Nintendo Delays Its Mysterious Mario Kart Mobile Game
Nintendo has delivered its latest round of financials, and though much of the focus is on the Switch and whether or not it'll hit the lofty sales goals Nintendo set for its current fiscal year, there's also some news on the mobile front. As it turns out, Nintendo's next mobile game, Mario Kart Tour, has been delayed a bit. While it was originally scheduled to be out at some point before the end of March, Nintendo now says that it will be launching in the summer.Mario Kart Tour was first revealed back in January 2018 (in fact, it was announced precisely one year ago today), and at the time, Nintendo said the game would be out before the end of the fiscal year ending March 2019. That was all that was said about the game, so if you'd forgotten Mario Kart Tour was a thing over the past year, you definitely aren't alone.
Fast forward a year and now we've got a new release window – as announced by Nintendo of Japan on Twitter today – but no additional details. Mario Kart Tour is still largely a mystery beyond its title, as Nintendo has yet to share any screenshots, videos, or even talk about the game in any depth. It's hard to be disappointed about a delayed game when you know next to nothing about it, so at least Nintendo has that going for it.
Nintendo has been experimenting with a number of different monetization strategies when it comes to mobile games. Super Mario Run, for instance, is a free-to-start game that eventually asks players to pony up $10 to unlock the full game. Fire Emblem Heroes and Dragalia Lost, on the other hand, are gacha games that make their money primarily through random hero summons.
It's difficult to guess at what kind of monetization structure Mario Kart Tour will use since we know so little about the game. Hopefully more details start arriving soon, if for no other reason than it'll be interesting to see how Mario Kart translates to mobile devices. We'll let you know when Nintendo finally spills some actual information about the game, so stay tuned for that.