Make Way For ‘Mario Kart Tour’!
The 1990s were a dawn of a new age for video games – sparking classics that live on to this very day, nearly three decades later. Arguably one of the longest-living, successful franchises is the Mario Bros. series.
Something about the lovable plumber, who, with the help of brother Luigi and friends continuously rescues Princess Peach from peril, has kept the games coming for years. The earliest game, Mario Bros., was released in 1985.
With a continually changing market, Mario has had to adapt, and was first taken on the go with the release of Mario Kart for Nintendo DS in 2005. With such high demand in the hugely successful mobile industry, it was only a matter of time before Mario dove into that market as well. On Wednesday, January 31, Nintendo released a statement on Twitter that they would be releasing a Mario Kart game for mobile sometime within the next fiscal year, no later than March 31, 2019.
The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near. A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019. pic.twitter.com/8GIyR7ZM4z
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 1, 2018
The game was preceded by Super Mario Run, released for Apple and Android in December of 2016. That game was met with mixed reviews, landing a 3.7 on Google Play and a 3.9 in the Apple Store.
Mario Kart has been one of Nintendo’s biggest successes since its release in 1992, becoming a party and on-the-go favorite. Mario Kart Deluxe has already earned 7.33 million copies on Switch, putting it in second only to its brother, Super Mario Odyssey, but ahead of the vastly popular Legend of Zelda franchise.
As far as classic games making their way to smartphone apps, there is little that could potentially spark more success than Mario Kart Tour, a game that could potentially bridge multiple generations, from the 90’s kids that grew up with its namesake, to a new era of gamers on their first smartphone looking for something fun and kid-friendly to pass the time.
Details are currently unclear on many of the game’s features- including whether it will be inclusive and GPS-based like Pokemon Go, whether the maps will be new or old, or whether it will be multiplayer. This news comes at around the same time Nintendo announced that they are working on an animated Super Mario film.
What do you think? Would you enjoy playing Mario Kart on smartphone? Should they let the series die or keep pumping them out for new generations of gamers? Leave us a comment below!
