Mario Kart is an iconic Nintendo franchise. When you think of kart racers, this is the IP that will come to mind for most people. However, the franchise saw its biggest success with the Nintendo Switch. One of the first games to launch on the platform was a port of Mario Kart 8, which launched on the previous hardware generation, the Nintendo Wii U. Today, we’re finding out that this port almost didn’t even happen, which is wild to think about.
In a new podcast episode of Kit & Krysta, two veteran Nintendo employees discussed the new upcoming Mario Kart game. We don’t know much about this game outside of brief gameplay footage showcased during the initial Nintendo Switch 2 console announcement trailer, but that topic brought up the previous iteration of the game franchise.
It was said that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was considered an afterthought. Nintendo essentially figured, why not release a port for the game and give it a second chance at life? This would have been an easy game to port, but Nintendo was surprised by just how well it did. The majority of the sales on this game landed on the Nintendo Switch, with total sales surpassing 70 million units.
That’s a massive number, and Nintendo has continued to watch this game sell over the years. But that also had the hosts wondering if this next game for the Nintendo Switch 2 will bring enough to the table for consumers. We’re sure the Nintendo Switch 2 will sell well, but there are other casual gamers who might already own the Nintendo Switch and a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Kit & Krysta bring up a good point. It’s these gamers that they are curious about. If this new Mario Kart 9 game is a launch title and one of the key games being released, will it be enough to move units for the Nintendo Switch 2? If not, there is speculation that we might see plenty of consumers holding out until something else pops up for the console.
Hopefully, when the Nintendo Direct for the upcoming console debuts next month, we’ll get a little more insight into not only the console itself but also this new Mario Kart game. While we don’t know the specifics yet, a recent report suggests this upcoming console might have a three phase plan with its game launches, so we might be stuck with Mario Kart 9 for a little while.
