Mario Kart Tour’s controversial microtransactions failed to greatly increase sales

Paul Tamburro February 9, 2020

Mario Kart Tour‘s controversial microtransactions failed to greatly increase sales, a comment in Nintendo‘s latest Q&A session with investors has revealed. Despite the mobile game attracting many new players, investor comments have suggested that it underperformed when it came to driving in revenue.

Mario Kart Tour featured a paid-for monthly subscription pass, loot box-esque packs, and items available to sell in its Shop. Though the game wasn’t exactly pay-to-win, the extent of these microtransactions and their cost was widely criticized at launch.

However, it seems that this didn’t pay off in the way that investors had hoped. In the Q&A session, an investor notes that “while the number of players has increased, [Mario Kart Tour] does not seem to have greatly increased sales.” Considering that Tour was free-to-play, this points to the game’s in-game purchases not generating the expected revenue.

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The investor asked Nintendo if its goal was to expand “the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP, with not as much emphasis placed on short-term monetization,” to which Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa replied: “The primary purpose of the mobile business is to bring into contact with Nintendo’s games and characters the vast number of consumers who cannot be reached via dedicated video game systems alone. Ideally, this contributes to maximizing the Nintendo business as a whole.”

Furukawa also added that Nintendo is “definitely considering new ideas for the mobile business and continuing to work on development,” pointing to the company releasing more mobile games in 2020.

Considering that Mario Kart Tour heavily pushed its microtransactions, it’s unclear if its apparent lack of success in that department will see the company changing its approach for future mobile games. With Nintendo looking to expand further into mobile gaming, we’ll have to wait and see how its next wave of iOS and Android games approach in-game purchases.