Nintendo’s Mario Kart Tour to Shut Down in September
Nintendo has announced the closure of its mobile racing game, Mario Kart Tour, with services set to end on September 29 at 11pm PT (8am on September 30 CEST). In a statement shared on social media, the company expressed gratitude to players for their support throughout the game's run. As part of the shutdown process, sales of the in-game currency, rubies, have already ceased. However, players can still utilize their existing rubies in the Spotlight Shop, Mii Racing Suit Shop, and Coin Rush until the game officially closes.
Furthermore, Nintendo has halted all automatic renewals for the Gold Pass subscription and suspended new subscriptions. Players will still be able to enjoy some Gold Pass benefits without the continuous subscription features, and starting August 4, all users can access these benefits for free.
Mario Kart Tour had a rocky debut in 2019, facing backlash due to its gacha-style mechanics. According to estimates from AppMagic, the game saw a peak of 14.7 million downloads within 24 hours of its launch on September 26, 2019. It accumulated 54 million downloads in its first week and reached 81.8 million downloads by the end of its first month. To date, Mario Kart Tour has surpassed 274 million downloads and generated approximately $268.4 million in revenue for Nintendo, as reported by AppMagic.
Why it matters
Despite a lack of new content in recent times, the game reportedly earned $650,000 for Nintendo in the last 30 days. Nintendo's mobile gaming strategy appears to be waning since its entry into the market in 2016 with Super Mario Run, the first official Mario platformer on non-Nintendo hardware. Nonetheless, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa reaffirmed in February 2025 that the company has not abandoned mobile gaming, highlighting that its apps have been downloaded over 900 million times globally as of September 2024. Nintendo Japan is estimated to have generated around $1.59 billion from its mobile apps, with Fire Emblem Heroes being noted as the company's first mobile title to surpass a billion dollars in revenue. The latest mobile release from Nintendo was Pictonico, a photo-based minigame collection, which launched on iOS and Android in May.
Original source
MobileGamer.biz
