Nintendo’s subscription strategy went from poor to promising with two announcements

Compared to Microsoft’s Xbox service offering its popular “Game Pass” game rental service, or Sony PlayStation offering several of its marquee past hits free, Nintendo’s product was paltry by comparison. That comparison changed significantly Wednesday thanks to an almost eight-year-old racing game.

During its Nintendo Direct presentation, the company made a surprise announcement of its plan to add 48 additional race tracks over the next two years for “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” a 2017 rerelease of a 2014 game. While downloadable content for an old game seems like a strange announcement for an entertainment medium that’s all about pumping out new products, context matters when it comes to “Mario Kart 8.”

Despite the game’s age, “Mario Kart 8” is the Switch’s most popular game with 43.3 million copies sold. By April 2021, it became the best-selling racing video game in U.S. history, according to market research firm the NPD Group. By the end of 2021, Nintendo sold 103.5 million Switch consoles worldwide. This means that a sizable chunk of Switch owners also own the racing game, which has continued to place in the top 10 charts of best-selling titles every month for the last several years.

Nintendo’s new track announcement feels like an extension of its strategy for long-term marketing engagement via timed releases of fan favorite content, similar to how it would drip feed new characters for “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” until last year. Without the Expansion Pack tier of $50, players can pay $25 for access to all 48 tracks through 2023. With the tier, players are guaranteed access to all 48 tracks, as well as last summer’s “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” expansion, along with the Genesis and Nintendo 64 titles.

Subscription to Nintendo’s service also sweetened with the announcement of two long-lost Nintendo favorites coming to the Switch, with “Earthbound” and “Earthbound Beginnings” now being offered as part of the Nintendo and Super Nintendo libraries. While both titles are available to subscribers of the lower $20 tier, it’s heartening to see Nintendo finally offer a game that fans have been demanding to be made available on the service for months.

While some people may have expected a Mario Kart sequel, it also makes sense for Nintendo to capitalize on the installed fan base of its most popular game in years. Reaction to the news ranged from exhilaration to “that makes sense.” It’s become harder to argue against the value of the subscription service now that exciting new content will be available for “Mario Kart 8” and “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” two games Nintendo Switch owners are most likely to own.

In an interview with The Washington Post late last year, Nintendo of America CEO Doug Bowser said the company is planning to release more classic games through the service.

“The plan is to continue to focus on the quality of that content and adding to the value as we go forward,” Bowser said. That plan finally may be crystallizing with the dual surprise announcements for the Mario Kart and Earthbound series. If Nintendo is able to continue improving its service with its future and classic marquee titles, providing more and more content for its beloved franchises, its subscription service would become irresistible for many fans.

Nintendo has long held a reputation for making inscrutable, puzzling business and product decisions, a recent infamous example being its foray into selling cardboard accessories for the Switch at roughly $80 retail. The previous lack of new content for “Mario Kart 8” has also long puzzled fans, particularly since the game has aged well and remains one of the industry’s best-selling hits. Packaging future Mario Kart expansions to its subscription service, along with releasing a fan-favorite cult series, is a rare moment when watchers of the company can say to themselves, “Huh, that actually makes sense.”

Despite the company’s long history of being a slow and poor provider of online content services, these announcements feel like promising baby steps toward a more exciting (and less frustrating) future of further investing in the Switch console.