Nobody expected the lasagna-loving cat to land the most relevant gaming take of the week. But here we are.
The official Garfield Kart social account fired a shot at Nintendo on X this week, responding to the confirmed shutdown of Mario Kart Tour with a simple but effective dig: “This is why Garfield Kart is better, we will not randomly kill your game license.”
For context, Mario Kart 8 remains the gold standard of the kart-racing genre on consoles, but Nintendo's mobile chapter is coming to a close. Mario Kart Tour is set to go offline on September 29, roughly seven years after Nintendo launched it as part of its mobile gaming push. Seven years of daily races, character unlocks, and tour rotations, all going dark.
The jab that landed
The Garfield Kart post is objectively funny because it works on every level. The franchise is a genuine underdog in the kart-racing space, sitting miles behind Mario Kart in player counts and cultural relevance. And yet, the account's timing was sharp. Nintendo confirmed the Tour shutdown, and the orange cat showed up immediately to claim the moral high ground.
Here's the thing: the post resonated precisely because the frustration it taps into is real. Players who spent time and money on Mario Kart Tour are now watching that investment evaporate. Mobile game shutdowns are nothing new, but Nintendo's brand carries a promise of permanence that most mobile publishers don't. When a Nintendo game goes away, it stings differently.
Nintendo's mobile era is quietly winding down
Mario Kart Tour is not the first casualty of Nintendo's mobile experiment. Most of the games Nintendo launched during that era have already been shut down. The survivors are a short list: Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Pikmin Bloom are still running, but the broader mobile strategy has clearly been deprioritized.
The contrast with Nintendo's console output right now is stark. Mario Kart World on Switch 2 is currently the platform's best-selling game, and it just received a new update adding two Knockout Tour routes, with at least six more planned for future updates. The franchise is thriving on hardware. On mobile, it's being quietly retired.
That gap, between a console game getting active content drops and a mobile counterpart getting a shutdown date, is exactly what the Garfield Kart account pointed at. Whether intentional or not, the timing of the post made the contrast impossible to ignore.
The Chris Pratt connection nobody asked for
There is one genuinely odd thread connecting these two franchises. Chris Pratt voices Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and its sequel, and also plays Garfield in the most recent animated Garfield film. That makes him the only actor currently voicing both characters in major releases, which is either a fun coincidence or a sign that Hollywood has a very short list of names for animated leads.
It doesn't make the franchises rivals in any meaningful way, but it does mean that somewhere out there, Chris Pratt has opinions about this whole situation.
What players with Tour progress should know
If you've been active on Mario Kart Tour, the September 29 date is the hard deadline. There's no announced migration path, no way to carry progress into Mario Kart World, and no indication Nintendo plans to preserve the game in any offline form. What most players miss in these situations is that the shutdown often comes faster than expected once the date is set, so the window to finish any remaining content or document your progress is shorter than it feels.
For everything else in the Mario Kart universe, the Mario Kart 8 guides collection has you covered on the console side of the franchise, and the broader gaming guides hub is worth bookmarking as the Switch 2 library continues to grow.
