Mario Kart Tour will be losing its loot boxes soon

Nintendo has announced that it will be making a rather significant change to its mobile racing game Mario Kart Tour later this month. Coming in the form of an update late this September, the mobile title will be losing its loot box system, as the developer instead transitions to a spotlight store model.

As mentioned in a tweet, we're told, "Battle mode will be added, along with a Spotlight Shop, where you can exchange rubies for drivers, karts, and gliders! Also, pipes you can fire by using rubies will be removed. See the notification for details."

For those who have not played the game before, the loot boxes in this situation are the "pipes you can fire by using rubies". The idea is that you spend the ruby currency and in return a random reward comes up from the pipe.

Gamesindustry.biz has reported that analytical platform Sensor Tower estimates that Mario Kart Tour has generated $293 million for Nintendo since its launch in 2019, but that of this number, not all is down to loot boxes, as the $4.99 Gold Pass subscription also contributed.