Analyst tips Nintendo to release second Switch Mario Kart game
Industry watcher thinks Nintendo may be gearing up to announce a racing sequel
Nintendo could reveal its next Mario Kart game this year, Kantan Games analyst Dr. Serkan Toto has forecast.
Offering his predictions for 2022 in a GamesIndustry.biz article, Toto also suggests that the next Mario Kart game could shake up the series with a surprise element.
“I am aware Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is still selling very well on the Nintendo Switch, but Mario Kart 9 is in active development (and comes with a new twist) and Nintendo could tease it this year,” he said.
The last mainline entry in Nintendo’s racing series, Mario Kart 8, was released for Wii U in 2014.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, an enhanced version of the game for Nintendo Switch, was released in April 2017, the month after Nintendo’s latest console launched.
To date, Nintendo has never released more than one mainline Mario Kart game on a single console.
The platform holder said in November 2020 that Switch had shipped almost 93 million units and that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had officially become the franchise’s best-selling entry ever with nearly 40 million copies sold.
Mario Kart’s best-selling games
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 38.74m
- Mario Kart Wii – 37.38m
- Mario Kart DS – 23.60m
- Mario Kart 7 (3DS) – 18.95m
- Mario Kart 64 – 9.8m
The most recent entry in the series was September 2019’s Mario Kart Tour, a free-to-play mobile game. It had topped $200 million in player spending and 200 million downloads as of April 2021, according to mobile research firm Sensor Tower.
Kantan’s Toto also predicted that Nintendo will bring another of its major franchises to mobile devices this year.
“On mobile, Nintendo has been very silent since Mario Kart Tour’s launch in 2019, but I think 2022 is when we will see an established IP arriving on smart devices again,” he said.
