Nintendo and game publisher DeNA will cease development on the mobile game Mario Kart Tour in October. Starting on 4 October, the game won’t get any new content and updates going forward.
DeNA plans on rolling out the Anniversary Tour content on 20 September and the game will still receive content updates in the future. However, these updates will see old content return to the game during events. This means there won’t be any new courses, drivers, karts or gliders in the game to collect.
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Mario Kart Tour has done incredibly well for both Nintendo and DeNA. It earned around $243 million and has been downloaded over 230 million times. It was also the most downloaded free-to-play iPhone game in 2019.
In a message to fans, Nintendo announced the plan for future content saying:
“No new courses, drivers, karts, or gliders will be added following the Battle Tour starting 04/10/2023. We hope you continue to enjoy playing Mario Kart Tour.”
Nintendo didn’t give any reason as to why the developer is dropping content support for Mario Kart Tour. It is likely working on new apps and games to play in the future. Perhaps Nintendo has milked the game as much as possible at this point?
We do know that Nintendo and DeNA saw a major drop in revenue last month when the game got rid of its gacha system. The system saw players spend money on The Pipe to unlock random drivers, karts and other items. The real money system caused some uproar among fans and Nintendo dropped it soon after. DeNA reported a $1 million drop in revenue following the removal of the gacha system.
Nintendo isn’t really a big player in the mobile gaming market. Apart from a handful of mobile games and licensed apps, the company sticks to large software releases on the Switch. We also know there’s a Switch successor coming our way soon which will reportedly run Unreal Engine 5 games.
[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
