I wasn’t even sure that anyone still played Nintendo’s Mario Kart Tour, available for Android and iOS devices, but even if they do, that’s coming to an end in the new few months. Today, Nintendo officially announced the shutdown of Mario Kart Tour on July 8, 2026, with the game ceasing operations on September 30, 2026.
Here’s what that means for you if you’re still playing. Active Gold Pass subscribers will keep their benefits until the shutdown, but new subscriptions are no longer available as of July 7, 2026, Nintendo confirmed. So, if you didn’t already resubscribe before today, you’re out of luck. If you already have a subscription, it’ll carry you through to the end.
Honestly, I’m surprised this game lasted as long as it did. Nintendo has refused to bring its titles to any platform you’d call a competitor, PlayStation, Xbox, even PC. So when Mario Kart Tour launched on mobile back in 2019, I was pretty shocked it happened at all.
Here we are anyway, and sadly, Nintendo isn’t handling this the way it handled Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, another mobile exclusive that shut down its online service on November 28, 2024, only to get replaced by a paid offline version, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, on December 2, 2024.
I suppose this is Nintendo’s way of pushing more Switch 2 units out the door, given how successful Mario Kart World has been (nearly 10 million copies sold as of 2025), even though I wasn’t exactly a fan of it myself. Or maybe Nintendo just got tired of people accusing it of predatory gacha gambling, which it absolutely was. When you’re locking a speed class (200cc) behind a paywall, I don’t know what else you’d call it. Still, I do wonder if the tracks added to Mario Kart Tour over the years will find their way into Mario Kart World eventually.
Either way, you got until September 30th, 2026, to get those laps in before the game gets taken offline forever. Just another casualty of the digital only, online game trend that’s been at the forefront of gaming news these past few weeks.
