Mario Kart World Continues To Reveal Nintendo's Biggest Weakness 8 Months After Launch

I was not the most staunch defender of Mario Kart World when it launched, but my opinions on it have softened over time. Indeed, while my unhealthy obsession with its predecessor will almost always trump my affection for Mario Kart World, I now have a respect for it, what it managed to accomplish, and the many meaningful innovations it brought to the table. At the very least, the sheer scale of World is a sight to behold, and while not quite worth buying a Nintendo Switch 2 for (I’d wait until Monolith Soft brings out its next game to do that), it is nevertheless an impressive spectacle I enjoy returning to time and time again.

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This newfound admiration of Mario Kart World has led me, over the past few months, to play it almost ad nauseam as I watch Trope RPG or other D&D content on YouTube in the background. It has become a rather enjoyable pastime, something that genuinely uplifts me at a time when things can often feel rather bleak. However, there is only so much content available in Mario Kart World, and only so many times I can thrash my AI-controlled opponents and feel some level of satisfaction. So, naturally, I began furiously searching for Mario Kart World DLC and, in doing so, found myself once again coming toe-to-toe with Nintendo’s frustrating business practices and with a burning desire to discuss its biggest weaknesses.

The Lack Of Mario Kart World DLC Is Frustrating

I felt somewhat assured that Mario Kart World would get some form of DLC fairly close to its launch window, or, at the very least, an announcement of one. After all, Mario Kart World broke records by being the fastest-selling Mario Kart game in Japan. Additionally, Nintendo released DLC for Donkey Kong Bananza just three months after launch. Similarly, Pokémon Legends: Z-A received DLC three months post-launch, and while technically published by The Pokémon Company, Nintendo makes up a third of said company. It isn’t as if the Mario Kart series is unfamiliar with DLC, as Mario Kart 8 received not one but two separate waves of DLC, the first on Wii U and the second for its Switch re-release.

There was even plenty of fan speculation around Mario Kart World DLC, with many assuming that Nintendo had some form of Donkey Kong-focused maps and characters coming to the game in the near future. Of course, all of that is yet to transpire as Nintendo hasn’t released any DLC for Mario Kart World, nor announced plans to. Now, I am aware that DLC for a game of this size would take a considerable amount of time, and, therefore, I am not really expecting Nintendo to churn out masses of DLC for it within just a few months. However, even the faintest of whispers about potential new maps, modes, or characters would be more than enough, especially as Nintendo has a frustrating tendency to withhold DLC for the series that need it the most.

Nintendo’s DLC Problem Shouldn’t Affect The Switch 2

Not every game released needs DLC, and, indeed, many experiences thrive by telling a self-contained story that doesn’t rely on additional content to flesh out unexplained details. However, for the majority of Nintendo’s titles, games typically designed around replayable experiences, DLC feels like a necessity rather than a luxury. This is because while what is provided is usually of an extremely high quality, far too often Nintendo doesn’t include enough of it, forcing players to replay the same handful of maps ad nauseam until they become so bored they search for a competitor.

This was perhaps not an issue when games like Mario Party and Kart didn’t have any serious competition, and thus Nintendo could trust that players would just buy the next game to satisfy their craving. However, the recent LEGO Party, in many ways, is better than Nintendo’s offering, and the burgeoning Sonic Racing series has been an enormous success. Indeed, the latter example has received numerous pieces of DLC, both paid and free, since launch, including an enormous roster of new characters from both SEGA’s library of games and beyond, and it was released three months after Mario Kart World.

I’m not convinced that Nintendo can afford not to support its games post-launch without losing a significant portion of its fanbase to its competitors. If they’re offering more or less the same experience (and sometimes even a better one) for a lower price and with more content, surely people will be more inclined to buy those games than Nintendo’s? Perhaps brand loyalty is so unbelievably high that Nintendo can continue to get away with releasing barebones experiences, but I’d argue that one only needs to look at the once “too big to fail” Call of Duty to see how swiftly a studio can lose its dedicated fans.

Nintendo May Be Playing The Long Game With Mario Kart World’s DLC

There is a part of me that feels as if Nintendo is learning its lesson and beginning to understand not just the value that DLC has for players, but also the immense revenue potential it brings. Between March 2022 and December 2025, during which time Nintendo released the DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, 23.77 million copies of said game were sold. That accounts for a third of the game’s total sales within just a third of the game’s lifespan. That may seem insignificant, but one also has to account for the fact that by 2022, it had been out for 5 years, meaning sales should have begun to dwindle. While Nintendo hasn’t confirmed a correlation between Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s continued high performance after such a long period with the release of its DLC, it very much seems as if there is one.

It would be foolish not to attempt to replicate this success, and perhaps that is exactly what it is doing. Nintendo may very well be biding its time until sales begin to dwindle to release Mario Kart World DLC. That way, it can try to ape the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s slow-burn DLC that managed to incentivize those who were still on the fence to buy it 5 years after it had released. Or, it is altogether possible that Nintendo simply has no interest in releasing DLC for Mario Kart World, and we’ll all sit idly by twiddling our thumbs in the hopes that it changes its mind.