Mario is looking to expand his dominance to the mobile market even further, and his newest racing game may be the key to getting him there.
Nintendo announced yesterday that it has now opened signups for a closed beta of Mario Kart Tour, a mobile Mario racing game. When the project was announced, it gathered a lot of hype from the current-gen Switch fans who saw this as a potential successor to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. While popular, Deluxe is more or less a port of Mario Kart 8, originally released on the Wii U. This was debunked, however, seeing as Mario Kart Tour is first and foremost a mobile title, one that is part of Nintendo’s push into the growing mobile market.
The closed beta is available only to Android owners, so if you are using an iPhone, you’re out of luck for now. On the Mario Kart Tour website, Nintendo details certain information regarding the beta.
“The closed beta test is a test of an application under development and is held for customers in order to improve the quality of the game. Furthermore, the number of customers who may participate in this test is limited. If the number of applications exceeds the number of possible participants, we will randomly select the participants.”
If you want a chance to be able to play this newest Mario Kart right on your mobile phone, you first need to head to the Mario Kart Tour website and scan the QR code with your Android device. Scanning the code will redirect you to the same page on your mobile browser, and from there, you can tap the “See details here!” button, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, tick all necessary boxes, and finally click the “Apply with Nintendo Account” button. You may also create an account here if you don't have one yet.
The application process runs from April 23 to May 7. After the participants have been chosen, the beta test will begin on May 22 and will end on June 4, although Nintendo themselves have stated that these dates are subject to change. As for specs, your device needs to be an Android 4.4 or later and with at least 1.5GB of RAM.
Super Mario Kart is set to launch sometime this summer on iOS and Android devices for free.
