Mario Kart Tour ending, as Nintendo mobile games enter new phase

I'm confused: Is Nintendo back in on mobile gaming, or all out? Barely more than a month ago, the company released smartphone game Pictonico!, its third new mobile game in the space of a year, suggesting it was once again dipping its toes in a market that it had rushed into during the dark Wii U days and then quietly dropped after the Switch took off.

But now Nintendo is shutting down one of the biggest successes of that foray into mobile in the 2010s: 2019's Mario Kart Tour. In a statement released Tuesday, Nintendo said it would end service for the online kart racing game on Sep. 29. There was no indication that Nintendo would replace the game with a paid version without in-app purchases, as it did in 2024 with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

It's already no longer possible to buy rubies, Mario Kart Tour's in-game currency. You can still use any rubies you have to buy items within the game until the service ends. Automatic renewals for the game's Gold Pass subscription have been turned off. Active Gold Pass subscribers can enjoy the subscription's benefits for free until end of service; everyone else will also get free Gold Pass benefits from Aug. 4 until end of service.

Mario Kart Tour joins a fairly long list of games from Nintendo's first mobile phase to be shut down: Miitomo, Pocket Camp, Dragalia Lost, and Dr. Mario World. Nintendo's biggest mobile hit, 2017's gacha game Fire Emblem Heroes, is still running, as is 2021 augmented reality game Pikmin Bloom. Super Mario Run, a paid, non-live-service game, is also still available.

Image: Nintendo

If Nintendo still has an interest in mobile games, why shut down one of its most successful titles? The most likely answer is that it is no longer performing well enough to be worth Nintendo keeping it updated. While successful, Mario Kart Tour, like Pocket Camp, never quite broke into the top rank of mobile games. According to SensorTower estimates, it earned in the region of $200-300 million over its lifetime, and it doesn't currently figure in GachaRevenue's earnings charts. By contrast, Fire Emblem Heroes is estimated to have earned over $1 billion, and is still one of the top 60 earners on mobile, bringing in around $2 million per month.

What the move also suggests is that, while Nintendo might have a renewed interest in mobile, its appetite for maintaining free-to-play live-service games has diminished. Of its three recent mobile releases, only Fire Emblem Shadows, a poorly received Heroes spinoff, fits that mold. Hello, Mario! is a completely free app that's essentially promotion for a new line of merch aimed at preschoolers, while Pictonico! is a free download with level packs available for purchase, and it doesn't require further updates, especially since its novelty value stems from the way it uses the player's photo library.

So, yes, Nintendo still has an interest in mobile gaming. But only if it's not too much work.