Mario Kart will be playable on phones by March 2019
Nintendo announced Mario Kart Tour on Wednesday, a game for iOS and Android devices.
Yeah, Animal Crossing on mobile is good, but have you ever tried mobile Mario Kart?
No, you haven't, because there is no Mario Kart on iOS or Android. That will change though, as Nintendo Wednesday made a big announcement via Twitter: Mario Kart is coming to mobile platforms in the form of Mario Kart Tour.
Not much information on the game was announced, though Nintendo did note that it'd hit your phones and tablets by the end of March 2019.
The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near. A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019. pic.twitter.com/8GIyR7ZM4z
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 1, 2018
Mario Kart has always been popular, but it's enjoyed something of a resurgence with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe , a game that hit Nintendo's Switch console last April and has since sold over 7.33 million units. That's in addition to the 8 million copies that Mario Kart 8 sold on the Wii U .
Mario Kart Tour will be the Nintendo's fifth mobile game. The gaming giant first released Miitomo , a social-networking game, to test the iOS and Android waters (though it was last week announced to be shutting down in May). Since then, Nintendo has brought Mario, Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing to mobile.
Nintendo in its nine-months earning report, released Tuesday, noted that smartphone-related revenue was up to 29.1 billion yen, or $265 million, thanks to those games.
The star of that report, though, was the Switch. Released last March, the Switch had sold 14.8 million units by the end of 2017. It wasn't just Mario's karting adventures that brought in big bucks, as the acclaimed Super Mario Odyssey sold over 9 million copies between October and the end of December.