It's kinda easy to overlook how much bigger Mario Kart is than just about every Nintendo IP these days.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe outsold Mario Odyssey + NSMBU Deluxe + Mario 3D World combined almost, lol.
It's a *monster*.
I think Nintendo will want it as early as possible, MK8 Deluxe was very early in the Switch's life cycle. It also makes sense for NSO subscriptions, you can release the game with only say 24 tracks and then keep adding DLC packs of 4-8 new tracks to beef up the roster over time but more importantly you're getting people locked in to NSO subscriptions.
Possible too that Mario Kart Next will incorporate a few more Smash like elements where it has more characters from other Nintendo IP so it's even more of an "event" game.
July/August/September launches are just much nicer if you live in a climate where you actually have a winter. And I agree it makes more sense to get your own early adopters and then have a second wave of buyers over the holiday. I never honestly really liked when Nintendo moved to November launches, August/September in the past used to be "Nintendo time" for new hardware launches before the GameCube (Super NES, N64, Virtual Boy all launched in August or September, Game Boy was August too I think or really close to August). Dreamcast and Playstation 1 launched in September too unless my memory is going.
I'd be pretty happy with June or July too though.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 20 May 2023
