Nintendo's 'Mario Kart Tour' for iOS will be 'free-to-start'

The next big mobile collaboration between Nintendo and DeNA — "Mario Kart Tour" — will be "free-to-start," according to DeNA's CEO, Isao Moriyasu.

The detail was uncovered by the Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki. The term "free-to-start" has also been applied to some of Nintendo's other smartphone games, such as "Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp."

The term implies that some content will be locked behind a paywall. Only some tracks, vehicles, or characters might be available out of the gate, for example —

alternately, some perks might be easier to obtain by spending real-world money.

So-called "free-to-play" games have become increasingly controversial, since some developers have been accused of making titles "pay-to-win," forcing players to spend money to speed things up, and/or encouraging gambling with blind loot boxes.

At the same time, developers have often had trouble convincing people to spend cash upfront, even though that's common practice with most Windows, Mac, and console games.

"Mario Kart Tour" is due to release sometime during Nintendo's 2019 fiscal year, ending in March 2019. No other information has been released, including even a confirmation that an iPhone/iPad version is coming — past Nintendo phone games have come out for both iOS and Android, however.

7 Comments

tallest skil 43086 comments · 14 Years

About 6 years ago

Look, Nintendo, you fucking idiots, just release all of your games up to and including the GameCube’s library on OS X and the Apple TV (with a controller). Yeah, it’s work to get it to emulate correctly, but it’s not as though people haven’t been doing that for decades. The only work you really need to put in is with a working N64 emulator. The rest is easy. YOU WILL MAKE BILLIONS PER QUARTER. You’ll appeal to everyone who built your company by not releasing pay to win garbage and you’ll actually get new users by releasing full games rather than these mobile half-efforts.

mavemufc 326 comments · 8 Years

About 6 years ago

Just like Mario Run which I eventually paid 9.99 for and haven’t looked at in over a year..

robjn 283 comments · 8 Years

About 6 years ago

mavemufc said:

Just like Mario Run which I eventually paid 9.99 for and haven’t looked at in over a year..

My kids (aged 4 & 6) have played this every day for a year. I have paid 9.99 three times, for each of three Apple IDs. (No Family Sharing for in app purchases.)

It sucks that you can’t flip the iPad upside down and rotate the portrait screen 180 degrees - The kids have destroyed Lightning cables that get bent sharply as the iPad rests on them.

I prefer to pay once then have unlimited use of a full game and typically avoid apps with in-app-purchases.

By making Mario Run an in-app-purchase Nintendo make more money out of families whilst at the same time somewhat misleadingly carrying the “Supports Family Sharing” sticker.

I’d pay 9.99 to 15.99 for a good Mariokart game on iOS.