Latest news with #MarioKart8Deluxe
CNET
04-08-2025
- Business
- CNET
Beat Price Increases With Woot's Can't-Miss Nintendo Switch OLED and Mario Kart 8 Bundle Offer
Many gamers are upgrading to the new Nintendo Switch 2 console, but at $450 -- or $500 for the Mario Kart World bundle -- it's an expensive investment. Normally, we'd expect older models to drop in price with a new console hitting shelves, but Nintendo has announced that it's raising original Switch prices due to market conditions. Those increases include the Nintendo Switch OLED model rising to $400 from $350. However, you can still find rare deals if you shop around, and we've spotted an incredible offer from Woot that drops the console/handheld hybrid down to just $289. That's a $111 discount on the newer price point and, better yet, it includes a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as well as a 12-month subscription to Nintendo Switch Online. That's the equivalent of $79 in free add-ons. Couple that with the price cut and that's nearly $200 in savings. The catch? This is an international model, which may mean packaging and other materials may vary from the standard US model, but functionally it is the same device, offering the same games and support. The Nintendo Switch OLED also differs from the original Switch console. It has a sleek white design and a larger 7-inch OLED display that enhances any game played on the move. The OLED model also doubles the standard storage from 32GB to 64GB, has an improved adjustable kickstand and adds an ethernet port to the dock. A lot of the differences are indistinguishable from the 2017 launch console but if you're not fussed about the Switch 2, then this is a great way to access some of the best games of the last decade at a price that avoids price increases due to tariffs. Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money. One of those fabulous games is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It's no surprise that the colorful racing game comfortably sits as the best-selling title for the console at more than 68 million sales. And you'll get it included with your purchase, making this an exceptionally great offer. Why these deals matter Nintendo fans know all too well that the Japanese game maker rarely discounts its hardware or games, and with prices rising, this is likely the last time we'll see a Nintendo Switch deal this good for some time. That's why sales like this one from Woot shouldn't be overlooked.
The Mainichi
01-08-2025
- Automotive
- The Mainichi
Nintendo net profit jumps 18% in April-June on strong Switch 2 sales
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Nintendo Co. said Friday its net profit in the three months through June jumped 18.6 percent from a year earlier to 96.03 billion yen ($638 million), as its newly launched Switch 2 gaming console got off to a solid start. Sales jumped 2.3-fold to 572.36 billion yen, while operating profit rose 4.4 percent to 56.93 billion yen in the April-June quarter, the Kyoto-based gaming giant said. The upbeat results came as Nintendo released the Switch 2, its first new console in more than eight years, on June 5. Nintendo sold 5.82 million units of the Switch 2 during the quarter, up from 2.1 million units of the previous model in the same period last year. Nintendo sold 33.07 million copies of software in the three-month period, including 8.67 million for the Switch 2, up from 30.64 million for the original model a year earlier. Among game titles, "Mario Kart World," which was released on the same day as the hardware, posted sales of 5.63 million copies. As the Switch 2 is compatible with game software for the older Switch, titles such as "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" and "Super Mario Party Jamboree" also contributed to sales growth, the company said. Nintendo left unchanged its earnings forecast for the year through March 2026, expecting a 7.6 percent rise in net profit to 300 billion yen on sales of 1.9 trillion yen, up 63.1 percent. For the full business year, Nintendo aims to sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles and 45 million copies of game software for the new device. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said in May that the earnings forecast for the year ending March 2026 reflects a negative impact from higher U.S. import tariffs. He said if the company decides to raise prices of its products, the move could slow sales. Japan cut a deal with the United States last week on a 15 percent tariff on cars and other products. The agreement will not affect its earnings forecast, the company said in a release.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Mario Kart World (Nintendo Switch 2) Review
Mario Kart World has the unenviable task of being the successor to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: arguably the best game in the series and inarguably Nintendo's best selling game of all time at 68.2 million units sold. Much to its credit, Mario Kart World breaks away from the formula established, which Mario Kart 8 has pretty much perfected, but while with this comes new-found success, also emerging are some growing pains. The result, nevertheless, is a great launch title for the Switch 2 and one that is truly worthy of a podium place when considering all of the entries in the Mario Kart franchise so far. Many of the 20-odd hours I spent with Mario Kart World, I spent in its front-facing game mode: Grand Prix (GP). For those unaware, GP is a single-player exclusive mode found in every Mario Kart and which involves accumulating as many points as possible, done by placing as high as possible in the standings, throughout four different tracks which together form a cup. Mario Kart World features 7* total cups and three engine speeds to race at: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc. The engine speeds can be interpreted as the game's difficulty modes (easy, medium, and hard), while accessibility options such as smart steering, auto-accelerate, tilt controls and auto-use items can be used to, more or less, fine-tune the level of challenge. Surprisingly, in continuing the theme of breaking with tradition, Mario Kart World does not have a 200cc mode, although, in an interview with Rolling Stone, producer Kosuke Yabuki didn't completely rule out a future update which would include it. This being said, during CGM's own interview with Kabuki-san, he discusses why sometimes the best way to move forward is to leave beloved features behind, so, at least for now, the jury is still out as to how he and his team will handle post-launch support and whether or not 200cc will eventually be part of their plans. Personally, the game's skill ceiling is so high—more on this later—that I didn't miss 200cc too much, but I can understand why some players are asking for it, especially when Mario Kart World boasts a large and interconnected map. Speaking of, the presence of an interconnected map is Mario Kart World's most important and prevalent (hence the title) gimmick. In practice, what this means is that, instead of disparate locales, all of the courses here are linked together by connective tissue—the first and last lap of each race usually involves driving to and from places such as Dino Dino Jungle, Starview Peak and more. In regards to quality and enjoyment, for my money, Boo Cinema and World's version of Rainbow Road are the absolute standouts, but all of the courses present are winners. In any case, Mario Kart World's, um, world, feels like it definitely took inspiration from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in an effort to perhaps consolidate the whole Mario IP into something more uniform. Beyond the map and the courses, Mario Kart World shakes up the gameplay by introducing new mechanics altogether. For example, in addition to the essentials (rocket start, drift, jump boost, etc.), players can now rewind time for their character and vehicle, à la Forza Horizon, angle their shots, grind on rails and even perform audacious wall jumps. In just a few days, as more and more players got to experiment with the new tricks at play, the skill ceiling got raised significantly—later is now—and the new meta has, so far, involved wall riding/jumping and grinding as much as possible. Considering that drifting used to be king, this is refreshingly different from what we've seen from the franchise so far. Nowhere is this wall riding and grinding meta more apparent than in Knockout Tour, which is, by far, Mario Kart World's most riveting game mode. As is probably clear from the name, Knockout Tour pins a maximum of 24 racers (a record high number for the series) against each other in an elimination-style marathon to the finish line. The catch is that the goalposts keep changing throughout said marathon, making it so that, at the end of the first out of its six laps, only the top 20 qualify for the next lap, then only the top 16 and so on until someone eventually gets crowned the winner. This is incredibly exciting as it does give the impression that no race is over until it's really over, even more so when items are constantly flung left, right and center. So, yes, whereas GP is theoretically Mario Kart World's primary game mode, Knockout Tour ends up stealing the whole show instead and is, hands-down, the best addition to the Mario Kart series in years. Incidentally, it's playing Knockout Tour that showed me just how entertaining game chat with friends can be, more so if they also use cameras. I'm still not particularly impressed, and would not be paying for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription solely for game chat (shout-out Discord), but I must admit that the Mario Kart World integration worked better than I initially thought it would. Moving on, Mario Kart World's other game modes, namely, Battle Mode, Time Trials and Free Roam are sadly nowhere near as good or as fleshed out as Knockout Tour is. Not much is interesting with regards to the former two, which I found to be inferior and tired renditions of, at least in the case of Battle Mode, something that used to be a Mario Kart staple so, as such, I'll turn most of my attention towards the latter. In theory, the idea of free roaming in any Mario Kart game, but especially World, given its interconnected map, is tantalizing, but, unfortunately, the execution leaves much to be desired. This is because, even though collectibles, missions (sort of like in Mario Kart DS) and characters are peppered throughout, the world itself feels barren and underwhelming. In the end, I found that Free Roam is best enjoyed as a dessert, more so with friends, rather than a main course, which is disappointing considering the expectations maybe set by Nintendo's open-world offerings such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, what Mario Kart World lacks in Free Roam, it more than makes up for with the numerous characters, vehicles and outfits present. It's been genuinely hilarious to see Cow (yes, the one from Moo Moo Meadows) players run amok in online lobbies and Dolphin riding a Dolphin Bike…?\ When added together, Mario Kart World boasts 50 selectable racers ranging from the mascot himself, Mario, to celebrity NPCs such as Pirahna Plant. And, yes, not everyone gets an equal amount of outfits, if any, and, yes, Mario gets 9 different ones, but, in the end, it's all worth it to get vampire Waluigi, a.k.a. Wampire, right? As for the vehicles, besides the fact that there are a whopping 40 of them, the decision to have them be preset only, meaning no more changeable parts, is a good one as when playing Mario Kart 8, for example, I've always defaulted to the best wheels (Roller) and not much else. At least in World, I was more tempted to give different vehicles a go as I found them to be better balanced against each other. Otherwise, as expected from a marquee Nintendo title, Mario Kart World impresses in the audiovisual department. The soundtrack, for one, is phenomenal and, what's more, it wonderfully remixes in loops and sounds from games past and present. It helps, too, that Mario Kart World is stunning and convincingly among Nintendo's best looking games to date: I've never been more happy to see my favourite Mario character. (Luigi. It's Luigi.) Thankfully, the graphics come at no apparent cost to performance, as I was able to maintain a rocksteady 60fps in single-player and two player split-screen in either docked or handheld. Regrettably, local multiplayer in more than two players is locked at 30fps, but that did not come as a surprise since it's a caveat also found in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Overall, Mario Kart World is a great game, but definitively not the best Mario Kart there is—that recognition, as expected, is retained by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. However, I don't think that World necessarily aims to be 'the best', anyway. From the off-set, the developers over at Nintendo EPD wanted this to be a fresh and new title and to take bold risks with it. Not everything panned out as well as it could have, looking at you, Free Roam, but I will always respect swinging for the fences in favour of going back to formula. With this in mind, I strongly believe that, whereas, again, Mario Kart World is not the best game in the series, it does align the franchise in the best possible direction: forward.
Tom's Guide
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
I hosted a Mario Kart World tournament at work and lost — and this is the most important thing I learned
Full disclosure: I didn't pre-order the Nintendo Switch 2. I wasn't fully convinced that it was worth upgrading from my OG Switch, which still works just fine. I told myself that if they ported Baldur's Gate 3 to the Switch 2, that would be enough reason to buy it. That hasn't happened yet (and I don't know if it will), but since then, I've had hands-on time with our shared Switch 2 in the office, and I often spend my lunch break playing a Knockout round in Mario Kart World with Harry from TechRadar (we're friendly rivals). Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of my favorite games on my OG Switch, so naturally I really enjoy Mario Kart World too. One day, when Harry and I were playing, we came up with the brilliant idea to host a tournament for our office. We pitched the idea to five of our colleagues and they all agreed. Everyone loves Mario Kart, right? So seven of us chose a date and time after work and let it unravel. Luckily, no friendships or work relationships were harmed in the making of this tournament. The rules for our Mario Kart World tournament were simple: one group of four players and another group of three players would compete across 12 races, with the winners from each group battling it out in a best-of-three showdown. We plugged one Switch 2 into one TV and another Switch 2 into another TV next to it. With our Joy-Cons and third-party controllers in hand (the Turtle Beach Rematch included), we battled it out. Despite my high hopes, I finished second in my group which meant I did not progress to the finale. I was bummed, of course, because I really do enjoy winning, and I get very competitive. The only person I'm genuinely happy to lose against is my partner and that's where I draw the line. So no, I was not happy finishing second and that meant I had to now watch the two winners from the groups race it out. As I sat there with my arms crossed and my eyebrows slightly furrowed (no, I am not a sore loser), something dawned on me. I... actually enjoyed watching others play? Gasp. I sat there with my eyes fixed on the TV and I thoroughly enjoyed the two finalists navigate their way around shortcuts and drift into oblivion while NPCs bombarded them with red shells and the occasional blue shell. And I have to say: Mario Kart World makes for a great spectator sport, and a lot of it is down to the NPCs. I've sunk at least 80 hours into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and never once did I think the NPCs outsmarted me. Sure, once you fall down the pecking order and find yourself in the last 10, things get sticky. But never as bad as in Mario Kart World as having 24 racers on track results in a lot of chaos — so much so that people have often complained about the game's difficulty on r/NintendoSwitch and r/MarioKart. NPCs, for a change, seem intelligent and smart. They'll take shortcuts, grind on rails, target you, so on and so forth, and if you aren't in top form and aren't utilizing shortcuts, the game will punish you. That's what made watching the finale of our tournament so thrilling — the five of us who watched it had no idea what to expect, and I doubt the finalists did either. It was so thrilling to watch, and definitely more fun to watch than Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which, after a while, becomes predictable and you don't even break a sweat playing 150CC+. Our office Mario Kart World tournament has cemented the game as one of the greats for me, which I didn't think earlier. With the plethora of characters and vehicles to choose from and the different types of race tracks, it's a whole lot of fun for people who don't like video games either. I can't wait to host another tournament now.
Metro
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Nintendo explains why Zelda and Splatoon racers aren't in Mario Kart World
The developers behind Mario Kart World have explained why they chose Cow over Link and Isabella in its character roster. Before Mario Kart World was announced, some fans hoped it would take some cues from Super Smash Bros. and become a crossover of all Nintendo properties. The precedent for this was set in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where Splatoon Inklings, Link from The Legend Of Zelda, and villagers from Animal Crossing made the roster. This was the first time Nintendo characters outside of the Mushroom Kingdom had made it into Mario Kart, with courses based on F-Zero and Excitebike thrown in too. While it seemed logical that this would continue in Mario Kart World, the sequel doesn't feature any other Nintendo characters – instead opting for an influx of minor Mario freakos like Conkdor, Cataquack, Penguin, and the Cow from Moo Moo Meadows. Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki has explained why this is the case in an interview with Ouest-France, where he described the potential inclusion of other Nintendo characters in the sequel as 'incongruous'. 'As developers, it would have seemed incongruous to us to add characters from other games into this universe,' he told the outlet (via machine translation). 'And it didn't seem necessary to us, given everything we could already do with Mario.' More Trending Yabuki, who also served as a producer on ARMS, was asked if he ever considered adding characters from that game to the roster. 'Absolutely not!' he replied with a laugh. Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. Speaking about the slew of new minor Mario characters, he added: 'We were hoping that the addition of these new drivers would be a pleasant surprise for players. But the reception has been so warm that it surprised even us! It definitely exceeded our expectations.' The big question is whether his comments rule out any potential Nintendo crossovers for Mario Kart World in the future. Characters from Zelda and Animal Crossing were added to Mario Kart 8 via DLC packs, and the open structure of Mario Kart World lends itself to extra courses being added as a potentially separate island down the line. Based on the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which sold over 68 million copies and received DLC in the form of the Booster Course Pass, new tracks and characters for Mario Kart World feels inevitable – but then again, Nintendo has a knack for doing the unexpected. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Xbox VR headset leaks and its release date is a bit of a shock MORE: Games Inbox: Is Mario Kart World better than Mario Kart 8? MORE: Video games are great for my mental and physical wellbeing – Reader's Feature
