Nintendo has announced that it will shut down Mario Kart Tour on September 29, ending its seven-year run on mobile devices. Originally launching in September 2019, Mario Kart Tour was one of several games released for mobile devices as Nintendo made a push into that space. Most of those games have since been shut down, but Mario Kart Tour proved to be a lucrative spin-off of the main series, employing controversial gacha game mechanics to keep players invested the racer.
„We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago,“ Nintendo wrote in an update. „Thank you for playing Mario Kart Tour.“
With its shutdown looming, Nintendo has now suspended the sale of the premium Ruby in-game currency, and subscription perks will be made freely available to players in the remaining months of Mario Kart Tour. Once the servers are turned off, Mario Kart Tour will be unplayable as Nintendo has no plans to offer an offline version of the game. In comparison, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’s final update made the game playable offline after its online service ended.
This leaves only a handful of mobile Nintendo games still in service, as Pikmin Bloom–which is run by Pokemon Go developer Niantic–Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes still remain active. While it’s the end of the road for Mario Kart on mobile, the main series is still in action. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still Nintendo’s best-selling game of all time, and last year saw the release of Mario Kart World, currently the best-selling Switch 2 game with 14.7 million sales as of March 31, 2026.
Following a drought of content after it launched alongside the Switch 2 last year, it looks like fans can hop back into their karts to burn some rubber as two Knockout Tour routes were recently added.
