Nintendo just keeps on dishing out surprises! First their E3 announcements, and now a Direct entirely about Mario Kart 8, which I predicted btw! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbuJZP0_8iQ
So I guess I'll just get right down to it!
-Last three characters revealed, being the expected Mii, and the not expected nor wanted Baby Rosalina and Metal Peach...
-Full track list has been confirmed, shown below!
Mushroom Cup: Mario Kart Stadium, Water Park, Sweet Sweet Canyon, Thwomp Ruins
Flower Cup: Mario Circuit, Toad Harbor, Twisted Mansion, Shy Guy Falls
Star Cup: Sunshine Airport, Dolphin Shoals, Electrodrome, Mount Wario
Special Cup: Cloudtop Cruise, Bone Dry Dunes, Bowser's Castle, Rainbow Road
Shell Cup: Wii Moo Moo Meadows, GBA Mario Circuit, DS Cheep Cheep Beach, N64 Toad's Turnpike
Banana Cup: GCN Dry Dry Desert, SNES Donut Plains 3, N64 Royal Raceway, 3DS DK Jungle
Leaf Cup: DS Wario Stadium, GCN Sherbet Land, 3DS Music Park, N64 Yoshi Valley
Lightning Cup: DS Tick Tock Clock, 3DS Piranha Plant Slide, Wii Grumble Volcano, N64 Rainbow Road
-Batlle mode now takes place on tracks from the cups, lol what!? Mario Circuit, Toad Harbor, SNES Donut Plains 3, N64 Toad's Turnpike, N64 Yoshi Valley, GCN Dry Dry Desert, GCN Sherbet Land, and Wii Moo Moo Meadows are where we'll be doing battle in Mario Kart 8. Too lazy to make battle courses they were. Now wonder they delayed showing this mode off as long as possible, and didn't even talk about it in the direct That's a pretty big downer as I was pretty excited to see what they'd do with the battle courses now that they have anti-gravity. Also, only Balloon battle is shown. Nothing about coin runners, which is worrysome. On the bright side, Balloon battle is back to survival mode. To make it so the losing players aren't sitting around doing nothing, you'll now play as a ghost version of yourself where you can do everything you could before, except win!
-Those two new mystery items were finally explained! The Crazy 8 as theorized works just like the Lucky 7 from Mario Kart 7, only this time it has an eith item, being the coin. The Super Horn sends out a shockwave hitting nearby opponents and can be used to block shells, all shells, yes, even the almighty Blue Shell!
-Online play details finally! You can see peoples names and what country their from during the race again like in MKWii. The ranking system appears to be the same as in MKWii, where you can lose a lot of points unlike in MK7. Regional mode also returns from Mario Kart Wii, and new to the franchise is tournament mode! It functions similarly to MK7's communitys in that you have options, but there's more here like team mode, what vehichles and controllers everyone is allowed to use, being able to limit who joins, how many races/rounds there are, how the courses are selected, and whether or not you want to fill any empty player slots with computers of a selectable difficulty. Oh, and there's roundtime, which is an invalid option for racing, meaning it's only for Battle mode. Lastly, you can set the time the tournament takes place and how often. There's also both text and voice chat, atleast while you're in the lobby. Next is ghost data, which is pretty much the same as before, but you can unlock miiverse stamps by beating the developer's times.
-Up to 2 local players can play online, yet another returning feature from Mario Kart Wii!
-Highlight videos uploaded to Mario Kart TV can be watched by anyone through their Mario Kart TV, and videos uploaded to Miiverse can be watched by any who has access to it. A really cool thing is how you can upload directly to Youtube for all the world to see!
-Orchestrated soundtrack for the first time in Mario Kart! Sounds so beautiful!
-Buy and register Mario Kart 8 on Club Nintendo by July 31st to get a free download code for one of a selection of Wii U games based on your region! NA is Pikmin 3, NSMBU, Wii Party U, and WWHD. EU is so, so much better lol! They have all that plus Wario Ware, Sonic Lost World, Monster Hunter 3, Mario & Sonic Oylmpics, The Wonderful 101, and probably some others I forgot!
-Wii U Mario Kart 8 bundle in NA includes the aforementioned plus a Mario themed Wii motion plus controller and a matching Wii Wheel, all for $330. Glad I took that target deal lol! Not to say this still isn't a good deal even if you don't care about the Wiimote, because it is thanks to the bundled in MK8 being the physical copy, meaning it too can be registered to get a free game!
Welp, that's all I got! I don't know about you but my hype level for this game is at a level it has not been at for a good while hehe! As always let me know if I missed anything!
Oh, and go check out GameXplains new Mario Kart 8 videos, starting with this one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LewFJnRz_A
