Monday, October 14, 2019

Mario Kart Tour is Nintendo's biggest mobile hit yet


sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/tech/mario-kart-tour-trnd-success/index.html

Nintendo’s popular racing game “Mario Kart” is now available to iOS and Android users, and it would seem that fans around the globe are flocking to the new mobile phenomena. According to the article, the app has garnered more than 90 million downloads in just its first week of release. Compared to other Nintendo mobile games, “Mario Kart” surpasses them by over sixfold with the previous Nintendo record holder “Animal Crossing” only acquiring 14.3 million downloads in its first week.

The article goes on to state that this record-breaking start has made Nintendo $12 million, with a bigger sales boost expected to come after the initial stage of free trials are up (this is referring to in-game rewards). Compared to the infamous game “Pokémon Go” however, many speculate that “Mario Kart Tour” will trail behind the popular pocket monster game which has made over $2.95 billion since its release (it’s interesting to note that while Pokémon is an intellectual property of Nintendo, the game “Pokémon Go” is not a Nintendo property).

Questions:
Do you play Mario Kart Tour? If so, what are your critiques to the game?
Do you think that like Pokemon Go, Mario Kart will continue to be popular months or even years after its release?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I personally have downloaded this Mario Kart Tour app on my phone and have found the app to have a very addictive quality to not only me but other people as well. However, the high demand of time that the app has on people makes it so that it will most likely not be as popular as Pokemon Go because that app was a worldwide phenomenon unlike anything seen before with people gathering in hundreds to visit gyms and Pokestops in game. Yet, this Mario Kart game is a good game design with some game flaws but it nonetheless is still a very fun game that incorporates a sense of multiplayer in it without actually being multiplayer.
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Anonymous said...

Though the circuits and drivers are limited at the moment, the game itself isn't that bad and is pretty fun to play. I believe that the competitive nature of this game, given that it's either you get into the higher quadrant of ranks or risk losing experience points, is what drives more and more folk into playing the game. It does get repetitive at times, especially when you complete a tour in its entirety, and it doesn't have as much overarching expansive gameplay as Pokemon Go, but given the hype around the game (and few dozen broken phone screens I've witnessed from people playing this game), I would say that it would still be a popular game, given the success of the base game itself.

I'm still waiting on God-Emperors Waluigi and Wario. I didn't ask for Baby Daisy, nobody did.

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Anonymous said...

I have yet to download this app, but I've always been a huge fan of the Mario Kart franchise which leads me to believe that this app won't be just another fad. I know that millions of people in our generation grew up playing Nintendo games like Mario Kart religiously (including me), which is a really good example of how addictive the game is. This plus the opportunity to play anywhere at anytime with all your friends will most likely be the main factors that will keep this app relevant for much longer than Pokemon Go, which you can still argue is still popular.

Anonymous said...

Although I haven't downloaded the game yet, I have heard many mixed reviews about it. It had a lot of hype when it was first released and many people enjoyed the fact that they could participate and play with their friends. Nintendo was also a really popular company when most of us were younger however for a while, its popularity had gone down. I think that this mobile phone game is another attempt to try to get back into the popular trends since having a DS isnt as common anymore. Although its had a lot of hype, I believe its hype is going to go down and it wont be popular anymore. This however is another example of a large company trying to go back to that high level. Maybe it will work but from what I have heard, I feel like it wont last for too long.

Anonymous said...

I think it's safe to say that this game will mostly likely be popular for a while. Now, I'm no gamer, but I'm pretty sure that Mario Kart has been popular for decades, despite not being mobile. I assume it will continue being popular, especially now that there is easier access to it, being that everyone has phones nowadays.

Anonymous said...

I didn't find Mario Kart Tour addictive like others have commented and actually ended up deleting it. I think there were too many minor differences from its preceding game that frustrated me. (Luigi is not in it) Personally, the user experience/controls felt awkward for me to use and didn't feel as fun as I hoped it would have been. I didn't have this problem when playing it on the switch or different consoles which leads me to believe that the reason the game didn't live up to my expectations is because I already knew of many other games on iOS/android which mimicked Mario Kart. However, the game has been popular for decades and I do have nostalgia of being able to play it with friends and family, so it should be interesting to see how people find the game after the multiplayer release. (It uses AI right now) That being said, I'm pretty sure it will fall short in popularity when compared to Pokemon go. With Pokemon go, Nintendo took the route of bringing back something nostalgic onto mobile screens, but it created its own entity as the game had major aspects that were completely different than what we might have played on other consoles. The difference is, Tour is attempting to bring back almost the same experience, and it just won't work (for me at least) because people have high expectations and if it doesn't excite them to play it on their phone, they'd probably much rather play its predecessor.

Anonymous said...

I downloaded the game the day it came out and found it to be addictive. The game came out with the expectation of being one of the bigger games of the year. Although, I would like to point out that strategically, call of duty came out on mobile devices around the same time. This made these two very different games have a miniature battle for better results against each other, even though they are so different. This has made an interesting race between the two games that is still very close. In this first week Call of duty had 100 million downloads, while Mario Cart had 90 million downloads. As time progresses they will be very close in stats but who pull out with a "better game" is still yet to be seen.

Anonymous said...

I did download Mario Kart, however, I have not been as hook to it as I was with Pokemon Go. The game isn't as addicting due to what I believe is the leveling up. You are very restricted at the beginning of the game and can't fully play the game until you've leveled up high enough. Also, because the concept of Mario Kart has already been made by other developers for Android and IOS, the game most likely won't be as new and exciting to play as Pokemon Go was and will ultimately lead to Mario Kart not coming close to being as successful as Pokemon Go.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I found out Mario Kart Tour was being released the day before it came out and I was so excited. Once I downloaded it, I quickly tried to complete the cups necessary for me to add people. However, I’m not that good at the game. I don’t use manual drift (don’t attack me) and I rank like 20th out of all of my friends. I also don’t get all the jargon and how to get more points, oof. I do get bored sometimes because all the game is about is racing. There are some restrictions where you need to play a certain amount of times to unlock certain features. I’m waiting for the game to release the feature where we can play with our friends. Anyways, I’m not sure about Mario Kart being more popular after Pokemon Go. I’ll be completely honest, I still play Pokémon Go. There are so many more features to the game now and it’s nice that they keep releasing new things to keep people interested. The game was very popular for a good year or two but then it faded, which was sad. I play both and as of now, I am more satisfied with Pokémon Go until more features are released on Mario Kart.

Anonymous said...

Personally I do not believe that Mario Kart hooked me as much as Pokemon Go did. Pokemon Go was something that granted many people's dreams of becoming a pokemon trainer as a child, and had great marketing tactics that Mario Kart did not have. I played Pokemon Go for months after the launch and played it for hours, but with Mario Kart, I only played it for two hours before dropping the game completely. What I realized was that the point system in Mario Kart is based off of the your overall progression, and how you performed in races. However, with the aspect of needing specific characters in order to be the best at the game feels extremely degrading because you either need to spend an immense amount of time on the game, or by simply spending money on the game. Your score is generally reflected on how much you pay for the game rather than just purely on your performance and skill. Also the sole reason many people downloaded Mario Kart was to race against your friends, but because the game has not released that feature, I believe the game has no purpose.