Nintendo Confirms Mario Kart Is Coming to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Nintendo this week announced that it’s developing an all-new mobile game for iOS, which will at long last bring a Mario Kart-themed gaming experience to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

While stopping short of offering additional details about the title, in a post published to Nintendo of America’s official Twitter page on Wednesday, the company told us, “The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near,” while going on to announce its new title, Mario Kart Tour, which is reportedly in development and slated for a March, 2019 release.

Mario Kart Goes Mobile

Mario Kart is arguably one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises, and includes multiple console titles from the original Super Mario Kart (circa, 1992), to the more recent Mario Kart Wii, 7, 8, and many others in-between.

Given its burgeoning portfolio of console-to-mobile creations thus far, including the latest Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes and Super Mario Run, it only makes sense that Nintendo would endeavor to bring yet another of its wildly popular titles like Mario Kart to the mobile stage.

Unfortunately, as we mentioned, today’s announcement is mum on details beyond the Mario Kart Tour banner photo and the tentative, 2019 launch date. That’s obviously a ways down the road; though we’re sure additional details and images promoting the game will surface between now and its release.

‘Two to Three’ Games a Year

Back in February of 2017, Nintendo announced exciting new plans to release at least two, but possibly three, high-quality games on the iOS App Store every year moving forward. Sometime in 2018, we can expect a mobile variant of the Japanese gaming giant’s popular ‘Legend of Zelda’ franchise to show up on the App Store — but beyond that, this week’s promise of Mario Kart Tour is all we know of so far..

While titles like Super Mario Run might serve as an indication of what’s to come, Nintendo recently went on record saying that it’s “learned a lot” about effective game development and deployment from the title, which apparently fell short of reaching an “acceptable profit point” as of late 2017.

Whether or not its newfound knowledge of how to navigate the mobile game space is enough to render Mario Kart Tour a winner, remains to be seen. It would obviously be wise if Nintendo released a fully-fledged, console-quality Mario Kart game out of the gate on iOS – however, judging from its current mix of paid and “free-to-play-at-first” offerings, we’ll just have to just cross our fingers and hope for the best.