Mario Kart World is being positioned as the Switch 2‘s biggest selling-point, and it’s easy to see why. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe stayed atop the Nintendo Switch sales charts undefeated for years, and still stands as the top-selling game on Switch and in the Mario Kart series. Nintendo is clearly trying to capture that lightning in a bottle again for its follow-up console, with a new Mario Kart ready to speed off the starting block alongside the system. And with that premium offering comes a premium price: $80, a price tag that leapfrogs over the somewhat expected $70 price for next-gen games.
When Nintendo took the wraps off of Mario Kart World as part of its Switch 2 presentation, the price was a major point of conversation. And more specifically: What made this game demand such a high asking price? When asked, Nintendo’s answer was essentially that the proof was in the pudding–that once we saw all it had to offer, the reason behind the increased price would become apparent.
“We’ll look at varying prices and things like that for software based off of just how robust the experience is,” Nintendo’s Bill Trinen told us in an interview in early April. “People will get to learn more about that game. And I think that as they start to learn more about that game, they’re going to be pretty excited about the content that’s offered there.”
In that same answer, he even specifically pointed out that a special Nintendo Direct was coming focused solely on Mario Kart World. So now that the Nintendo Direct has debuted, it’s fair to ask: Did the presentation deliver on the value proposition? Did the features of this new game retroactively justify the price tag?
How you spend your gaming dollars is a personal decision, so answers will certainly vary. But it’s difficult to say that today’s presentation, positioned as the place to “learn more about the game” and open our eyes to the value proposition, made a particularly strong case that this Mario Kart game has a much larger scope than others in the series, or even much beyond what we already knew from the first hands-on session at the Switch 2 reveal event.
At the reveal event, we learned that Mario Kart World features a huge open world that you can freely explore in Free Roam mode, and that in addition to the standard Grand Prix there would be a new Knockout Tour mode that eliminates players progressively along checkpoints. The roster is bigger to accommodate the new larger player count, 24 racers at a time, and racers can unlock a wide variety of costumes to greatly vary their looks. Mario Kart World is also positioned as a showpiece for the new GameChat feature, which has been featured heavily as friends hang out and trash-talk as they explore the races.
So what did we learn about Mario Kart World today? We learned that in addition to the Grand Prix and Knockout Tour, Battle Mode is coming back with two competitive modes. We learned that Free Roam will have collectibles and secrets to find, though how you’re rewarded for finding them is still a little unclear. And we got a look at some new characters, got more clarity on how to unlock costumes, and learned about new tricks and abilities like the rewind feature. The presentation even teased the return of Rainbow Road as a reward for finishing the other Grand Prix races, which isn’t exactly surprising but does pique our curiosity. What will this new version of the iconic track look like? All in all it was a good, comprehensive overview of a big launch game.
But in terms of new content, there just wasn’t much there. Battle Mode is a nice addition but it was never the main draw of Mario Kart games. The Free Roam missions could be hiding more depth than we realize, but it’s hard to tell based on what we learned today. There was no sense of an increased scope with more Grand Prix races or a live service approach to post-launch content. Our understanding of Mario Kart World isn’t significantly different today than it was yesterday, so it’s hard to conclude that this presentation answered the lingering questions we all had when we first heard the price.
It seems the most likely explanation for the price is the one given by Serkan Toto shortly after the announcement: Nintendo is pricing Mario Kart World at $80 because people will pay $80 for it. It’s a big launch game, it looks gorgeous, it’s the successor to one of Nintendo’s top-sellers, and it will continue to sell for years into the Switch 2 lifespan. Nintendo is pricing it aggressively, but not beyond what consumers are probably willing to pay. That’s capitalism, baby.
And in fairness to Nintendo, it is offering consumers a break if they wish to take it. The Switch 2 bundle with a digital copy of Mario Kart World is only $50 more than the standard bundle, making it significantly less costly than buying a new game a la carte, even on the original Switch. That bundle is only available through the end of the year, though, and preorders haven’t opened yet in the US. We’ll have to see how readily available the bundle will be.
To be clear, Mario Kart World looks great. It’s visually stunning, the open-world aspect seems ambitious, the roster is a delightful who’s-who for longtime Nintendo fans, and most importantly, it’s just a blast to play. I’m going to get it as soon as I can, and I’m going to play the hell out of it. All of us Nintendo fans will, and that’s just the point. Nintendo is charging a premium for a great-looking game because it knows it looks great. The Nintendo Direct didn’t deliver some shocking degree of content that suddenly makes the $80 make sense, because it doesn’t really need to. It’s Mario Kart’s world, and we’re just living in it.
