Popular Nintendo 3DS Game Gets First New Update in Over 10 Years

One of the most popular games that Nintendo ever released on its Nintendo 3DS handheld has shockingly received a new title update this week for the first time in over a decade. For the most part, since the release of the Nintendo Switch back in 2017, Nintendo has moved on from supporting games on the 3DS. Outside of a few new titles here and there, the 3DS has been a platform that hasn't been active since 2020. Perhaps for security purposes, though, Nintendo felt the need to go back and release this new update for one of the most beloved titles on its previous handheld platform. 

Within the past day, Nintendo pushed out update version 1.2 for Mario Kart 7 on Nintendo 3DS. This is the first update that the 3DS Mario Kart entry has received since May 2012, which makes this patch pretty baffling to have come about. Currently, Nintendo hasn't provided official patch notes for this Mario Kart 7 update, so it's hard to know exactly what it does. Based on some previous activity from the Japanese video game publisher, it seems that we might have a good idea behind the purpose of this patch. 

[Mario Kart 7]

Version 1.2 is now out. This is the first update that this game has received in 10 years.

This patch might fix a severe security exploit. (Recall the Splatoon 2 / Animal Crossing / etc update a while back.)

I’ll keep everyone updated.https://t.co/7i2ZSp6mYc

— SantamealDome 🎁 (@OatmealDome) December 14, 2022

According to @OatmealDome on Twitter, this new Mario Kart 7 update likely looks to fix an exploit that has been found with older Nintendo games. Within recent months, Nintendo has pushed out patches for some of its previous first-party titles after security errors were discovered. As a way of protecting these older games, Nintendo has slowly been rolling out small updates for various titles that likely fix these exploits. While there's no guarantee just yet that this is what this new Mario Kart 7 patch does, this is the most likely scenario as Nintendo hasn't opted to update the game for any other reason over the past 10 years until now. 

Are you surprised to see that Mario Kart 7 has randomly received a new update on 3DS this week? And do you expect that more patches like this might come to other 3DS titles in the near future? Let me know either down in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @MooreMan12.