Nintendo has started talking up other avenues of business away from their traditional console range.
Their latest titles can all be found on the Nintendo Switch; however, there will be an exception in 2019.
But this doesn’t mean that Nintendo will be launching a game from one of their exclusive IPs onto PS4 or Xbox One though.
The Japanese games giant is moving closer to launching a Mario Kart game on mobile phones.
It will be the first of its kind to be launched on Android and iOS and could make serious waves.
While other ventures such as Super Mario Run didn’t quite have the impact expected, other titles have proved very popular.
Data firm Sensor Tower reports that Nintendo made $348 million during the calendar year 2018 from their mobile titles.
And if you look at the data, it shows that each new Nintendo game for mobile has proven more valuable.
The most popular appears to be Fire Emblem Heroes, which accounted for 66 per cent of its 2018 revenue.
So Nintendo will be wanting to see Mario Kart Tour on mobile phones to follow a similar pattern.
It’s an IP that seems built for gaming on Android and iOS but not much has been revealed about it as of yet.
The good news is that Nintendo has not confirmed a delay to its launch, which is expected to happen in March.
Here’s what Nintendo said following announcing the new game, writing on Twitter: “The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near.
“A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019.”
The most recent update on the subject came in October during a company financial report, in which it was confirmed that Mario Kart Tour was still on schedule.
“We also plan to start a service for Mario Kart Tour, a Mario Kart application for smart devices, sometime during the current fiscal year in March 2019,” it states.
“With titles like these we intend to continue to expand our smart-device business and make it a pillar of revenue for Nintendo.”
If Mario Kart Tour is still coming to Android and iOS in March 2019, we will probably start hearing more details about it very soon.
Nintendo’s President Shuntaro Furukawa recently made comments on how the company could look to expand their horizons in the distant future, away from traditional console gaming.
“It has been over 30 years since we started developing consoles,” he said.
“Nintendo’s history goes back even farther than that, and through all the struggles that they faced the only thing that they thought about was what to make next.
“In the long-term, perhaps our focus as a business could shift away from home consoles – flexibility is just as important as ingenuity.”
In a more recent interview with Kyoto Shimbun, Furukawa revealed that Nintendo wants to start launching an average of two mobile games a year.
However, he also moved to say that this commitment would not replace their support of home consoles in the future, adding: “We don’t intend for Switch games to play like smartphone games, or vice versa.
“Our goal is to get people interested in Nintendo’s characters and increase our fanbase.”
However, the days in which Nintendo might publish on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms seems as unlikely as ever.
If Mario Kart Tour is on course for a March 2019 release, we might find out more during an upcoming Nintendo Direct stream event.