18 million copies sold and counting, but it has consistently remained in the console's top ten since its release. Not only does that mean gamers are still buying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but it also means Nintendo can still sell it for the same price as when it was first released.
If you're thinking that Mario Kart Tour is being released in anticipation of a drop off in Switch interest, and thus interest in its Mario Kart title, well, that's where you would be very wrong. Five days before the arrival of Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo aficionados will be able to get their hands on the newly released Switch Lite. That means Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be even more mobile than before since the updated console won't have a dock, so will exclusively be used by gamers on the move.
This obviously isn't the first time Mario has ventured onto mobile. Super Mario Run and the recently released Dr. Mario World are both available now. Despite Super Mario Run being downloaded more than 300 million times to date, the game has ultimately been considered a failure. In an attempt to avoid microtransactions, Nintendo offered up the first few levels for free, then the rest of the game required players to spend $10. For many players, that paywall will have come as a surprise, and an unwelcome one at that.
Judging by what we know about Mario Kart Tour so far, it will not feature a paywall like Super Mario Run. Instead, Nintendo has caved and microtransactions will be a big part of the game. Which begs the question we are ultimately trying to answer - are players even going to bother? There will undoubtedly be a spike in downloads when the game is released on September 25, 2019, but once people start having to spend, chances are they will revert back to ol' faithful on the Switch.