Nintendo will be removing its gacha elements (essentially randomised in-game items or cosmetics for real money) from its mobile racing spin-off Mario Kart Tour.
While microtransactions will still be present, players will be able to purchase items directly instead of having to blindly pump money into the game to receive randomised goodies. This was confirmed via the official Twitter account for the game, with the update set to arrive October 4.
Additionally, Battle Mode will also be coming to the Mario Kart Tour in a late September update, which is a side mode that’s present in all of the mainline titles that shifts the focus away from racing.
The title released back in September 2019, and is currently the latest release in the Mario Kart franchise. As of 2021, the game had reportedly been downloaded over 200million times, and also generated $200million (roughly £173million) in revenue. Mario Kart Tour is available to download on both iOS and Android.
Nintendo’s only mobile release since then was last year’s augmented reality title Pikmin Bloom, handled by Pokémon Go developer Niantic.
The most recent mainline Mario Kart title was the 2014 Wii U release Mario Kart 8. The game received a re-release on Nintendo Switch with the Deluxe subtitle, and is currently the best selling game on the system with a staggering 46.82million reported sales as of the time of writing.
Despite being a re-release of an eight-year-old game, 8 Deluxe is receiving DLC (downloadable content) support, with eight waves of additional tracks being added to the game. The most recent batch released on August 8, adding seven classic courses to the game along with one brand new track.
In other news, popular streamer Ninja has announced he’ll be taking a break from the platform Twitch for an unspecified amount of time, while another streamer Pokimane is taking a step back from the platform altogether.