The next Nintendo mobile game is Mario Kart Tour , a fresh take on the popular franchise that has populated Nintendo consoles since the Super Nintendo. A new report has announced what potential players will have to cough up if they want to play.
According to a Twitter post from Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki, DeNA CEO Isao Moriyasu, the company Nintendo partnered with to create mobile games of their IPs, confirmed Mario Kart Tour is planned for a release in the 2018 financial year and will be “free to start.”
Check out Mochizuki’s tweet below.
DeNA CEO said "Mario Kart Tour," a Nintendo-DeNA smartphone game planned for FY18, will be free-to-start.
— Takashi Mochizuki (@6d6f636869) February 8, 2018
What’s interesting about this bit of information is how it’s interpreted. Many players take “free to start” to suggest the same model Nintendo took with Super Mario Run, where the game was free to download and some levels were playable, but players still had to purchase the title to get the most out of it.
Others, however, are looking to a 2015 Time interview with former Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata, where he spoke about the stigmas of mobile games, specifically with the free-to-play model. “I do not like to use the term ‘Free-to-play,'” Iwata told Time. “I have come to realize that there is a degree of insincerity to consumers with this terminology, since so-called ‘Free-to-play’ should be referred to more accurately as ‘Free-to-start.'”
Many fans have taken these words to heart and believe Mario Kart Tour could take on the model Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp have adopted, which is a free-to-download title with microtransactions. However, that’s what Iwata said back in 2015 and the beloved President has since passed. The CEO of DeNA may not have the same definition for “free to start.”
Mario Kart Tour will be the company’s fourth mobile, joining Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp.
So what do you think? Do you want Mario Kart Tour to be free-to-download or would you prefer the same model as Super Mario Run? Let us know in the comments section below.
