Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart Tour, the company's smartphone racing game, will officially cease operations on September 29, 2024, at 11:00 PM Pacific Time. The game, which launched in September 2019, has been running for seven years and is one of Nintendo's remaining mobile titles.
In a statement, Nintendo expressed gratitude to the game's player base. "We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago," the company wrote.
Mario Kart Tour's closure marks the end of a service that was initially met with controversy due to its reliance on gacha mechanics for unlocking characters and karts. Nintendo later transitioned to a more conventional item shop system in 2022, alongside introducing a subscription service known as the Gold Pass. Currently, the sale of in-game currency has been suspended, and automatic renewals for the Gold Pass subscription have been halted. Players will continue to have access to subscription-level benefits until the game's final shutdown.
Unlike the shutdown of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Nintendo has confirmed that there will be no offline version of Mario Kart Tour made available for players after the servers are taken offline. A brief FAQ page on the matter stated, "An offline version is not scheduled for release." This means that several tracks unique to Mario Kart Tour will become unplayable permanently.
The closure of Mario Kart Tour further shrinks Nintendo's mobile game catalog. Titles such as Fire Emblem Heroes, Dragalia Lost (which shut down in 2022), Super Mario Run, and Pikmin Bloom, the latter of which is developed with Pokémon Go creator Niantic, remain operational. Nintendo has also ventured into new mobile app formats, including Pictonico!, which transforms camera roll images into WarioWare-style minigames.
While Mario Kart Tour's development contributed tracks to the expansion pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch, its discontinuation leaves a gap in Nintendo's mobile offerings. The company's focus may increasingly shift towards its console platforms, potentially positioning future Mario Kart experiences for hardware like the upcoming Switch 2.