Nintendo's Mario Kart Tour Is Getting A New Update Soon, Raises The Level Cap

Nintendo Life writers writing about Mario Kart Tour:

Oh COME ON!!! You gotta be kidding!!!

If the level caps aren't increased, then the game will stop making money and will end.

I like the game enough to accept this inevitable change, for now anyway.

You do know it is called Mario kart tour. Not Nintendo’s mobile Mario kart.

Reminder that raising the level cap only harms players, and already takes an absurd amount of gacha pulls to max out even one high-end item.

It’s a pity about all the micro transactions shenanigans, because tour has some really good ideas in there, stuff I’d love to see the next entry do.

Primarily, the multiple variants of the same courses…
They have a variation of Kalamari desert that actually requires you to drive on the train tracks… that’s really cool!

Or you the yoshis circuit reverse track, that has you drive over the middle of the island, so that half of the track you actually aren’t driving reverse at all, but the right way, before crossing over and finishing the lap backwards.

There’s some cool stuff in there. I just hope it’s not ignored because the public hate against the (admittedly terrible) micro transactions. Not the worst MTS I’ve seen… there’s far, far, far worse out there, but it’s still not good

I can kinda see why Nintendo went down the gacha route (besides, y’know, money).

They tried doing things less… scumbagily… with Mario run.

But people didn’t buy that, so they reverted to what has been proven to work.

Would be nice if they found an alternate method, but oh well.

The racing part is pretty fun. Although this does have some horribly unfair moments of “getting pelted by OP items, and then getting nothing useful when you’re in last”.

"Mario Kart" and "level cap" are two phrases that should never be in the same sentence or headline together, and shame on those who would put them there (which technically includes myself for bothering to click and write this comment ).

Mario Kart Tour, the game that keeps on taking!

@Yosher,

Yet it's never taken a penny or cent from me, still had loads of fun with it.

Mario kart tour. The game that keeps giving.

@johnvboy Well I'm happy for you there.

@Yosher,

Only pointing out that you do not have to spend money to play the game and have some fun with it. and if people want to spend it's up to them at the end of the day, who are we to judge.

@johnvboy My problem isn't that people are enjoying the game without spending money, it's that Nintendo made Mario Kart into a gacha heavy game to begin with. People enjoying it despite that doesn't suddenly make it better, in my opinion, and these types of games make me fear for the future of the industry where gacha mechanics will become more and more common and at some point maybe even get the upper hand.

I hope I'm just worrying too much on that front but I for one am not going to support any such game, even the free components of such games.

I do apologize if I complain about it too much though, I'm genuinely glad people are still able to enjoy them despite aforementioned worries.

@Yosher,

I think we have discussed this many times before, and the mobile market has a different revenue stream to traditional console games, although a lot of the traditional console games have employed DLC and micro transactions etc for ages now.

It is down to personal choice and perspective, as If I say to my wife and daughter for example, that I am spending $50 or so on a single game, they will feel this is expensive, but will have little issue spending little bits money on Roblox etc, of course these small amounts soon mount up, but are never seen in the same vein as one large upfront payment.

And Nintendo did try and go down a different route with the Mobile Mario run game, but it was clear the mobile market does not like that kind of structure.

As for the mobile mechanics coming into more traditional games, I am afraid they are already here, but I doubt we will ever get to a stage where it's only more simple mobile type entertainment that's available.

@johnvboy yes me too, actually think this is a gatcha game done right in a way.. i get to play a few levels on work or something, get some new drivers... and it's free..

i think those games are mainly a problem when they stop you from playing become some articial thing has to be full again...
(and saw some beta footage recently, where nintendo was exploring that road before releasing this version)

Still wondering jow mario run failed so badly though.. it's a nice mario-esque game, with lots of content and modes.. stupid that our expectations of a mobile game are so fundamentally f***d by the different businessmodels...

@romanista,

Mario run just does not fit into the mobile pay structure.

@johnvboy I hope you're right on that but this whole thing is still worrying, and I still don't like the road these games are taking either. It really feels like they're trying to milk the fans for every penny, even if you can play the game for free.

But eh, it's whatever at this point I guess. Hope you can keep enjoying the game either way!

Kinda hope they keep updating Tour with more tracks until there's enough for Nintendo to release a second Booster Course Pass, and then we have virtually every single Mario Kart course in 8 Deluxe, lol.

@Yosher,

I think Nintendo tend to do DLC the right way, and it's normally pretty good value.

@Fath
Two phrases that should never be in the same sentence are:
Mario Kart.
Level Caps.

See, it's easy!

@johnvboy
it takes time.
Time is money.

Gacha Mechanics are the reason I hate XenoBlade Chronicles 2!

@johnvboy Agreed, but that still doesn't excuse their mobile shenanigans IMHO. But I do love their regular game DLC 9 times out of 10.

Hi everyone, I have played Mario Kart Tour since the 2nd tour (Oct. 2019) and have been a gold pass player since Feb. 2020. I like the game and play it almost every day. I am not terribly good at the game but I have fun with it anyway. I am kind of sad the level 8 came out so soon since we just got level 7 this time last year but it think it is okay that it happened. I just hope that level 9 is at least a year and a half away at this point. I understand that some people will quit the game or cancel their gold pass buy that's their opinion. Have a good day everyone.

@Yosher,

Nintendo needed to widen their revenue streams, for two reasons, one the money obviously, and secondly more brand awareness, I do not mind them diversifying as long as it does not detract from their core business, at the moment they have the right balance.

@Yosher,

Can't wait for the Mario kart tour tracks to be available in Mario Kart 8 deluxe.

@johnvboy True, but I must admit it's also a little painful to see all that great content being added to the mobile games that seemingly will not be added to the core games.

The tracks coming to MK8D is great, but there's also other stuff like all those characters and costumes, reverse tracks, trick versions of the tracks, and what have you, which, so far, seems to be entirely locked behind the mobile gacha game, and that just doesn't sit right with me.

Regardless, I can't wait for the MKTour tracks to be in MK8D! I may not be a fan of the mobile game but the tracks always seemed fun at least so I'll be looking forward to playing those for the first time.

@Yosher,

I suspect Nintendo will be saving stuff for the next Mario Kart game on the Switch 2.

@johnvboy I would hope that's the case and I would be perfectly fine with that, and if it does include all the cool stuff that Tour introduced (or at least, most of it), then I'll feel better about Tour existing alongside it too.

@Yosher,

By the way, love your new Avatar, big Yoshi fan myself.

No idea why people surprised of decisions to promote mobile Gacha route for this game. You literally have FE Heroes that is all about this.

I don't mind the level cap increase if Nintendo would just balance it back out by increasing the daily coin limit, give more opportunities to earn tickets and reduce the amount of tickets required to level up.

Now it's going to be a slow painful grind to level 8, worse if you are F2P. This is how Nintendo convert FP2 players to Gold pass members. And let's not forget Nintendo quietly reduced the chance of getting high end tickets in the daily shop from 10% to 6%. Really scummy of Nintendo to do that.

Honestly I'd rather it stay the way it is. I just wanna max out at least ONE character