Am I alone in thinking that just about all the Mario Kart games released are essentially expansions on the previous games?

It seems as if all they ever do is add a couple tracks, re-draw all the old ones that are memorable, and toss in some random character as a new kart racer, using the same physics as the previous game...

Only if you want to believe that Uncharted 2 is an expansion to Uncharted 1, God of War III is an expansion of God of War, and Halo 3 is an expansion of Halo, while New Super Mario Bros Wii is an expansion of Super Mario Bros.

Yeah, because none of the actual gameplay mechanics have ever changed, right?

Barely, I mean, it always feels the same because it's mostly on the same tracks that you've been playing on if you've ever played one before...I mean, this is my personal opinion, and maybe i'm just not a mario kart guy, but that's what I think.

Those games are sequels...Very different, Mario Kart tends to use the OLD TRACKS, it's not like they're thinking up whole new games and putting in a few elements from the old one, definitely nearly the same game as before only more...colorful

The only Mario Kart games that used old tracks were the GBA, DS, and Wii iterations, but those were in addition to several new tracks. Those games had twice as many tracks as the rest of the Mario Kart games, so I don't see how that's a problem at all.

Double Dash!! added 2-player co-op in the same car.
Mario Kart DS added online, and missions.
Mario Kart Wii added motorcycles, tricks, wheelies, and tournaments.

When Perfect Dark re-used a few of our favorite stages from GoldenEye 007, did you consider Perfect Dark an expansion?

Adding to Rubang's post, the actual gameplay mechanics changed as well with the way you actually play.

They are clearly different games and in some ways more so than the sequels of Halo and other IPs.

No, of course not. Every game since n64 has added something different in the series.

And they make brand new tracks every time, the remade ones are just extra. Every new game has 32 new tracks.

No....Mario Kart Wii, the most recent one, has what....half new tracks and half new ones?

That would make about every Racing and Sports game sequel an expansion.