Comment & Opinion

The key to Mario Kart Tour's success (or failure)

Doing things the Nintendo way

The key to Mario Kart Tour's success (or failure)

There's no question experience builds resilience.

So given Nintendo is now over 130 years old, you have to give the company the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the notoriously volatile outcomes of its signature decision making.

Put another way, for every Wii U, Virtual Boy and GameCube, there's been a Wii, DS and Game Boy.

Significantly, however, the lows were never critical in terms of it continuing as an ongoing concern, whereas the highs were never limited by the constrains of conventional thinking.

Mobile second

Yet when it comes to Nintendo's approach to mobile games the situation seems oddly reversed.

It's now released six mobile games. four of which have been disappointments.

Only one - Fire Emblem Heroes - has been a success but not on the level of redefining mobile gaming. It's just another highly monetised JPRG, much like other obscure (to the west) titles such as GranBlue Fantasy.

This is not what we expected when Nintendo (providing the IP) and DeNA (providing the design) announced their partnership back in 2015.

Let's try again

And today's release of Mario Kart Tour just continues the confusion.

In terms of number of downloads on day one, it's Nintendo's - and the industry's - best ever, although some of this could be due to automatic downloads.

Yet, despite the oddity of playing Mario Kart in portrait mode, the most peculiar decision has been the requirement to log into the game using a Nintendo ID.

Now I'm sure I'm not the only one who can't remember my details and can't really be bothered to either reset them or set up a new account.

(No, I am not a Nintendo power user. My Switch got eBayed after two months.)

More significantly, however, this is not how mobile games work.

Onboarding is everything. In a decade of playing F2P mobile games, Mario Kart Tour is the first time I've been faced with a hard entry gate.

Even Super Mario Run had a guest option.

Balancing accessibility

Of course, the value of forcing people into your walled garden is considerable. And outside of platform holders such as Apple and Sony, only Nintendo could even consider such a move.

But given it's going to lose more than 50% of its installs (my estimate: yet to be proven) at this point, you have to wonder whether Nintendo's confidence in the power of its IPs has finally slipped into arrogance.

Because those players who can gain access using their Nintendo IP are already likely to be Nintendo fans; owners of a Switch or 3DS and hence unlikely to enjoy a F2P version of Mario Kart.

Alternatively, the very audience Nintendo needs to engage on mobile - those not yet in the Nintendo ecosystem - are being forced to jump through loops no other game company requires.

But maybe my thinking is just too conventional.

Certainly I wouldn't bet on Nintendo not being around in 2149. I would, however, be surprised if Mario Kart Tour outperforms Fire Emblem Heroes.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.