Today is unfortunately the end of an era for Nintendo, as the company has shut down one of its most financially successful games. Nintendo long resisted the urge to produce mobile games, but it eventually gave in, launching various games based on its most popular franchises, including Super Mario, Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, and Mario Kart over the years.
Nintendo’s mobile experiments have enjoyed varying degrees of success. Fire Emblem Heroes has been a juggernaut for the company, while Super Mario Run‘s more traditional sales model may have handicapped it a bit in the long run. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was a hit, but Nintendo eventually shut down the servers and released a premium offline version of the game instead. Unfortunately, the same isn’t being done for the latest Nintendo game to be shut down.
Mario Kart Tour Servers Have Been Shut Down
Nintendo has now shut down the servers for Mario Kart Tour, its wildly successful mobile racing game. Mario Kart Tour was criticized for its heavy microtransactions, but that didn’t stop the game from being one of the biggest mobile titles Nintendo has released to date. Why Nintendo has decided to skip releasing an offline version of Mario Kart Tour like it did for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is unclear, but regardless, fans can no longer play the game. As was previously announced, the Mario Kart Tour servers are shut down forever, and there are no plans to bring it back in any capacity, marking the end of an era.
While it’s sad that Mario Kart Tour has shut down, effectively making it impossible for fans to play one of the entries in the beloved series, the good news is that elements of it live on. Mario Kart Tour courses have been recreated for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so fans can still play on some of those tracks if they so desire. It’s not quite the same as playing Mario Kart Tour itself, but most would argue that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a significantly better game than its mobile counterpart anyway. Still, for the sake of game preservation, especially when it comes to a franchise as big as Mario Kart, it’s a shame that the game is now unplayable.
Luckily, the latest Mario Kart game remains active and is readily available to play for anyone that has a Nintendo Switch 2 handy. Mario Kart World was a Switch 2 launch title and earned mostly positive reviews. It took some risks with its open world design, but it has still been mostly embraced by the community. No premium DLC for Mario Kart World has been announced at the time of this writing, but the game did recently receive a free update that expanded the Knockout Tour mode and added Super Mario Kart courses to the game.
Time will tell if Mario Kart World will get premium DLC or more updates. It’s possible that some Mario Kart Tour tracks will be added to Mario Kart World eventually, but fans shouldn’t hold their breath. With the mobile version of the game dead, those interested in reliving Mario Kart Tour will have to be satisfied with the courses that were added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
- Released
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September 25, 2019
- ESRB
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e
- Developer(s)
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Nintendo EPD
- Publisher(s)
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Nintendo
- Engine
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Unity
