Mario Kart passes $200m in 18 months

Mario Kart Tour passes $200m in 18 months • Eurogamer.net

Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo's gacha-filled mobile racer which lets you tug on a warp pipe to earn a lederhosen-wearing Luigi, is doing pretty well. It has earned $200m in 18 months, and racked up 200m downloads worldwide.

Store data provided to Eurogamer by Sensor Tower shows that downloads slowed last year versus the game's big launch at the end of 2019 - when Mario Kart Tour was Nintendo's fastest-downloaded smartphone game by quite some margin. Spending, however, has stayed steady.

Nintendo's mobile Mario Kart spin-off officially launched back in September 2019, and is primarily monetised through a gacha-based system which unlocks new in-game items.

It also has expensive fixed-price money packs and a subscription service, Gold Pass, which unlocks further cosmetic items and 200cc races for £5 per month.

For the 12 months ending 31st March, Mario Kart Tour earned $93m worldwide, making it Nintendo's second-biggest mobile money spinner last year.

Fire Emblem Heroes, which earned $163m over the same time period, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which earned $78m, both also rely on gacha mechanics and subscriptions. Dragalia Lost earned $22m, while Dr. Mario World earned $6m, and Super Mario Run earned $5.6m.

Wow Nintendo earing the big bucks from the mobile market.

No wonder Sony want to put some of it's IP on mobile and MS wants Xbox Game Cloud to take off on iOS and Android.

Garbage series being played on a garbage gaming system. Perfect profit.

That's good and all but where's the hell with Mario Kart 9? Tt has been 7 damn years since 8’s release and not even a teaser. And don't start with me on Mario Kart Tour cause that doesn't count!

The article refers only to Mario Kart Tour. So in this case it absolutely does count.

Tried it for a bit and while it is pretty fun I’d much rather play Mario Kart 8: Deluxe on the Switch. Would love to see a Mario Kart 9 someday however with how well MK8 is still selling that may be awhile.

Silly sheep. lol :P

@gym_lion: Fine fine, I'll accept it...for now. Still need that number 9 on the title lol.

You want Mario Kart 9? Wait for the next gen of Nintendo systems.

Traditionally it's been 1 MK per system so tough luck.

That sucks. It's by far. BY FAR. The worst Nintendo game I've ever played.

Who hurt you?

👀

@Litchie: Serves yourself right for playing mobile phone garbage.

Mario Kart 8 is a Wii-U title. There hasn't been a Mario Kart developed for the Switch. Just the old one ported over.

I know it was originally a Wii U title but for all intents and purposes MK8D is the Switch MK. I guess all the changes/additions are enough for Nintendo not to entertain the idea of a new MK on Switch.

Plus there's Home Circuit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I haven't truly enjoyed a Mario Kart since the first one on the SNES. The ai is so boring in it. It's a cash cow. Minimal effort maximum profit, but it's a missed opportunity imo.

Doesn't take much to please the Nintendo crowd 🤣

Now give em more cardboard to build 😂😂😂

I do not understand why some fanboys get emotional for a game that they have little to no interest in.

Guess so. Had this crazy idea that maybe Nintendo would be the ones who could make phone games not suck huge fucking balls. They're usually not happy with their games if they aren't fun.

LOL, how wrong that was.

Yeah no one can make a great mobile phone game because tilting the phone or touching, or a accelerator & brake pedals in the corner of the screen, just terrible way to play games, it just doesn't do it for real gamers.

You can easily bluetooth a controller to phones these days. I use my old X1X controller when I'm using remote play on my phone. Works great.

I agree about touch screen stuff though. Other than the odd puzzle game like Three's it's awful.

My daughter though has grown up playing touch screen on the iPad and she loves them.

Oh for me its more than just the controls, its the small screen, and most stuff on mobile is F2P garbage.

I made sure my kids first foray into gaming was done on console, and while they play on phone/tablet every now & then they like to play on consoles a lot more.

Exactly. You can make good games with those worse than everything else controls you get on phones. But no one does.

Why the **** are there great NDS games using the touch screen, and zero good shit on phones? Why does even Nintendo's phone games suck?

👍

Games can work on phones, but only certain types imo. Like flow free, restaurant management games, solitaire, candy crush, temple run, etc. A game I could see working on mobile is Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, the Wii U Kirby Game.

For the record, Sony owns a mobile game that makes more money than Nintendo and MS mobile games combined:

Fate/Grand Order

Sony is clearly leading the mobile race between them. However, that's a different division, Sony Music Japan (Aniplex), which is separate from Sony Interactive (PlayStation)