Mario Kart Tour finally gets a landscape orientation mode

By Jon Silman July 21, 2020

Mario Kart Tour, the mobile iteration of the ultra-popular Nintendo racing game featuring its marquee characters, has finally added a landscape mode.

“Players will have the option of racing in either the existing portrait mode or the new landscape mode! Landscape mode includes a new control layout, so find your favorite way to play!” Nintendo said on the official Mario Kart Tour Twitter account. The update also added a new control scheme for the layout.

The game was released in September 2019 and drew criticism for only allowing portrait mode play, which made it feel clunky and unnatural. Also, it didn’t allow for what is arguably the franchise’s greatest feature: The ability to play against friends.

In a March update, Nintendo added a multiplayer feature, and eventually also the ability to race against friends. Nintendo continues to update the game with new characters and stages, and in the latest update, which went live on July 20, players can also invite friends to a created multiplayer room.

Earlier this year, Nintendo earned $1 billion in revenue from its mobile division, a sector that it was initially reluctant to enter. However, games such as Pokémon Go, where players use AR to “catch” Pokémon on their phones, proved wildly successful. That was followed up with another amazingly popular game called Fire Emblem Heroes, which accounted for the bulk of the revenue.

Other popular mobile Nintendo titles include Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run, both of which earn in the hundred-million-dollar range.

In July, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa told shareholders that its mobile business was “strategically important” and “is significant in that it provides a wide range of consumers a way other than Nintendo Switch to continue to enjoy playing games using Nintendo IP over a long period.”

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