Nintendo knows you're waiting for Mario Kart 9, but it still wants you to run a million laps in Mario Kart 8 first

It looks like Mario Kart 9 is probably going to be among the first games coming to the Switch 2, but Nintendo is insistent that its predecessor isn't dead yet, as it's now trying to get players to complete one million laps in the racing game to celebrate the red-hatted plumber mascot himself.

When the Switch 2 was first unveiled, Nintendo teased us with a few short looks at an untitled Mario Kart game, that most of us are just calling Mario Kart 9 despite the fact that it could technically be called Mario Kart 10 or something else entirely. Anyway, Mario's back, he's driving karts, and that's always something to be excited about, but Nintendo clearly isn't letting go of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe just yet, as it's just announced a "Community Challenge" event, in which it's hoping that players will be able to reach one million laps raced as part of this year's Mario Day celebrations.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in itself will be eight years old next month, and it's a re-release of a game that'll be 11 this year. Needless to say, it's already clocked up plenty of mileage, but for the sake of Mario, we must return to the tracks. It's one of the official ways that Nintendo has suggested we can celebrate on March 10, alongside buying and playing other Mario adventures and, uh, boarding the new Mario plane.

As for the challenge itself, it's counting combined laps, so a three-lap race will seemingly count as 36 laps if a full 12 players are taking part. It'll run between March 7 and March 17, so there's 10 days for us to see it through. Personally, I reckon it's more than doable – hell, by my calculations, it'd take 12 players just over 11,904 races on the seven-lap track Baby Park to complete the whole thing. OK, that still sounds like a lot, but there's obviously going to be a lot more than 12 people taking part.

Anyway, glory and the love of Mario aside, there is actually something in it for you if you take part. If the goal is reached, players who've taken part (even for only a single lap) will be eligible to receive 310 Platinum Points, which can be spent on things like profile pictures on your Switch and various trinkets on the My Nintendo store. To join, you'll have to head online and search for a tournament with the code 1152-2501-4827. Get to it, folks, Mario needs you.

Mario Kart 9 should step it up a gear by celebrating more of Nintendo's biggest franchises.