Mario Kart: the 12 games and the 85 profiles of the series

The complete guide to the series

Mario Kart

Only one series has managed to get whole families shouting at each other since 1992. Here are the twelve games, the thirty-five drivers, the eighteen items and the tracks that explain why.

12games, from 1992 to 2025
85detailed profiles
35drivers on the grid
71.53 Mthe series record

Updated on 3 September 2026

Nintendo did not want to make a racing game. The team was looking for a split-screen multiplayer, and F-Zero went too fast to fit two players on one television set. Out of that technical constraint came Super Mario Kart, on 27 August 1992 on the Super Nintendo — and a whole genre that thirty-three years of copies have never matched.

This page tells the story of the series in its running order: first the twelve games episode by episode, then the formula that has never moved and the eight breaks that made it evolve, then the arsenal, the starting grid, the tracks and the people who make all of it. Every entity is profiled here with the only date that counts in this context: that of its entry into Mario Kart, which is almost never the date of its birth in the Mario universe.

One rule, applied without exception to the 85 profiles: a profile exists only if our own article documents the entity's role in racing. The Piranha Plant is a Mario Kart item — but its own article does not say a word about it, so it stays in this paragraph rather than on a card. The Mini Mushroom, the Poison Mushroom, the Pipe and the “?” blocks are in the same position. That is what sets this guide apart from a copied list: everything displayed here is verifiable in one click on the blog.

📋 Contents

The 12 gamesThe formulaThe ArsenalThe DriversThe tracksBehind the ScenesOff the screenThe directoryThe shopQuestionsThe whole universe
The ludography

The twelve games, from 1992 to 2025

nine main episodes, a port that became king, a vanished mobile game and a remote-controlled kart that drives on the carpet

The series moves forward in leaps, never in touch-ups. Each main episode brings a structuring new feature — 3D, the handheld, two drivers per kart, online play, the bike, the glider, anti-gravity, the open world — and then the series keeps it for good. That is what explains why a player from 1992 can still drive in 2025: nothing has ever been taken away, everything has been stacked up.

The table below lists the twelve games in order, with their machine and what each one adds. Three of them are not main episodes and this needs saying plainly: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a port, Mario Kart Tour a mobile game, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit a living-room object. That is why Mario Kart World, released in 2025, is the ninth episode of the series and not the twelfth.

Mario Kart 64the founding episode

Mario Kart 64

Four players on one screen: the living-room revolution
Japan releaseDecember 14, 1996
European releaseJune 24, 1997
Tracks16, in 4 cups
Playersup to 4 simultaneously

If a single episode had to carry the title of founder, it would be this one, and not the first. Super Mario Kart had found the idea; Mario Kart 64 gave it its definitive form. The tracks move into three dimensions — relief, gradients, bridges, walls that block the view — where the SNES episode made do with a flat floor seen in Mode 7. A detail that was owned and became a signature: the drivers themselves stay pre-rendered 2D sprites that pivot according to the angle. That mixture of scenery in volume and flat characters gives the game its look, recognisable among a thousand.

The other first is a social one. The Nintendo 64 has four controller ports, and Mario Kart 64 becomes the first game in the Mario franchise to bring four players together simultaneously. The four-way split screen becomes the image of evenings with friends; the Balloon Battle goes from a duel to a free-for-all. It is that game, more than the previous one, that made Mario Kart a ritual rather than a piece of software.

A note on method, because it comes up everywhere: you often come across 1996 and 1997 for this game. Both are correct. Japan received it on 14 December 1996, North America on 10 February 1997, Europe on 24 June 1997 — six months apart, which explains half the disagreements on the forums.

What it invents on the item side

The blue spiked shell is born here, along with the triple green and red shells that whirl around the kart like an offensive shield. None of the three has ever left the series since.

Two drivers arrive, for good

Wario and Donkey Kong become playable for the first time in the series, alongside Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi and Bowser. Eight drivers in all.

The structure in cups

Mushroom, Flower, Star, Special: four cups of four tracks, with Rainbow Road in the final slot. That grid has become the norm in every subsequent episode.

The sound of the series

Kenta Nagata composes the whole soundtrack alone, right from his arrival at Nintendo. He refused to make “racing game music”.

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxethe absolute record

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

The port that became the best-selling Mario game in history
Release28 April 2017
Original gameMario Kart 8 (Wii U, 2014)
Tracks96, a record
Sales71.53 M as of 30/06/2026

The most astonishing fact in the whole series comes down to one sentence: the best-selling Mario game of all time is not a new episode, it is a port. Mario Kart 8 came out in 2014 on the Wii U, a console sold in confidential numbers. Three years later, on 28 April 2017, the Deluxe version put it back out on Switch with all the additional content unlocked from the start — and the same game, or almost, went from obscurity to the world record.

Battle mode is the real underlying difference. The Wii U version recycled racing tracks; the Deluxe redoes it entirely around eight dedicated arenas, with five balloons per player instead of three and a crown on the head of the leading driver. Under the bonnet, you can now carry two items at a time — which completely changes defence — and beginners have a steering aid that stops them leaving the track.

Then Nintendo did something rare: extend a game three years on. The Booster Course Pass, rolled out in six waves from March 2022 to November 2023, adds 48 tracks drawn from the whole saga — including from the mobile Mario Kart Tour. The total reaches 96 layouts, an absolute record for the series, and sales climbed again nearly ten years after release. In Nintendo's history, only Wii Sports remains ahead, and it was sold with its console.

Twelve drivers per race

Locally as well as online, with four possible players in split screen on a single console. It is that figure that Mario Kart World doubled in 2025.

The 200cc mode

Added for players no longer frightened by 150: at that speed, the brake becomes a useful control again, which had not happened for a long time.

Forty-two characters

The widest cast in the series before World, with guests from Zelda, Animal Crossing and Splatoon — see our official collaborations.

Why it does not age

With no campaign to finish and no ending to reach, the game is consumed in short sessions and brought back out indefinitely. It does not date, because it never ends.

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Mario Kart Worldthe break under way

Mario Kart World

The track selection menu disappears in favour of an open world
ReleaseJune 5, 2025
MachineNintendo Switch 2
Drivers per raceup to 24
Rank9th main episode

Since 1992, playing Mario Kart began with the same gesture: opening a menu and choosing a track from a grid. Mario Kart World removes that menu. The layouts are laid out in a continuous world you drive across, biome by biome, with no loading screen between them. Each region contains several tracks you discover on the spot, which turns the title screen into territory.

The second change is arithmetical and is felt immediately: twenty-four drivers per race, almost double the twelve of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. A field of that size changes the nature of the game — position is no longer a place, it is a zone, and an item thrown into the middle of the pack rarely hits whoever you were aiming at. The Knockout Tour mode draws the consequences by eliminating those at the back at every stage.

Released on 5 June 2025 at the same time as the Nintendo Switch 2, the game established itself as the console's best-selling title, with 14.70 million units as of 31 March 2026. It arrived after eight years of uninterrupted domination by Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which makes the comparison of the two curves particularly legible.

Two obstacles promoted to drivers

The Cataquack, a mere beach nuisance since 2003, and the Pokey, a trackside cactus since Double Dash, become playable. Twenty years as extras, paid off with a steering wheel.

The return of the Feather

An item from the very first episode that vanished for decades, the Feather is back in 2025 — after a spell in the Battle mode of 8 Deluxe alone.

A new voice

Kevin Afghani voices Mario in it. Charles Martinet, for his part, still holds Baby Mario and Baby Luigi in it: the handover was not clean-cut.

A departure, too

On 6 June 2025, the day after release, Samantha Kelly announced that she is no longer voicing Peach or Toad after seventeen years.

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Mario Kart, the series1992 · the seriesMario Kart, the seriesthe guide to the series

The blog's reference dossier: the origin, the episodes, the items, the drivers and the tracks in a single read. It is the one that tells the starting point — Nintendo was looking for a split-screen multiplayer, and F-Zero went too fast to fit two players. Mario Kart was born of that constraint. It also lists the series' most cult tracks: Mount Wario and its downhill format with no lap, Big Blue and Mute City inherited from F-Zero, Koopa Troopa Beach.

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Mario Kart Tour2019 · iOS and AndroidMario Kart Tourthe mobile episode, closed again

Released on 25 September 2019 on iOS and Android, developed with the Japanese studio DeNA, it built its tracks on real cities — Paris, Tokyo, New York. Its own find, the Frenzy, made you invincible and handed out one item in unlimited quantity. Its tracks later joined Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Its free-to-play model was much debated, without stopping it being massively downloaded.

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Twelve Mario Kart games from 1992 to 2025: nine main episodes and three apart (a port, a mobile game, a one-off)
Year Game Machine Status What it adds to the series
1992 Super Mario Kart Super Nintendo main episode Mode 7, eight drivers, the item box and split-screen Battle mode
1996 Mario Kart 64 Nintendo 64 main episode true 3D, four players on one screen, sixteen tracks and the blue shell
2001 Mario Kart: Super Circuit Game Boy Advance main episode the series goes handheld and invents the retro cup, taken up in every episode since
2003 Mario Kart: Double Dash!! GameCube main episode two drivers per kart, one special item per character, swapping roles mid-race
2005 Mario Kart DS Nintendo DS main episode online play, retro tracks built in, solo missions and snaking
2008 Mario Kart Wii Wii main episode twelve drivers per race, bikes, the Wii Wheel and 37 million copies
2011 Mario Kart 7 Nintendo 3DS main episode the glider, underwater driving and kart customisation
2014 Mario Kart 8 Wii U main episode anti-gravity, high definition, coins that accelerate and the first paid DLC
2017 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Nintendo Switch expanded port all the additional content from the start, Battle mode redone, then 96 tracks
2019 Mario Kart Tour iOS and Android mobile episode tracks built on real cities, the Frenzy and permanent renewal
2020 Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit Nintendo Switch one-off a real miniature kart with a camera: the track becomes the living room
2025 Mario Kart World Nintendo Switch 2 main episode the open world with no selection menu, twenty-four drivers and the Knockout Tour

One thing not to confuse when reading this table: one line per machine does not mean one game per console. The Nintendo Switch appears twice — for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and for Home Circuit, which is not a sequel but a filmed remote-controlled toy. What really distinguishes the lines is the “status” column: nine main episodes, and three objects apart that it would be dishonest to count as sequels.

What has never moved

Why the game punishes whoever is winning

a design bet held to for thirty-three years, and the eight breaks that made it evolve without ever betraying it

Mario Kart rests on a decision almost no competitive game takes on: the item box does not hand out at random, it hands out according to position. The last-placed driver gets what it takes to come back — the Lightning Bolt is “reserved almost exclusively for drivers relegated to the back of the field”, the Golden Mushroom is the comeback tool par excellence. The leader, for his part, gets a banana. The game actively penalises performance.

In theory, it is heresy. In practice, it is what has held the series together since 1992: a six-year-old can beat an experienced adult without the win looking stolen, and the race stays undecided until the last corner whatever the gap in ability. Few games agree to sacrifice pure fairness to collective enjoyment. Mario Kart did so from the very first episode and has never gone back on it — it is the one rule of the series no generation has dared touch.

That does not mean there is nothing to master, though. The controlled drift is the game's real expert layer : invisible to the beginner, decisive online. It rewards the driver who anticipates their line and triggers their boost at the right moment, it has been there since 1992, and every episode has refined it without ever changing its principle. It gave birth to the *snaking* of Mario Kart DS, the series' first competitive meta: chaining drifts on a straight line, purely for the boosts they earn.

Eight breaks in thirty-three years, and not one lost

The series adds almost nothing between two episodes, but what it adds, it keeps. The table below lists the eight changes that genuinely modified the driving, with the episode that brings them and what they became. The pattern leaps out: not one of those eight breaks has ever been removed. The glider of 2011 is still there in 2025, the retro cup of 2001 has become a contractual obligation towards players, and the anti-gravity of 2014 is the visual identity of the modern series.

One case deserves to be singled out: the retro cup, invented by Mario Kart: Super Circuit in 2001. It consists of delivering, as a bonus, the tracks of an older episode. It is the most discreet gesture on this list and probably the most consequential — it made the series its own museum, and it explains why a 1996 layout like Moo Moo Farm can still be playable thirty years later, with its moles identical. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's Booster Course Pass is nothing but that idea pushed to its conclusion: 48 tracks taken up again, right down to the mobile game.

The race with no finish line

Battle mode is the only place in the series where the objective is not to arrive. It too dates from 1992 — the split-screen Balloon Battle was already there — and it has followed a bumpy path: diluted for years into recycled racing tracks, it only got real arenas back with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and its eight dedicated grounds, five balloons per driver and a crown on the head of whoever is leading.

That mode is also the refuge of the items racing no longer wants. The Feather, present as early as 1992 for clearing low walls in a single bound, had been gone for twenty-five years; it came back in 8 Deluxe in Battle mode only, where its jump serves to dodge an attack and to steal a balloon by bounding onto an opponent. An item can therefore survive its own obsolescence by changing mode.

Eight breaks in the driving in 33 years, and what became of them: four of them have never left the series again
The addition Year Episode that brings it What it is after What it became
The controlled drift 1992 Super Mario Kart rewarding the driver who anticipates their line present in every episode
Battle mode 1992 Super Mario Kart a race with no finish line, reduced to attack eight dedicated arenas in 8 Deluxe
The retro cup 2001 Mario Kart: Super Circuit letting new tracks and older ones live side by side the rule for twenty-five years
Online play 2005 Mario Kart DS taking the race out of the living room at the heart of every episode since
The bike 2008 Mario Kart Wii a second chassis, with the wheelie for a boost back in 8 Deluxe
The glider and swimming 2011 Mario Kart 7 giving the layout height and depth kept ever since
Anti-gravity 2014 Mario Kart 8 driving on walls and ceilings the visual identity of the modern series
The open world 2025 Mario Kart World removing the track selection menu the most recent break

That leaves a question the series asks every generation without ever quite answering it: how far can you stack before it breaks? Mario Kart World is the first episode to remove something rather than add — the track selection menu. Thirty-three years of accumulation, and the most recent break is a subtraction.

The item box

The eighteen items, and the episode that brought each one in

five date from 1992 and have never moved; the others tell, one by one, what each generation had to settle

A Mario Kart item is not judged on its power but on what it corrects. The blue shell settles a problem of suspense, the Super Horn settles the problem created by the blue shell, the POW Block settles that of fields that are too strung out. Read in chronological order, the eighteen items profiled here form a thirty-year conversation between the designers and their players.

Beware of a frequent confusion, which our profiles settle: the date of entry into Mario Kart is almost never the item's date of birth. The POW Block has existed since a 1983 arcade cabinet and only enters racing in 2008; the Mega Mushroom comes from a Mario Party board; the Fire Flower was the emblem of the Flower Cup long before being a playable item. The landmark displayed on each card is the episode of entry into the series, not the year of invention.

The five from 1992, still on track

The first episode laid down an arsenal so well judged that five of its items are still here thirty-three years later, with no change of principle. None of them has ever needed “rebalancing”: they do exactly what they did on the Super Nintendo.

BananaSince 1992 · Super Mario KartBananathe founding trap

A skin left on the track, invisible at the last moment, that sends the careless driver into a spin. Its principle has not moved an inch since 1992, and it is the most universally understood trap in all of Mario Kart : no explanation is needed. You can also drag it behind you like a walking shield — the trade-off between attack and defence is the whole game.

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MushroomSince 1992 · Super Mario KartMushroomthe single-use boost

The Mushroom is visually identical to the Super Mushroom of the platform games, but its effect is quite different : it accelerates instead of making you grow. One burst of acceleration, then it evaporates. Its real use is not the straight but the shortcut — cutting across grass without being slowed, or stretching a jump by a few decisive metres.

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FeatherSince 1992 · Super Mario KartFeatherthe item that vanished then came back

As early as 1992, it gave the kart a great bound for clearing low walls and opening up spectacular shortcuts. Then it disappeared for twenty-five years. Its return in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe happens exclusively in Battle mode, where the jump serves to dodge and to steal a balloon by bounding onto an opponent — before a genuine return to racing in Mario Kart World.

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The weapon, its origin and its counter

Three profiles to read together: they tell the story of the item that ended up prompting the creation of a counter-item, eighteen years later. It is also the place where the shop corrects a received idea — the blue shell is not a graphical invention, it is an animal from the Mario bestiary.

SpinyThe origin of the blue shellSpinythe animal behind the shell

It is from him that the blue shell takes its name and its spiked look : in English it is called the *Spiny Shell*, the Spiny's shell. The enemy that Lakitu has been throwing from his cloud since 1985 therefore gave its silhouette to the most hated projectile in the racing game. The Spinies themselves come back as track obstacles in Mario Kart World.

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Golden MushroomSince 1996 · Mario Kart 64Golden Mushroomthe boost with no limit

Where the classic mushroom gives a single burst of acceleration, the Golden Mushroom offers as many as you like for a few seconds. Introduced in Mario Kart 64 in 1996, it is the most coveted comeback tool in the series — and it only drops in certain positions and certain episodes, which earns it a place in our ranking of the rarest items.

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Five creatures converted into ammunition

The series has a very particular way of recruiting: it takes an enemy from a platform game and makes a projectile out of it. The result is that a good part of the arsenal is alive — which explains why those items behave unpredictably, where a shell follows a trajectory.

Chain ChompSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Chain Chompthe babies' special item

In Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, the Chomp is a special item reserved for Baby Mario and Baby Luigi : hooked to the front of the kart, it charges into the lead and knocks aside everything in its path. An amusing design choice by the developers, who played on the creature's “cute” side to hand it to the youngest drivers in the cast.

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BooThief itemBoothe invisible thief

Summoned, he makes his driver invisible and untouchable for a few seconds, and steals an item from an opponent — a double function that is rare in the arsenal. Present in the Mario Kart 64 era, he then disappeared from the episodes for a long time, before making his great return in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Two effects for a single item, in an arsenal where each one normally has only one — that is what explains why he was so missed during his absence.

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Bob-ombArea-effect itemBob-ombthe area-effect weapon

Laid down or thrown, it explodes and takes with it everything passing within its radius, with no need to aim. Mario Kart even devotes a whole mode to it: one arena, and nothing but Bob-ombs. The creature is also playable in Mario Kart Tour, which makes it both a weapon and a driver.

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The reinforcements of the modern era

Four late entries, which arrived when the series began playing with twelve and then twenty-four drivers. The problem was no longer catching the leader, but getting through a field — hence items that strike an area rather than a target.

POW BlockSince 2008 · Mario Kart WiiPOW Blockit strikes everything ahead

Born in 1983 in an arcade cabinet, it only enters racing with Mario Kart Wii in 2008. After three warning tremors, it makes every competitor ahead of the user spin and drop their items. That warning is its subtlety: jumping at the right moment, or taking off from a ramp, cancels its effect entirely. It is one of the rare items you cancel with a gesture rather than with another item.

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Mega MushroomSince 2008 · Mario Kart WiiMega Mushroomgrowing until you crush the others

It makes the driver bigger and his vehicle too : a gain in speed, immunity to rough ground and to most items, and above all the possibility of flattening competitors, who slow down and lose their items. Introduced in Mario Kart Wii, back in Tour (2019) then in Mario Kart World (2025), where it even withstands the Lightning Bolt. It belongs to the small family of items born elsewhere: its career had begun on a Mario Party board.

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The rarest itemsCross-cuttingThe rarest itemsthe ranking of the unobtainable items

Our roll of honour of the hardest items to obtain in the whole Mario saga includes only one racing item: the Golden Mushroom, precisely because it only drops in certain positions and certain episodes. A rarity that is not a programming accident but a setting. The other entries in the ranking come from platforming and role-playing: the Dark Moons of Odyssey, the Green Stars of Galaxy 2, the Jumpman badge of The Thousand-Year Door.

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The 18 items profiled here, arranged by episode of entry: 13 are dated by our articles, 5 are items whose profile gives no year of entry
Episode of entry Year Items Which ones
Super Mario Kart 1992 5 Banana, Mushroom, Feather, Super Star, Lightning Bolt
Mario Kart 64 1996 2 Blue spiked shell, Golden Mushroom
Double Dash!! 2003 1 Chain Chomp
Mario Kart DS 2005 1 Blooper
Mario Kart Wii 2008 2 POW Block, Mega Mushroom
Mario Kart 7 2011 1 Fire Flower
Mario Kart 8 2014 1 Super Horn
The origin of the blue shell — 1 Spiny
Area-effect item — 1 Bob-omb
Transformation item — 1 Bullet Bill
Thief item — 1 Boo
Cross-cutting — 1 The rarest items

This table says something nostalgia often makes people forget: the series adds almost no items. Five come in in 1992, two in 1996, and after that one or two per generation at best. A Mario Kart from 2025 is played with an arsenal half of which dates from the first episode — which is probably the reason nobody ever needs to reread the rules before a game.

The starting grid

Thirty-five drivers, and the date each one took the wheel

from eight characters in 1992 to fifty in Mario Kart World: the series has spent thirty years recruiting

The Mario Kart grid is the best observatory of the Mario universe, because it is the only list in which a character has to earn his place. A platform boss can appear once and disappear; a driver, by contrast, comes back episode after episode or drops out of the cast. The result: the roster tells you fairly precisely who counts, and at what point.

The movement is spectacular. Eight drivers in 1992, eight again in Mario Kart 64, forty-two in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and fifty in Mario Kart World. That inflation is not decorative: at twenty-four karts per race, you need enough faces for two players not to look alike. The thirty-five profiles below are the ones whose role in racing our blog documents — each carries the episode that brought it into the series, not its date of birth in the Mario universe.

The core, and a received idea to correct

Here are the eight faces we all think we have known since 1992. Except that on rereading our own profiles, two of them were not there at the start : our article on Mario Kart 64 is categorical, Wario and Donkey Kong “become playable for the first time in the series” in 1996, alongside Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi and Bowser. The cards below therefore carry 1996 for those two, and not 1992 as you often read.

The same rigour for the next three: Yoshi, Bowser and Koopa Troopa are unquestionably back-catalogue drivers of the series, but none of their profiles gives an episode of entry. Rather than assigning them a date by instinct, their card displays “core driver”. A page that dates eighty-five entries cannot afford a single decorative date.

LuigiSince 1992 · Super Mario KartLuigipresent in every instalment

The only driver, along with Peach, whose presence our profile asserts in absolutely every episode. He is also the one who gave the series its most lasting meme: the *Luigi Death Stare* of Mario Kart 8, that sideways, icy look aimed at an opponent you have just overtaken. On the voice side, he has followed his brother's calendar exactly: Charles Martinet from Mario Kart 64 onwards, then Kevin Afghani since 2023.

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Princess PeachSince 1992 · Super Mario KartPrincess Peachfast, nimble, in every episode

Playable in every instalment, in the fast and nimble profile. A historical detail that racing helped to settle: in the West she was called Princess Toadstool, and it is from Super Mario 64 and then Mario Kart 64 that the name “Peach” took hold for good. She is also one of the rare roles in the cast to have changed actor several times during the life of the series — Jen Taylor, then Samantha Kelly, then Courtney Lin.

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YoshiCore driverYoshithe best compromise on the grid

One of the most popular drivers in the series, for a simple technical reason: his balance between acceleration and handling makes him the default choice for anyone who does not want to choose. He has also had his own dedicated layout since Mario Kart 64, Yoshi Valley — as Bowser has his castle and Wario his stadium.

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BowserCore driverBowserheavyweight, king of the straight

Excellent on the straight and formidable on contact, he pays for that mass in acceleration. A peculiarity of his double career: he is a playable driver, and often the boss of the series' arcade modes — present on both sides of the finishing line. His family and his minions occupy five further profiles on this page on their own: Bowser Jr., Dry Bowser, the Koopalings, Roy and Lemmy. No other clan is so well represented on the grid.

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Koopa TroopaCore driverKoopa Troopafeatherweight, lively acceleration

Bowser's basic soldier, recycled as a light driver with lively acceleration. He is also the one who supplies the series with its most common ammunition: the green shell and the red shell come off his back. Few drivers can say their anatomy has become ammunition. He also turns up as a referee or mini-boss in Mario Party, and on the courts of Tennis, Golf and Strikers.

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Fourteen drivers that racing recruited

This is the most interesting group on the grid: characters Mario Kart did not borrow from the platform games, but that it manufactured or relaunched. Toadette arrives through the side door of a racing game in 2003 and becomes a heroine in her own right; Baby Daisy has no childhood recounted anywhere, she appears in 2008 already at the wheel; Metal Mario was a temporary effect in Super Mario 64 and becomes a distinct character fifteen years later.

The turning point is Double Dash!!, in 2003. Its principle — two drivers per kart — mechanically forced the cast to be doubled, and six of the profiles below date from that single episode. The design constraint produced more characters than ten years of platform games.

ToadetteSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Toadettearrived through the side door of a racing game

Introduced in 2003 in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, as Toad's obvious team-mate. She has never left the casts since, and her versatility — racing, platforming, puzzle, sport — ended up making her far more than a derivative of Toad : an autonomous heroine, turned princess by a mushroom. She is the textbook example of the character racing manufactured: nothing, before 2003, hinted at her.

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WaluigiSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Waluigihe has no game, he has a track

Playable since Double Dash!!, with balanced statistics that steer him towards heavy and intermediate karts. His real consecration is not a place in the cast but a layout in his name : Waluigi Pinball, in Mario Kart DS, famous for its neon atmosphere and its electrifying music. Charles Martinet lent him his voice too, and his last known role for Nintendo was precisely this character, in Super Mario Party Jamboree in 2024.

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Princess DaisySince 2003 · Double Dash!!Princess Daisya track, a boat and a cult line

The series gave her what no platform game offered her: her own track (Daisy Circuit), her own boat (Daisy Cruiser), and a line that became folklore. The “Hi, I'm Daisy!” comes from Double Dash!!, and her cries from Mario Kart Wii have been parodied for twenty years. She owes her return to the front rank to the spin-offs, and our profile is precise about the delay: having appeared in Super Mario Land in April 1989, she vanishes from the radar for eleven years, until Mario Tennis on the Nintendo 64 in 2000. She has not left the kart since.

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Bowser Jr.Since 2003 · Double Dash!!Bowser Jr.he brought his Clown Car along

Playable in Double Dash!!, Mario Kart Wii then 8 Deluxe. His particularity is that he did not arrive alone: his flying Clown Car followed him right into the karts, turning a platform boss's vehicle into a racing chassis. A precision his profile brings and that the grid makes visible: Nintendo officially established in 2012 that the seven Koopalings are not his brothers and sisters, but his father's elite minions. He alone is the son.

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Baby MarioSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Baby Marioa driver before being a hero

Double Dash!! makes him a driver in 2003, and since then he has never left the spin-off casts — even though he would not become a fully playable character in an adventure game until 2005, with Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. Racing is two years ahead of the rest of the universe. His pairing with Baby Luigi is one of the most obvious pairs in the Double Dash!! cast, and the only one to have the Chomp as a special item.

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Baby LuigiSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Baby Luigihis first playable appearance, full stop

An objective-character in Yoshi's Island — you protected him without controlling him — he becomes playable for the first time in his career in Double Dash!!. The principle of two drivers per kart made the two babies one of the most obvious pairs in the cast. The two babies share the Double Dash!! special item: the Chomp hooked to the front of the kart. Baby Peach and Baby Daisy would not join them until five years later.

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Baby DaisySince 2008 · Mario Kart WiiBaby Daisyborn on a track, with no game of origin

The purest case in the series: she has no childhood recounted anywhere. She appears in 2008 in Mario Kart Wii, already at the wheel, with no game of origin and no plot to introduce her. A casting creation before being a character in a story — something only a racing series could produce. An end-of-career detail: it is the babies' category that Charles Martinet held longest, right up to Mario Kart World in 2025.

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RosalinaSince 2008 · Mario Kart WiiRosalinafrom the galaxy to the track

The cosmic guardian of Super Mario Galaxy joins the grid from Mario Kart Wii onwards and has never left it: Mario Kart 7, 8, 8 Deluxe and Tour, where she comes in astral and winter versions, and even Baby Rosalina. Few characters have so many official costumes. Her profile corrects a frequent confusion along the way: in Super Mario Galaxy 2, she is not playable. It is racing that made her a character you control.

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Metal MarioSince 2011 · Mario Kart 7Metal Marioan effect turned character

Born in 1996 as a mere temporary transformation in Super Mario 64, he has featured since 2011 in the Mario Kart cast as a distinct driver. Going from the status of effect to that of character is rare in video games — and it is racing, not platforming, that gave it to him. Fifteen years separate the effect from the character — and it is a racing game, not a platform game, that carried out the promotion.

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Nine creatures that moved to the other side of the wheel

This is the series' most characteristic move: take an obstacle and give it a kart. The Pokey had been getting in drivers' way at the edge of desert tracks since 2003; the Cataquack had been catapulting the careless on Peach Beach since the same year. In 2025, Mario Kart World puts them both behind the wheel. Twenty-two years as extras, and a promotion.

That recruitment from the bestiary has a consequence the grid makes visible: several of these drivers have a physical profile dictated by their nature as enemies. Dry Bones is the lightest because he is nothing but bones; the Cataquack is classed as a heavyweight; Petey Piranha drags his pot around. The enemies guide tells the story of their other life.

BirdoSince 2003 · Double Dash!!BirdoYoshi's team-mate in an egg kart

Double Dash!! brings her in as Yoshi's natural team-mate, in an egg-shaped kart — the most literal pairing in the game. She comes back later in Mario Kart Tour, where she collects exclusive costumes, proof of a popularity her platform appearances do not explain on their own. Her return in recent titles such as Mario Kart Tour or Mario Party Superstars testifies to a popularity that her platform appearances do not explain by themselves.

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Petey PiranhaSince 2003 · Double Dash!!Petey Piranhaa driver, and not scenery

Contrary to a widespread idea, Petey Piranha is not confined to the scenery in Mario Kart : he races there as a fully playable driver. First to be unlocked in Double Dash!! (2003), then in Tour, before joining the 8 Deluxe grid with the fifth wave of the Pass, in 2023. Our profile insists on the name, and the shop sticks to it: in French he is Flora Piranha; Petey Piranha is the original name.

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Dry BonesSince 2005 · Mario Kart DSDry Bonesthe lightest in Mario Kart DS

Mario Kart DS invites him onto the grid in 2005, unlockable by winning all the Nitro cups at 50cc : he is the lightest driver in the game there, ahead of Toad, Peach and Yoshi. He misses Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, comes back in the base roster of 8 Deluxe, then features among the playable drivers from launch in Mario Kart World.

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Shy GuySince 2005 · Mario Kart DSShy Guytolerated first, then made a regular

His entry happens in two stages, which is unique on the grid: first a driver reserved for local multiplayer in Mario Kart DS, then a fully unlockable driver in Mario Kart 7 (2011), obtained by taking the gold trophy in the Shell Cup at 150cc. That two-stage path says something about the method: the series tries out its recruits in local multiplayer before making them regulars.

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CataquackSince 2025 · Mario Kart WorldCataquacktwenty-two years as an obstacle, then a steering wheel

He has been catapulting drivers off the track on Peach Beach since Double Dash!! (2003), and signs up again on the same retro layout in Mario Kart Wii. In 2025, Mario Kart World makes him a playable driver in the heavyweight category, unlocked in particular when Kamek's magic transforms the character being played. A detail: when he remains an obstacle, he now only appears in blue — the harmless version.

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PokeySince 2025 · Mario Kart WorldPokeythe cactus that ended up racing

The series has made him a recurring obstacle in all its deserts: the Dry Dry Desert of Double Dash!!, the Desert Hills of Mario Kart DS, the Dry Dry Ruins of Mario Kart Wii, then Mario Kart 8. Every driver in the series has paid for a contact in lost seconds. An unexpected consecration in 2025: he becomes a playable driver in Mario Kart World.

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The Koopa family, in as a single block in 2014

The seven Koopalings have existed since 1988 in the platform games. They only enter racing in 2014, all at once and in full, with Mario Kart 8 — the only time the series has brought seven characters from the same set of siblings into one episode. That is what explains why their profiles are so precisely differentiated: seven distinct slots were needed on one grid.

The KoopalingsSince 2014 · Mario Kart 8The Koopalingsseven at once

Playable for the first time in a racing game with Mario Kart 8, in 2014, then carried over into 8 Deluxe. For a set of minion siblings confined for twenty-six years to end-of-world fights, the starting grid served as a collective promotion. Their seven names are tributes to musicians, and Nintendo specified in 2012 that they are not Bowser's children but his elite minions.

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Roy KoopaSince 2014 · Mario Kart 8Roy Koopaheavyweight, no surprise

Mario Kart 8 places him among the heavyweights, alongside Donkey Kong and Waluigi — a classification his build as a thug in pink shades made fairly predictable. He is the member of the family whose racing profile fits best the role he already held in platforming. Like his six brothers and sisters, he owes his name to a musician: the whole family is a tribute, which explains first names so unlike a Koopa's.

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Lemmy KoopaSince 2014 · Mario Kart 8Lemmy Koopathe lightest driver in Mario Kart 8

A rare distinction: in Mario Kart 8, he is the lightest driver in the whole game. That status as absolute featherweight has given an unexpected second career to a character long considered a bit player in the 2D games — he has become a recognised strategic choice on the tracks. His name pays tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, of Motörhead: the grid's featherweight carries that of a heavy metal singer.

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Peach, Pauline and DaisyCross-cuttingPeach, Pauline and Daisythe in-depth dossier

Three trajectories, two of which pass through racing: Daisy settles in for good from Double Dash!! onwards, Pauline waits for Mario Kart Tour. The complete dossier is on the blog — it is one of the most read articles on the site, and it deserves better than a summary here. This page does not summarise it and does not try to: it is one of the blog's most consulted articles, and it treats the subject better than a box could.

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One last figure, which puts the grid in perspective: Mario Kart World lines up fifty drivers at launch — and Dry Bowser is not among them. A character who had demanded 4,350 races to be unlocked in 2008, and became a grid regular for seventeen years, is missing from the widest roster ever offered. The Mario Kart grid does not only add: it sorts.

The layout and what inhabits it

The tracks, their traps and their referee

a Mario Kart track is not scenery: it is a list of creatures placed there to cost you seconds

The series gave up inventing settings very early on. It preferred to build a grammar of archetypes that the player recognises at the first corner: the beach with its Cheep Cheeps, the desert with its Pokeys, the farm with its moles, Bowser's castle and its lava, the haunted mansion. Every episode reinterprets them rather than inventing something else — and it is that continuity that makes it possible to find your bearings on a layout you have never seen.

The consequence is that a track's obstacles are almost always characters profiled elsewhere on this site. A Mario Kart Thwomp is the same as the one in the 2D castles; a Pokey on the desert track is the one from Dry Dry. The profiles below make the link both ways: what the creature is in the universe, and what it does when you give it a track.

Rainbow Roadthe signature track

Rainbow Road

A multicoloured ribbon suspended in the void, with almost no barriers
First appearanceSuper Mario Kart, 1992
Place in the gamelast of the Special Cup
Original themeSoyo Oka, in C major
Longest versionMario Kart World, ~5 min/lap

Since 1992, Rainbow Road has occupied exactly the same place : the very last track of the Special Cup, and therefore the event that closes the game. Few series have kept a constant going for so long. The original version was the shortest of all — rainbow tiles floating in space, 90-degree corners, no safety barrier at all, and star-covered Thwomps scattered across the road to eliminate the careless.

Its sonic identity is as stable as its visual identity. The original theme was composed by Soyo Oka for Super Mario Kart, in the key of C major, and its motifs have been taken up in the theme of every Rainbow Road in the following games — Oka has said it was one of her favourite compositions. Three decades of reorchestrations, one single starting melody.

Every generation has redrawn it without touching the principle. The one in Mario Kart 64 measures 2,000 metres : the longest track in the game, and the longest three-lap layout in the whole series, in multicoloured glass, with star-shaped railings, neon signs bearing the characters' faces and Chomps as obstacles. Mario Kart 7 moves it around the Moon, on a single lap divided into three sections. Mario Kart 8 installs it in a space station and tips it into anti-gravity — a figure-of-eight section, then two interlaced sections.

The detail that sums it all up

In Mario Kart World, the game that removed the track selection menu, Rainbow Road is the only layout that does not belong to the open world and is not reachable in free exploration. It remains a culmination apart.

The only track to be unlocked

Still in Mario Kart World, it is also the only track in the game that has to be unlocked, and the longest in the whole series: about five minutes per lap at 150cc.

It has served as a Smash stage

The lunar version from Mario Kart 7 was taken up as an arena in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS — the track left its own game.

And in the cinema

It also features in the Super Mario Bros. film, which makes it one of the rare pieces of pure gameplay to have survived the move to the screen.

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LakituSince 1992 · Super Mario KartLakituthe referee, since the first episode

Since Super Mario Kart in 1992, he is the one who gives the starting signal, waves the flag, announces the lap number and fishes drivers back out when they fall off the track. No other character has held the same post for thirty-three years. In 2011, Mario Kart 7 moves him to the other side of the line: he becomes playable, while keeping his referee's cap for the others.

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Monty MoleSince 1996 · Mario Kart 64Monty MoleMoo Moo Farm, 1996

In Mario Kart 64, the moles of Moo Moo Farm spring out of their holes in the middle of the track and send the karts that hit them spinning — a stinging memory for a whole generation. The layout and its moles have been re-released in retro form in the following episodes: thirty years later, you still get caught in the same place.

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Cheep CheepSince 2005 · Mario Kart DSCheep Cheeptwo tracks in his name

The fish has his own dedicated layouts : Cheep Cheep Beach in Mario Kart DS and Cheep Cheep Lagoon in Mario Kart 7 — the latter having inaugurated underwater racing in the series. Mario Kart Tour pushed the nod as far as offering, in 2020, a kart in Deep Cheep colours. Two layouts and a vehicle in his name, then, without his ever having taken the wheel himself.

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Banzai BillSince 2005 · Mario Kart DSBanzai BillAirship Fortress

On the track Airship Fortress, created in Mario Kart DS, a steady stream of these giant projectiles sweeps the passage: the slightest contact sends the driver flying. A continuity detail our profile notes: since the track's return in Mario Kart 7, it is Banzai Bills that replace the Bullet Bills there — the layout has changed calibre.

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Peach's CastleSince 1996 · Mario Kart 64Peach's Castlein the background, on Royal Raceway

The castle serves as scenery for many of the series' races, notably on the Royal Raceway track. It is one of the rare places in the Mario universe to have been lifted into space by Galaxy, torn from the ground by Paper Mario, reinterpreted by Odyssey — and turned into a skyline by Mario Kart. A fairly rare case: it is a place that exists above all as a horizon. You do not visit it in racing, you drive past it.

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ThwompTrack obstacleThwompthe obstacle that falls

In racing, Thwomps become track obstacles that add a strategic dimension: their fall has a rhythm, and can therefore be anticipated. You come across them as early as the Rainbow Road of 1992, in a star-covered version. The complete portrait of the stone giant is on the blog. His presence is constant but discreet: he chases nobody, he waits for his moment, and his rhythm is memorised in one lap.

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GoombaTrack obstacleGoombathe trackside extra

The first enemy of millions of players in 1985, he has never obtained a steering wheel: in the series, he remains an obstacle on various tracks. It is the opposite trajectory to the Pokey's or the Cataquack's — proof that a long career as an obstacle does not automatically lead to a place in the cast. He remains playable elsewhere, notably in Mario Super Sluggers: racing is one of the rare disciplines in which he has never been handed a wheel.

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A word on what this section cannot do. To this day the blog devotes only one article to a specific track — Rainbow Road. Mount Wario and its downhill format with no lap, Big Blue and Mute City inherited from F-Zero, Coconut Mall, Waluigi Pinball or Koopa Troopa Beach are cited in our dossiers but do not yet have profiles of their own. That is, by a long way, the biggest gap in the corpus on this subject — and the first thing to write if this guide is to go further.

Who makes all of it

The eight names behind the series

a director nobody knows, a composer who refused to write racing music, and two voices that have stopped

Mario Kart is probably the best-selling franchise in video games whose creator nobody can name. It is not Miyamoto — he is its producer, deliberately in the background from 1992 onwards. It is Hideki Konno, with Tadashi Sugiyama beside him on the first episode. The eight profiles below repair that anonymity a little.

They also tell the story of a generational shift that played out over a few months around 2025: Mario's voice changed, Peach's stopped, and the man who invented the series left Nintendo — a month after the release of Mario Kart World, without the slightest announcement.

Hideki Konnothe creator

Hideki Konno

Without him, no Mario Kart — and yet nobody knows his name
Born on13 May 1965, in Chiba
Joined NintendoApril 1986
Super Mario Kartco-director, 1992
Mario Kart 64sole director, 1996

Konno arrived at Nintendo in April 1986, in the generation trained directly in Miyamoto's orbit. His first steps are already at the heart of the Mario projects: assistant director on *Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic* (1987), the game that would become Super Mario Bros. 2 in the West; level design on Super Mario Bros. 3 ; world map director and level designer on Super Mario World. He even directed the Super Nintendo version of SimCity in 1991 — six years of versatility before inventing a genre.

In 1992, he co-directed Super Mario Kart with Tadashi Sugiyama, under the production of a deliberately withdrawn Miyamoto. Four years later, he took a step up by taking sole charge of Mario Kart 64 — the move to 3D and the four-player mode are his work as director. From the middle of the 2000s, he left the director's chair to become the series' regular producer: Mario Kart DS, Wii, 7, 8, 8 Deluxe and Tour all carry his signature as producer.

Reducing him to racing would be unfair. He co-directed Yoshi's Island in 1995, directed Luigi's Mansion at the launch of the GameCube in 2001 — a bet against the grain that launched a whole sub-series — produced Nintendogs in 2005, then became producer of the Nintendo 3DS hardware, championing its StreetPass and SpotPass. In 2015, he took over the smart device division and supervised Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes and Dr. Mario World.

The starting idea was not a kart

The team was looking for a multiplayer mode for F-Zero. Out of those experiments came the formula: accessible handling, items picked up off the ground, controlled drifts.

His name is still in Mario Kart World

He still appears in the credits of the Switch 2 instalment, as a final nod to the father of the genre.

A departure with no announcement

Konno left Nintendo in July 2025, a month after the release of Mario Kart World, with no official communication whatsoever. Fans spotted it when his profile was updated; the press relayed it in early 2026.

Almost forty years

From April 1986 to July 2025: thirty-nine years with the same employer, thirty-three of them keeping alive the series he had co-created.

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Kenta NagataSince 1996 · Mario Kart 64Kenta Nagatahe composed the whole MK64 soundtrack alone

Born on 7 July 1970, a multi-instrumentalist — piano, bass, guitar — he joined Nintendo EAD in 1996 and was immediately entrusted, alone, with the entire original soundtrack of Mario Kart 64. A crushing responsibility for a beginner. His obsession came down to a refusal: not to make “racing game music”. He then became sound director on the Kart games and the New Super Mario Bros. games.

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Satoru IwataSince 2008 · Mario Kart WiiSatoru Iwatathe president who put in a plastic wheel

Under his presidency, Mario Kart Wii (2008) democratised racing with its plastic wheel — the gesture that brought the series into households that had never held a controller. Iwata announced the new features himself, on camera, short-circuiting the press to talk directly to players. The same console owes him Super Mario Galaxy in 2007 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii: three successes in three years, of which racing was by far the widest.

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Kevin AfghaniSince 2025 · Mario Kart WorldKevin Afghanithe voice that came after

Charles Martinet's successor since 2023, he voices Mario in the recent productions, Mario Kart World included. His arrival happened without fuss: no announcement, just a new game in which the voice had changed — a very Nintendo way of turning a page. He also voices Mario in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Party Jamboree and Mario & Luigi: Brothership. Mario Kart World is simply his biggest stage.

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The music of invincibilityCross-cuttingThe music of invincibilitythe theme racing inherited

The star's disco, decoded bar by bar: it is one of the rare motifs in the Mario universe that you hear revisited in the Mario Kart series as much as elsewhere. When the Super Star drops out of the item box, it is those few seconds of music that warn the other drivers before the image does. Our decoding shows that the motif fits into a few bars, and that its function is above all practical: to warn, before the image has even changed.

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What these eight profiles tell together goes beyond Mario Kart. The series has reached the age at which its founders leave. Konno left Nintendo in July 2025, Martinet retired in 2023, Samantha Kelly handed back her microphone on 6 June 2025. The ninth episode of the series is the first to come out with none of them at the controls — and the first to carry Konno's name in its credits alone.

What the series has become

Mario Kart outside the console

an augmented reality ride, an arcade cabinet in a headset, certified records and a game that ended up leaving the living room

A racing series does not become a cultural phenomenon by staying on a television set. Mario Kart has spilled over in four directions: the theme park, the arcade cabinet, the living room itself with a remote-controlled kart, and the record books. The eight profiles below follow each of those excursions off the track.

The figure that sums them all up is a commercial one, and it raises a methodological problem better dealt with head-on: our articles give three different numbers for the sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. They do not contradict each other — they come from different cut-off dates, and the table below sets them side by side with their date. That is more honest than picking one and leaving the other two lying around elsewhere on the site.

The Guinness recordsCross-cuttingThe Guinness recordsthe certified roll of honour

It is racing that holds the saga's records, not platforming. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best-selling Mario game in history, with 71.08 million copies as of 31 March 2026 according to that roll of honour. The next generation follows the same trajectory: Mario Kart World established itself as the best-selling game on the Switch 2, with 14.70 million units at the same date.

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The collaborationsCross-cuttingThe collaborationswhen other licences get into the kart

Mario Kart is Nintendo's favourite meeting ground. Link becomes playable in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with his Master Cycle ; Mario Kart 8 hosts an Animal Crossing track, with Villager and Isabelle at the wheel. Racing serves as neutral ground for universes that otherwise have nothing to say to each other — it is a genre anyone can enter.

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The amiiboCross-cuttingThe amiibothe figure that unlocks an outfit

Scanned in Mario Kart 8, the amiibo unlock outfits for the player's Mii . It is one of the rare uses of the range that is anything but anecdotal: it turns a display-cabinet figure into a content key, and brings a collection of physical objects into the gameplay loop. The guide also details the range's rarities and the compatibilities game by game — the simplest way to know which figure is good for what.

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Playing as a familyCross-cuttingPlaying as a familythe king of the crazy family race

In our selection of multiplayer Marios, the series occupies the place you would guess: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe remains a safe bet, with its four-player local play. A precise recommendation for 3-6 year-olds: Mario Kart with assisted steering — the steering aid that stops you leaving the track makes the game accessible before you can even read.

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The same game, three readings: our articles do not contradict each other, they come from different cut-off dates — 4.18 million between the first and the last
As at Copies sold Where the figure is written
31 December 2024 67.35 million our article
31 March 2026 71.08 million our article
30 June 2026 71.53 million our article

That table is worth more than a methodological anecdote. On a site with hundreds of articles, a sales figure is never wrong, it is dated — and a guide that displays only one number always ends up contradicting one of its own articles. The only honest way to cite three successive readings is to display all three, with their cut-off date. The progression, for its part, reads on its own: the game was still selling nearly nine years after its release.

The directory

The 85 profiles, searchable from a single field

Type a name, an episode or a year: “double dash” brings out the twelve entries that arrived in 2003, “world” the new arrivals of 2025, “1992” the founders. The six families filter the rest. Each bubble opens the corresponding article on the shop's blog.

85 profiles shown

No profile matches this search.

Mario Kart in the Shop

Eighty-four products carrying the kart

racing is by far the best-served theme in the catalogue

Across the whole catalogue, 84 products carry Mario Kart in their name, of which 61 are on sale today: it is the shop's best-stocked theme, ahead of the platform universes. The reason is simple — the kart draws well. A character at the wheel fits into a four-centimetre keyring as well as onto a one-metre poster.

Two ranges stand out. The karting figures reproduce the starting grid to scale, character by character: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Bowser and Donkey Kong — exactly the seven founding core drivers profiled above. And the Mario Kart Mille Bornes transposes the shell and the banana onto cards, which is probably the most faithful adaptation of the item box off the console.

Mario Kart figuresthe starting grid in three dimensions, driver by driverKarting keyringstwelve characters at the wheel, for under fifteen eurosMario Kart t-shirtsMario, Luigi, Toad, Waluigi and Donkey Kong racingMario Kart jigsaw puzzlesfrom 150 XXL pieces to 1,000-piece FunracerBoard Gamesincluding the Mario Kart Mille Bornes and its itemsMario Toysthe complete department, karts and characters
Frequently asked questions

We answer your questions

what players most often look for before starting a race

What was the first Mario Kart?

Super Mario Kart, released on 27 August 1992 in Japan on the Super Nintendo. It lays down at a stroke everything the series has never since abandoned: eight drivers, the item box, the controlled drift and split-screen Battle mode. Its 3D is an illusion, produced by the console's Mode 7 , which pivots and zooms a flat set. The whole story is in our guide to the series.

How many Mario Kart games are there?

Twelve are profiled here: nine main episodes from 1992 to 2025, plus three games apart — the expanded port Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2017), the mobile episode Mario Kart Tour (2019) and the one-off Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (2020), which drives a real miniature kart across the living-room carpet. The table in the “the twelve games” section gives them all, with their machine.

How many copies has Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold?

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and by a very long way: 71.53 million copies as of 30 June 2026. It is the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch and the best-selling Mario game of all time, across all genres — ahead of any platform episode. Its successor is on the same slope: Mario Kart World was already the best-selling game on the Switch 2 with 14.70 million units as of 31 March 2026.

Why is the blue shell so hated?

Because it does not aim at an opponent: it aims at the leader, whoever that is, and it finds him. Introduced in Mario Kart 64 on 14 December 1996, it is the armed wing of an acknowledged design principle — keeping the suspense up to the line. The most reliable counter is the Super Horn, which arrived eighteen years later in Mario Kart 8.

What is Rainbow Road?

The track that traditionally closes the Special Cup since 1992: a multicoloured ribbon suspended in space, virtually devoid of barriers. Its original theme, in C major, is signed by Soyo Oka, and every generation reorchestrates it. Our profile retraces its successive versions, right up to the one Mario Kart 8's anti-gravity made vertical.

Since when have we been driving on walls and ceilings?

Mario Kart 8, in 2014 on the Wii U: the wheels tilt, the kart holds to the wall and the ceiling, and the layout stops being a plane. The same episode brings high definition, the orchestral soundtrack, the system of coins that accelerate, and the series' first paid additional content — the one that put Link in a kart.

When could you play Mario Kart online?

With Mario Kart DS, in 2005, via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The same episode introduces two other lasting habits: the retro tracks built into the base game and the solo missions. It is also where the *snaking* was born, that way of chaining drifts on a straight line which created the series' first real competitive meta.

Who created Mario Kart?

Hideki Konno, who joined Nintendo in April 1986. He co-directs Super Mario Kart in 1992, then takes sole charge of Mario Kart 64, and goes on to produce the saga for decades. Shigeru Miyamoto is its historic producer. Konno remains a name almost nobody knows, for a franchise everybody has played.

How many drivers and tracks in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe?

42 playable characters and 96 tracks — 48 originally, doubled by the Booster Course Pass in 2022-2023. It is the absolute record for the series on both counts. The game takes up to twelve drivers per race, four in local split screen, and it adds the 200cc mode for players who found 150 too slow.

What really changes in Mario Kart World?

Released on June 5, 2025 with the console, it removes the track selection menu: the layouts are linked by an open world you drive across. Races go up to 24 drivers, double the previous maximum, and the Knockout Tour mode eliminates those at the back at every stage. Two former scenery obstacles finally land a steering wheel there: the Cataquack and the Pokey.

Who is the lightest driver?

That depends on the episode, and two profiles compete for the title. In Mario Kart DS, it is Dry Bones, unlockable by winning all the Nitro cups at 50cc, lighter than Toad, Peach and Yoshi. In Mario Kart 8, it is Lemmy Koopa, the smallest of the seven Koopalings — a distinction that gave a second career to a bit player from the 2D games.

Can you play Mario Kart in virtual reality?

Yes, but not at home: Mario Kart Arcade GP VR, developed by Bandai Namco, exists only in arcades. It is the most advanced Mario experience in virtual reality to date, with a single-lap race. Nintendo has never brought the series to a consumer headset.

The rest of the universe

Explore the whole Mario universe

eleven other guides cover the rest of the universe — the games, the characters, the places, the items and Mario culture

Mario Universeevery department in the shopMarioeverything about the plumberThe Mario video gamesthe complete list, 1981 to todayThe charactersheroes, princesses, alliesThe enemiesBowser, Koopas, bosses and villainsThe power-upsmushrooms, flowers, starsGalaxy and Odysseythe great 3D adventuresThe RPGsPaper Mario and Mario & LuigiThe kingdoms and placesthe complete geographyCinema and culturefilms, series, music, parksBuying guidechoosing a Mario gift