A Nintendo game, which is to say, a game internally developed by Nintendo itself, is shutting down at the end of the month and will be unplayable for millions as a result. And not just partially unplayable, but completely unplayable. The shutdown of the game was announced back in July. And at the time, a shutdown date of September 30 was given. If you were holding out, hoping for this shutdown date to be pushed back — which has happened in the past, but it’s very rare — it doesn’t appear this is on the table because September has arrived and there is no word of a postponement.
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The Nintendo game in question is not a Nintendo Switch game nor a Nintendo Switch 2 game. It’s not a Wii U or even a Wii game. It’s a mobile game released in 2019, aka Mario Kart Tour, which has been downloaded by over 200 million users to date. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of these users no longer play the kart racing game; otherwise, Nintendo would be shutting its servers. Those who still are, though, or those who have it on their device but have stopped playing, have a few weeks before the app becomes obsolete. Nintendo could still delay the shutdown date, but it’s never done this before, and if it were going to do that, it probably would have done it in August.
2019 Nintendo Game
For those unfamiliar with the game, Mario Kart Tour is a free Mario Kart game on mobile devices. Of course, like most free games, it is monetized with microtransactions, and it does have light gacha elements. You can dump infinite hours into the game without spending any real money, but it’s certainly designed to entice you to spend money. That said, a big reason it has over 200 million downloads to date is that it is free.
Is it any good? Well, with critics, it earned a 59, but this was at launch, when it was undeniably inferior compared to what it is today. And while it didn’t impress critics, it impressed those who downloaded it. To this end, it has a 4.7 out of 5 stars on the App Store after over a million ratings. On Android, meanwhile, it has 4.3 out of 5 stars after more than 2.1 million ratings.
Will Mario Kart Tour ever get a sequel? Probably not. Not a direct sequel. There will almost certainly be another Mario Kart game on mobile in the future, but at the moment, Nintendo has slowed down its experimentation with mobile releases compared to the 2010s, as many gaming companies have.
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