Nintendo announces Mario Kart Tour for mobile, coming by March 2019

Another one of Nintendo’s iconic video game franchises is on its way to mobile within the next year or so.

It famously took a long time for Nintendo to embrace mobile gaming, as the company held firm in its belief that having its IPs on its own hardware was best for business. But what began as a trickle with Miitomo (R.I.P.) and Super Mario Run is becoming a flood, and Mario Kart Tour is prepared to ride on the crest of the next wave.

What’s that? Haven’t heard of Mario Kart Tour?

That’s because Nintendo casually revealed it in a tweet on Wednesday night.

That two-sentence tweet also represents the sum of our knowledge of Mario Kart Tour so far. Anything else is just educated guessing.

So let’s give that a go. Both iOS and Android seems a given. Nintendo seems to be moving toward stereotypical free-to-play monetization as it goes, so we’ll say it’ll be free to download and supported by in-app purchases. Maybe extra power-ups or unlocking new karts or skins.

The bigger questions are whether it will be a full Mario Kart experience or something lesser than that. And since a big part of the fun of the series is playing against friends (or as a colleague put it, “the true fun of MK is destroying relationships”), live multiplayer would be the killer app for this app, so to speak. If it has that, look out. This could be a runaway smash.

We’ll have to wait and see if that’s the case, but Nintendo seems to be learning a bit more about mobile games, which franchises would fit them and how that part of the gaming industry works with each new release. We’ll be keeping close tabs on Mario Kart Tour and fill you in on all subsequent details as they emerge.