Nintendo Pulling Mario Kart Tour, Switch Consoles, from Stores
- Mario Kart Tour shuts down on September 29; no offline version is planned.
- Nintendo is retiring the game despite its strong mobile revenue.
- Original Switch sales end in the EU in February 2027 due to new battery rules.
Nintendo is no stranger to mobile gaming, with endless runner Super Mario Run a consistent earner for the company (it brought in approximately $60K last month). However, one of its other top titles, Mario Kart Tour, is off to video game heaven as Nintendo is delisting it on September 29 this year. It also announced plans to stop selling Switch 1 consoles in the EU.
Currently available through the App Store and Google Play, Mario Kart Tour lets players race around locations based on real world places, as well as ones from other Mario Kart games. It’s free-to-play and includes in-game purchases. However, with the imminent delisting these have all been made free.
“Service for the Mario Kart Tour game for smart devices will come to an end as of 11:00 p.m. Pacific on September 29,” Nintendo said in an official announcement on the game’s website. “We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago.”
“In conjunction with the end of service, we have ended the sale of rubies. Note that rubies can be used in the Spotlight Shop, Mii Racing Suit Shop, and Coin Rush until service ends.”
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Pedal to the Metal
The last Mario Kart Tour event was last July, when the game received crossover content with Mario Kart World: Mechanic Mario and Mechanic Luigi skins, along with the Tiny Titan kart (and three recolours of this). Its lack of content acted as a sign that the game was likely on the way out, compounded by less-than-stellar reviews (common complaints include that the game regularly pretends to use multiplayer even though this is a feature, and that it regularly crashes).
Despite all this, the game holds high ratings across both Android and iOS. Plus, good news for fans of the game, or even those who want to try it out before Nintendo kills it: a bunch of benefits are accessible for free for the time being.
This isn’t the first Nintendo mobile game that’s bit the dust, either, as the free-to-play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp smartphone game ended service in November last year. In that case, it was so Nintendo could replace it with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, an offline version sold for around $20. Regarding Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo has said that “An offline version is not scheduled for release.”
Skidmarks
Mario Kart Tour launched as a gacha game but removed these elements in favour of an in-game store in late 2022. Sensor Tower data shows that the game was pulling in $200K revenue last month on Android, $300K on iOS, so it’s unclear why Nintendo are pulling the plug on something that makes more money than Super Mario Run.
Meanwhile, Nintendo still has five smartphone apps available other than the premium Animal Crossing title. Its most recent release is Pictonico!, which lets gamers turn their own photos into minigames because why not. Nintendo also unleashed Hello, Mario! and Hello, Yoshi! into the world last year; two apps that are more like interactive toys aimed at preschoolers than traditional games.
And then there’s Pikmin Bloom, an objectively cute game-meets-fitness app from Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go. an augmented reality game that rewards real-world steps with in-game Pikmin, that follow you around and grow flowers in their wake. The game tracks steps and offers regular challenges, with the most recent being this coming weekend and tasks players with walking 10K steps to unlock new game content.
An Old Banger
All of these games are a far cry from Nintendo’s original plans to bring all its tentpole franchises to mobile devices. In a 2015 interview with Time magazine, Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata said “For Nintendo, being able to make use of the enormous IP library that we have carefully nurtured for more than 30 years is a major strength. We would like to create several hit titles simultaneously by effectively leveraging the appeal of Nintendo IP, which many people around the world are familiar with.”
When asked if there was anything he wouldn’t do, regarding mobile games, Iwata said: “We will not do anything that may hurt Nintendo’s brand image—that parents can feel safe giving their children access to it.”
It’s worth noting that this interview also alludes to NX, which was the codename for the first Switch. This week, Nintendo revealed that it’s going to stop selling these consoles in Europe early next year.
“From mid-February 2027, almost 10 years after Nintendo Switch launched in March 2017, Nintendo will no longer sell to retailers hardware in the Nintendo Switch family of systems – specifically Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch OLED Model,” the company posted on its site. This is down to EU laws coming into effect that require newly-manufactured devices to contain user-replaceable batteries, which the Switch doesn’t have. Nintendo confirmed that the Switch 2 will roll out with user-replaceable batteries, and that original version of the first Switch will still be sold in other countries.
