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It feels like Mario Kart World DLC could be an inevitability, but two of Nintendo's former marketing leads think the company shouldn't be too hasty with announcing extra paid content for the upcoming Switch 2 game.
Nintendo can be pretty weird about DLC. Sometimes games have it announced right away, like certain Mario Sports titles, and other times it arrives years down the line, like with Captain Toad. Mario Kart 8 specifically had two batches of DLC, with the first two packs arriving within the first year and the Booster Course Pass arriving on Switch almost eight years after the game first launched on the Wii U. As such, you can understand why it feels like Mario Kart World DLC is likely bound to happen eventually.
On a new episode of the Kit and Krysta Podcast called 12 Questions Nintendo Must Answer in the Mario Kart World Direct, one of the questions the duo of former Nintendo Minute hosts wants answered is what the plans are for monetizing the Switch 2 game, be it DLC, or Nintendo making a foray into the Battle Pass zone. Krysta Yang – who was a PR manager at Nintendo, and senior manager of creator relations and original content until 2022 – questioned what Nintendo's strategy would be for DLC when the game is already facing significant backlash for its high price point.
Yang says: "They're kind of entering into this conversation at a deficit where people are already questioning the $80 price tag. If anything, if there is paid DLC, if there is paid something or another, they really have to be super transparent about it, I think that's the main thing."
She adds, "don't try to cloak and dagger us, don't try to sweep it under the rug and have this paid DLC be a legal line somewhere on a website." This is likely in reference to Nintendo not revealing the pricing for the Nintendo Switch 2 or its games during the Nintendo Switch 2 news in the big Direct stream, and Mario Kart's price initially appearing at the very bottom of the game's website.
However, neither Yang nor her co-host Kit Ellis (former director of social media marketing and original content) thinks that DLC will be included in the upcoming Mario Kart World Direct. Ellis says, "I don't think it's something that's really going to surface for at least a year," adding: "I can't see them introducing that in addition to the $80 ask right now." They also mention that Nintendo may take an approach similar to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's DLC, where it would release once players start to fall off of the game.
Regardless, we'll find out later this week if Nintendo has any plans to include DLC in the upcoming Direct, so make sure to check out how to watch the Mario Kart World Direct.
