A recent announcement from Nintendo is a major blow to fans of the Mario Kart Tour mobile game: new content will officially cease next month. This comes at the heels of a lot of speculation around the possibility of Mario Kart 9 being announced as a launch title for the upcoming Nintendo Switch successor console.
In the post-Nintendo DS/3DS world, Nintendo and its associated developers have tried to pivot its historically popular handheld gaming reputation into the world of mobile devices. Some of these games like Pokemon GO and Fire Emblem Heroes have been great successes and some like Super Mario Run and Pokemon Unite have been a bit more controversial. Many would have firmly put the mobile kart racer Mario Kart Tour in the success category, but it may fail after Nintendo cuts off new content updates starting in October.
The End of Mario Kart Tour
The announcement came recently that, following the Battle Tour on October 4th, there will be no new content updates for Mario Kart Tour. There will continue to be regular tours but they will consist solely of previously added content.
[Mario Kart Tour]
Nintendo has announced that content updates will end after the Battle Tour (starting Oct 4).
All tours after the Battle Tour will consist of previously added content. pic.twitter.com/0Igg8H915k
— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) September 11, 2023
This is a fairly shocking announcement for players of the mobile kart racer, considering it is a fairly popular game with a rating of 4.2 and more than 100 million downloads on the Google Play store alone. It’s possible that Nintendo is focusing its entire Mario Kart team on the upcoming new main series entry for the series, Mario Kart 9. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains the highest-selling Switch title of all time, and with the follow-up to the Nintendo Switch just around the corner, Nintendo likely wants to ensure that it has a Mario Kart title that can help push the hardware out the door as well. Nothing has been confirmed by the company just yet, however, and there may be more news about why Mario Kart Tour is being pushed out of the door sometime in the near future.
