Nintendo is winding down service for its 2019 mobile game Mario Kart Tour later this year.<\/p>\n
Announced via a FAQ<\/a>, racing will come to an end on September 29. “We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago,” the company says.<\/p>\n Nintendo hasn’t publicly disclosed the total number of active players or downloads of Mario Kart Tour. Appmagic data sourced by mobilegamer.biz<\/a> in late 2022 suggested the game earned over $220 million during its first three years, racking up over 204 million downloads along the way.<\/p>\n Now, as noted in a separate FAQ<\/a>, an offline version of Mario Kart Tour is “not scheduled for release.” As of yesterday, Nintendo has ceased the sale of rubies, the premium in-game currency, and stopped automatic subscription renewals and new subscriptions to the game’s Gold Pass.<\/p>\n Nintendo has had a thorny history with the monetization for the mobile game. Originally, Mario Kart Tour featured a gacha-like mechanic where players could get random drivers, karts, and other items by spending in-game currency. The company announced its removal in 2022<\/a>, replacing it with a shop featuring a rotating inventory of specific digital goodies.<\/p>\n