After four years of updates, Nintendo has announced that its mobile racing game Mario Kart Tour will no longer receive new content after October 4.
The in-game message was shared to X (formerly Twitter) by longtime dataminer OatmealDome. After thanking the community for playing and announcing the next set of tours (a series of races that last two weeks), Nintendo confirmed that content from October 4 onward will simply be recycled in perpetuity.
“From 10/04/2023 (Wed) on, tours will consist of content from tours that have appeared before,” the company wrote. “Note: No new courses, drivers, karts, or gliders will be added following the Battle Tour starting 10/04/20223 (Wed).”
While the game won’t receive any new updates going forward, Eurogamer reports that Mario Kart Tour will remain playable for the foreseeable future.
Kotaku reached out to Nintendo for comment.
Mario Kart Tour launched in September 2019 and quickly became one of Nintendo’s most lucrative mobile games. As of September 2022, the smartphone spin-off has raked in some $293 million globally, but not without its fair share of controversy. “Spotlight Pipes,” a gacha mechanic that basically functioned like loot boxes with undisclosed odds, drew particular ire from the game’s community. Nintendo removed these pipes in September 2022, but the company is still facing a class-action lawsuit as of May 2023 from a parent who claimed his child shelled out some $170 on Spotlight Pipes via a credit card.
Nintendo has a handful of other mobile games it’s still working on, including Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Super Mario Run. The company, which also saw huge success this year with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, is looking to expand its business, dipping its toes into event organizing and other areas, according to The Washington Post.
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