Nintendo shut down Mario Kart Tour yesterday, ending almost seven years of service for the mobile racer.
Nintendo announced the shutdown on July 8, giving no reason beyond thanking players “who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago.”
Mario Kart Tour was released worldwide in September 2019. According to AppMagic estimates, downloads peaked on September 26 2019, when it was downloaded 14.7m times in 24 hours. In its first week on sale, it was downloaded 54m times, and after its first month it had racked up 81.8m downloads.
AppMagic estimates suggest Mario Kart Tour has been downloaded over 276m times since launch, generated $268.5m for Nintendo. The game’s IAP revenue peaked just after launch, when it earned just under $22m in October 2019.
Nintendo failed to build revenue momentum with Mario Kart Tour over time, though – monthly IAP revenue came in at about $5-6m for most of 2020 and 2021, and further declined through late 2021 and 2022, when it averaged roughly $3m per month.
Nintendo removed the gacha mechanics from the title in late 2022, hastening the IAP revenue decline further. Mario Kart Tour was earning around $650k per month when Nintendo announced that it was closing in July.
39% of the game’s $268.5m lifetime IAP revenue came from players in the US, with 26% from Japan. Other markets took up single digit shares of the revenue, with France, Germany and the UK on 5-6%. The download market split was led by the US (21%), Mexico (12%), Brazil (9%) and Japan (7%).
“Service for the Mario Kart Tour game ends on Sept. 29 at 11:00 p.m. PT / Sept. 30 at 8:00 a.m. CEST. Thank you for your support throughout the years,” Nintendo said via the game’s official account. The app remains listed on the App Store and Google Play but is no longer playable – opening it now returns a message stating service has ended and maintenance is in progress, running until 01/10/2026.
Nintendo marked the closure with a series of “Final MKT Report” graphics posted to the game’s official account, stating that the game featured over 546 courses in total.
As we’ve reported before, Nintendo’s mobile efforts appear to be fading after it entered the business in 2016 with the release of Super Mario Run, the first time a firstparty Mario platformer had ever appeared on non-Nintendo hardware.
