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This was a strange occurrence for many reasons. Firstly: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of the best-selling games of all time. There are 71 million copies of it out there (not counting the original Wii U game). It is, presumably, still played frequently by huge numbers of people. Why is it only getting its Switch 2 update now, over a year into the console’s life?
Secondly: Why a free update, and not an official Switch 2 Edition? This is fairly easily answered — Nintendo doesn’t want to cannibalize Mario Kart World sales by turning Mario Kart 8 into an official Switch 2 product. But those sales are being cannibalized anyway.
That begs the third question: Why make this update such a big deal? Nobody would have bat an eyelid if Nintendo just boosted the display resolution, reduced loading times, and walked away. Instead, it decided to flex the Switch 2’s muscle with an absurd eight-player split-screen mode, as well as support for Camera Play over GameChat, and a 96-race endurance mode.
Inevitably, this means that everyone is talking about Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and a good many have gone back to playing it instead of World. But surely this is not strategically optimal for Nintendo! Why do it?
I think the answers to most of these “but why, Nintendo” questions are “because they can” and “because it’s fun.” I have no doubt that the eight-player split-screen mode was added because some Nintendo engineer decided to see if it was possible, and it turned out it was both indeed possible and a lark to play.
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