Those of you who follow Nintendo’s efforts within the mobile gaming scene may remember Mario Kart Tour’s announcement back in January. That being said, we haven’t heard anything about the mobile game outside of its title since that initial announcement. While the mobile game is still shrouded in mystery, Nintendo did confirm during their latest earnings release for H1 2018 that Mario Kart Tour is still on track to release before March 30, 2019.
This window can be deduced by the fact that Nintendo states that the mobile game is poised to arrive this fiscal year in the Consolidated Financial Forecast part of their earnings release. Fiscal Years run from April to March, so FY 2018 ends on March 31, 2019. While we still don’t have a firm release date, Mario Kart Tour would have to release sometime within the next five months for that forecast to be accurate.
Nintendo will likely want to keep things on track as well because Mario Kart is one of its best-selling franchises. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has managed to become the Switch’s second best selling title at 11.71 million units, outpacing even The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild which is currently at 10.28 million units sold. That being said, we still don’t know what Mario Kart Tour’s gameplay even consists of at this time, so we can’t tell if it will feature more traditional Mario Kart gameplay or something more unique.
Silence surrounding upcoming mobile titles isn’t anything new for Nintendo either. Animal Crossing was confirmed to be receiving a mobile game all the way back in April of 2016, but Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp wasn’t fully unveiled in its own direct until October 2017, just a month before its release, with little being said about the title between those two dates. Nintendo has even announced and released Dragalia Lost, an RPG for iOS and Android developed by Cygames, in the time since Mario Kart Tour’s announcement.
Only time will tell what Mario Kart Tour will end up being, but you can be sure DualShockers will let you know when Nintendo decides to finally unveil it. As for Nintendo’s already released mobile titles, the Japanese company pledged to focus on service operations for those games so they remain profitable and people keep playing them for a long time. You can read Nintendo’s full statement on their mobile game plans for the rest of the fiscal year below:
“In our smart-device business during this fiscal year, we plan to release the Mario Kart application for smart devices, Mario Kart Tour, while also focusing on service operations for the applications we have already released so that consumers can enjoy playing them for a long time.”
Mario Kart Tour will release for mobile devices sometime before March 31, 2019. For those of you who would just prefer the console version, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is currently available for Nintendo Switch and can be picked up on Amazon.
This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.