Mario Kart Arcade GP DX: Bandai Namco's Arcade Cabinet

GameMario Kart Arcade GP DXArcade cabinet

A Mario Kart nobody can play at home. Released in 2013 in Japanese arcades, this third arcade entry is developed and operated by Bandai Namco under licence from Nintendo. Racing is done in teams, on two karts, on a cabinet with a steering wheel and pedals that saves progress on a smart card. This article details its signature mode, its guest drivers and the reasons for its longevity.

Mario Kart is usually told console by console, from the Super Nintendo to the Switch. There is, however, a parallel branch of the series, born in Japanese arcades and absent from the series' console timelines: the Mario Kart Arcade GP games, of which Mario Kart Arcade GP DX is the third entry.

Released in 2013, this game has never had a home version or a PC port. It is played sitting down, wheel in hand, on a cabinet linked to its neighbours, and it is developed and operated by Bandai Namco under licence from Nintendo — an extremely rare situation in the plumber's catalogue.

Contents

• A Mario cabinet made by Bandai Namco
• Team racing, with two karts
• Don-chan and the Namco stable
• A kart to build, a smart card
• What the export never caught up with
• Quick recap
• FAQ

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A Mario cabinet made by Bandai Namco

Mario was born in an arcade: the Donkey Kong cabinet from 1981 sold around 132,000 units in Japan and North America. Nintendo nevertheless gave up making arcade cabinets after the 1980s.

The mascot stayed in arcades thanks to a third party. Since 2005, it has been Bandai Namco that develops and operates the arcade Mario Kart games, under licence from Nintendo: on this branch, the Kyoto firm handles neither the development nor the operation.

The partnership is less surprising than it looks, since Namco was one of the major third-party publishers on the Famicom in the 1980s. The Arcade GP line comprises three cabinets:

• Mario Kart Arcade GP (2005), which introduced the formula and the camera that photographs the player's face.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2007), which extended the recipe.
• Mario Kart Arcade GP DX (2013), the longest-lived of the three.

Technically, GP DX runs on System ES3, an in-house Bandai Namco arcade board whose architecture is close to that of a PC. As a result, the game could be expanded through successive updates without changing the cabinet.

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Team racing, with two karts

The signature mode of GP DX is team racing. Two drivers team up, each on their own kart, and it is the team — not the individual driver — that is ranked at the finish. Crossing the line first is therefore no longer enough if the teammate has floundered.

This partner can be a human player sitting at the neighbouring cabinet or an intelligence managed by the machine. The mode therefore remains playable solo, in an arcade where footfall varies from one hour to the next.

The series had already explored the duo, but differently: on GameCube, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (2003) placed two characters on the same kart. GP DX reverses the proposition — two karts, two racing lines, a single ranking.

None of this has made its way into the home entries, not even the very comprehensive Mario Kart 8 Deluxe : the cabinet retains an appeal of its own for anyone who already knows the series inside out on console.

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Don-chan and the Namco stable

The Nintendo roster gathers the regulars of the arcade branch: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong, Wario and Bowser. It is the rest of the grid that makes GP DX singular.

Since 2005, the Namco stable has had its own pit in these cabinets, with Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and the ghost Blinky at the wheel. GP DX continues the tradition and adds a notable recruit.

This recruit is called Don-chan, the mascot of Taiko no Tatsujin, the rhythm game series launched by Namco in 2001. He is literally a living taiko drum : a round, red and yellow character with no legs, who here drives a kart. GP DX is his only appearance in a Mario machine.

The exchange works both ways: in 2018, on Switch, Cappy in turn became a playable costume in Taiko no Tatsujin. The Japanese drum was in fact already at home with Mario, since the Bowser's Kingdom score in Super Mario Odyssey mixes gagaku and taiko recorded live.

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A kart to build, a smart card

On GP DX, the kart is no longer preset. The driver builds their machine from parts — bodies, wheels — that are unlocked over successive games. A pay-per-play cabinet becomes a progress log.

This progress does not evaporate when the screen goes dark: unlocked drivers, kart parts and licence grade are saved on a Banapassport smart card, and the profile carries over from one arcade to another.

The cabinet also keeps a direct legacy from the 2005 entry: a camera photographs the player's face and puts it into the game. No home entry has taken up this idea: the camera in Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (2020) films the track, not the player.

As for the layouts, GP DX recycles nothing. The tracks are all-new and mix Mushroom Kingdom settings with Namco-branded environments drawn from the Pac-Man universe. The item line-up follows the same logic:

• The Golden Mushroom is here renamed Miracle Mushroom and actually behaves like a star: it grants invincibility and lets you knock over rival karts for five seconds.
• The Mega Mushroom has an arcade cousin under the English name Giant Mushroom, found nowhere else in the saga.

Finally, the cabinet itself is part of the experience: seat, steering wheel, pedals and a large screen, with the cabinets linked together for racing in groups.

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What the export never caught up with

GP DX appeared in 2013 in Japanese arcades, and then gradually rolled out in North America and Europe. The rollout remains incomplete: the game is still only partly distributed internationally, with some updates and some cabinets never leaving the archipelago. On that count it ranks among the Mario games barely distributed outside Japan.

Elsewhere, the cabinet mainly settled into the big Western family entertainment chains, encountered by visitors who were not looking for a Mario game there.

Its longevity comes down to the way it was maintained: the content was expanded through successive versions for years, without replacing the cabinets. Chronologically, GP DX slots in between Mario Kart 7 (2011) and Mario Kart 8 (2014).

One limit remains that no update has lifted: no entry in the Arcade GP trilogy has been ported to console or PC. The only legal way to play it remains the cabinet. Bandai Namco gave it a sequel in 2017 with Mario Kart Arcade GP VR, which swaps the steering wheel for a headset and a cockpit: the only Mario experience in virtual reality playable in arcades.

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Mario Kart Arcade GP DX at a glance

Type	Arcade racing game
Development	Bandai Namco, under licence from Nintendo
Release	2013, Japanese arcades
Place in the branch	Third cabinet, after GP (2005) and GP 2 (2007)
Hardware	System ES3 arcade board
Signature mode	Team racing, two karts, one ranking
Save	Banapassport smart card
Sequel	Mario Kart Arcade GP VR (2017)

🍄 A track souvenir to take home? Take a look at our Mario figures.

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FAQ

• Who develops Mario Kart Arcade GP DX?
  The game is developed and operated by Bandai Namco under licence from Nintendo. It is one of the very few Mario games for which Nintendo handles neither the development nor the operation.
• Can you play Mario Kart Arcade GP DX on console?
  No. No entry in the Arcade GP trilogy has ever been ported to console or PC: the only legal way to play it remains the arcade cabinet.
• What does the game's team racing involve?
  Two drivers team up, each on their own kart, and it is the team that is ranked at the finish. The partner can be a human player sitting at the neighbouring cabinet or an intelligence managed by the machine.
• Who is Don-chan, the guest driver in GP DX?
  Don-chan is the mascot of Taiko no Tatsujin, a rhythm game series launched by Namco in 2001. This living taiko drum, round, red and yellow, only drives a Mario kart in this entry.
• Is progress kept from one game to the next?
  Yes. Unlocked drivers, kart parts and licence grade are saved on a Banapassport smart card, which lets you find your profile again from one arcade to another.

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