The Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass has been revealed and it's a pretty pricy subscription service when you compare it to some other things you can get for the same amount of money. Clocking in at $4.99 a month, this optional subscription for Nintendo's newest mobile game would cost as much as a sub to Apple Arcade and more than a subscription to Nintendo Switch Online.
What do you get in the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass?
What exactly do you get for your $4.99 a month? According to Touch Arcade, you'll primarily get three benefits when signing up to this service:
- Access to 200 CC races
- Gold gifts for racing in tours
- Special in-game badges earned by completing gold challenges
And that's pretty much it. Bear in mind, this is on top of a game that already has a gacha-style loot box system built-in. That is what we in the business call a "big oof".
The Cost of Doing Business
At the price of $4.99 a month, the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass is as expensive as (or more expensive than) several other gaming services. Nintendo's own Nintendo Switch Online service costs $19.99–$47.88 a year depending on what you're buying and how you're buying it.
It's also equivalent in cost to Apple Arcade, a new subscription service that acts much like Xbox Game Pass in that it gives you access to dozens of iOS games for the flat rate of $4.99 a month and without any microtransactions or ads.
These kinds of systems are rarely put in place at a moment's notice; odds are, Nintendo had planned to deploy the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass long before Apple Arcade was announced. Still, a premium subscription for one mobile game that costs more then their homegrown equivalent of Xbox Live is a pretty bad look, especially for what you get out of it.
What do you think of the cost of the Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass? Are you willing to pay the price, or is it too rich for your blood? Let us know in the comments below!
