Nintendo has announced that it will be making a sizable change to its mobile racing game Mario Kart Tour later this month. The mobile game will arrive in an update in late September this year, and it will lose its loot box system as the developer transitions to a spotlight store model.
As mentioned in a tweet, we were told,“Battle mode will be added, as well as a spotlight shop where you can trade rubies for drivers, karts and gliders! Also, pipes you can ignite with rubies will be removed. See the announcement for details.
For those who haven’t played the game before, the loot box in this case is “a pipe you can fire with rubies”. The idea is that you spend ruby currency, and in return, a random reward comes out of the pipe.
Gamesindustry.biz Analysis platform Sensor Tower estimates that Mario Kart Tour has generated $293 million for Nintendo since its launch in 2019, but not all of that figure comes down to loot boxes, as the $4.99 Gold Pass subscription also makes contributed.