Mario Kart + Moo Moo Cow

April 2, 2025 7:20 AM

With the Nintendo Switch 2 launching on June 5th 2025, one of the day one titles is Mario Kart World, where you can play as a cow. There's also an Elden Ring game, some GameCube ports e.g. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (and the GameCube controller), a 3D Donkey Kong, a wheelchair basketball game, and a bundle of other titles, new and refreshed and ported. There's no word on the price, or a price adjustment for the original Switch for which new games include Tomodachi Life (the last 20 seconds is intriguing) in 2026.
posted by Wordshore (41 comments total)

I am most definitely not a console or PC gamer, but I follow a former MeFite's Tumblr account and am suddenly very interested in playing Pentiment, which is a Switch game. But I am afraid of buying something that spendy because I fear that what if I don't like playing games on it? What if my brain cannot make my hands remember what button or toggle or etc does what because my executives like to dysfunction?
posted by Kitteh at 7:27 AM on April 2 [5 favorites]

This doesn't mention the most important thing. The most. important. thing. SILKSONG 2025!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:32 AM on April 2 [6 favorites]

If there's backwards compatibility for the Donkey Konga bongos I'll buy it at launch.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:34 AM on April 2 [3 favorites]

Also, here is word of a price.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:34 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Took a Mario Kart cow screenshot from the trailer. It appears to be riding a twin speaker tape deck with wheels.

Of course.
posted by Wordshore at 7:40 AM on April 2 [5 favorites]

Windwaker is still one of my favorite Zelda games. GameCube, yes, but it looked better on the Wii; it's a bit of a pain to keep the older consoles connected so I don't dislike the idea of being able to play it on an updated Switch.

I'm excited. My son is excited. My wife is going to be really annoyed. She's not a gamer.

On the other hand, she DID like Wii Sports, for some reason she was unstoppable at the bowling, so MAYBE there is something for her here as well...
posted by caution live frogs at 7:48 AM on April 2 [5 favorites]

I'm not the market for this, but my kid is, so she'll almost certainly get one at some point. I'm curious how much Trump's tariffs will drive up the price in the US.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:48 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

I am most definitely not a console or PC gamer, but I follow a former MeFite's Tumblr account and am suddenly very interested in playing Pentiment, which is a Switch game.

Pentiment is also on PC! It's probably easier with a mouse too, since it's mostly a point and click game.
posted by extramachine at 7:50 AM on April 2 [6 favorites]

Spike Glee: "I'm not the market for this, but my kid is, so she'll almost certainly get one at some point. I'm curious how much Trump's tariffs will drive up the price in the US."

Living here in MN, Canada's not that far a drive... if it's "pay the Trump tax" or "take a road trip" I know which way I'd lean
posted by caution live frogs at 7:50 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

At the very end of the Japan Direct, they mentioned that there would be a Japanese-language only model to be used only with accounts that are in Japan. There is a multi-language version but it won't be sold in stores, you can only buy it online.

The Japan-only Switch 2 will be 49,980 yen versus the multi-language at 69,980 yen.

69,980 yen is currently about 468 US dollars which is only slightly above the suggested 449.99 that the businesswire article references.
posted by LostInUbe at 7:51 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

Nintendo also apparently just had some marketing thing where, as part of a compilation video of indie games, they showed a few seconds of new Silksong footage and said it's coming out this year. The silksong subreddit is a fun read right now if you want to see some people losing their shit past the point of even basic coherence, about something good.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 7:55 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

very interested in playing Pentiment, which is a Switch game. But I am afraid of buying something that spendy because I fear that what if I don't like playing games on it? What if my brain cannot make my hands remember what button or toggle or etc does what because my executives like to dysfunction?

If you're looking for a less spendy way to play Pentiment, it's also available for just $20 (less if it's on sale) on the Steam game store, and it'll run on pretty much any newer Windows PC made in the last few years. It's a good way to dip your toe into playing current-ish games without splashing out a lot of money on a dedicated console.

Pentiment uses a standard console-style controller (wired USB ones can be found for around $20-$30 on eBay), but since it's a narrative adventure game it doesn't rely too much on quick reflexes or muscle memory with the sticks/buttons, and has a fairly minimal interface so it's accessible to folks who don't go for the more intense type of games.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:57 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

I was definitely excited when I saw the Silksong clip!
posted by LostInUbe at 7:57 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

If you're looking for a less spendy way to play Pentiment, it's also available for just $20 (less if it's on sale) on the Steam game store, and it'll run on pretty much any newer Windows PC made in the last few years. It's a good way to dip your toe into playing current-ish games without splashing out a lot of money on a dedicated console.

I use Linux, would I still be able to pay Pentiment via Steam on an Linux interface? Because I'd like to try that before I shell out money for something I might not like using.
posted by Kitteh at 8:02 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Schmilksong, the real news is Peach riding a motorcycle in a dress. Is this a bright new future? A reversion to barbarism? I just can't tell.

(j/k I am hyped about Silksong)
posted by Hermione Dies at 8:03 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Derail, but the SteamDeck is based on Linux, so games that are steam deck compatible will generally be able to run on Linux machines. Beyond that, googling “{game title} + Linux” will reliably turn up Reddit results for troubleshooting common issues with that specific program.

To sum up: yes, Pentiment should be easy to get running on Linux.
posted by itesser at 8:16 AM on April 2 [4 favorites]

Kitteh, steam uses the builtin Proton compability layer to run windows games on linux; Pentiment is listed as Platinum status on protondb so it should 'just work'.

To enable Proton, you used to go to Steam > Settings, then navigate to Compatibility. Check the boxes for Enable Steam Play for supported titles and Enable Steam Play for all other titles. I presume it hasn't changed lately.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 8:20 AM on April 2 [6 favorites]

> an Elden Ring game

The real news here for FromSoftware fans is The Duskbloods, which appears to be Bloodborne 2 in all but name. Even the city looks like Yharnam with the serial numbers filed off.

(Bloodborne is maybe my favorite game ever so I'm pretty hyped about it)
posted by neckro23 at 8:23 AM on April 2 [2 favorites]

Kudos to them for thinking outside the box with that wheelchair basketball game. What an interesting use of the controllers.
posted by dobbs at 8:26 AM on April 2 [4 favorites]

My teen was up early watching this and the biggest thrill was Deltarune as a launch title concurrent with the release of Deltarune chapters 3&4.
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:31 AM on April 2 [3 favorites]

All the buy non-American forums should love this, so nice timing Nintendo. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 9:13 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

The reveal was fun to an extent, but the pricing they showed after the reveal was dire.

Mario Kart World retails for $79.99 USD, and so far we don't know if that's the price across all versions of the game or if the physical cart will be even MORE expensive; European listings show the physical cart at a 10-euro premium over the digital version.

That translates to $130-140 CAD, depending on how Nintendo handles the conversion. That's BEFORE tax. Switch games are still $80 CAD for the most part, except for Tears of the Kingdom. Apparently that little experiment was so successful that Nintendo decided, fuck it, people will pay ANYTHING for these games, let's gouge the shit out of them.

I just do not like Nintendo games enough to be buying more than one or two of them at a price that terrible, if that even. But my worry is that Nintendo will not be alone here, and that shortly we're going to see all games go up by $30-40 all at once. Potentially nowhere will be safe, not even the PC ecosystem.

Everything gets worse all the time forever.
posted by chrominance at 9:50 AM on April 2 [4 favorites]

For the curious, ‘Silksong’ appears to be a Hollow Knight sequel.

Makes perfect sense that the cow is riding a bmoo box.
posted by Callisto Prime at 9:51 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Well now I'm gonna need to find a way to pick this up on launch day. New Mario Kart means I can't really wait.

Thankfully, about two years ago, an old friend came to visit us out here, and we ended up playing a lot of Kart, and my wife, who had practically zero console experience (or interest) prior to that point, gave it a try and immediately took to it. Then she got deep into Breath of the Wild and then Tears of the Kingdom when that came out shortly thereafter. So while that price tag is hefty, I don't foresee a lot of resistance on this one.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:58 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Oh wow, the price in CAD for the new Switch is $629 for the base model, and $699 if you want it with the Mario Kart Worlds.

Uh yeah, I'm gonna try Steam first for Pentiment.
posted by Kitteh at 10:10 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Oh that explains why Jeff Minter was cowposting earlier today then.
posted by egypturnash at 10:53 AM on April 2 [3 favorites]

I'm gonna stick with my OG Switch unless I get definite news that Baldur's Gate 3 will be coming to the Switch 2.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 10:55 AM on April 2 [1 favorite]

The Canadian pricing looks better than what the official exchange rate is, so that's pretty good. Of course there's the 13% sales tax here in Ontario to look out for too. My kid's going to Japan in August and I'm OK with having Japanese only as the system language and also with setting up a new Nintendo account. If those are the only restrictions then maybe I'll wait and have him pick up the Switch2 there. That way he can play it with his cousins if they haven't already gotten one of their own while he's there.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:49 AM on April 2

Oh that explains why Jeff Minter was cowposting earlier today then.

I thought that was everyday LOL.
posted by symbioid at 12:34 PM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Aww I was hoping for new Animal Crossing or Ace Attorney or Persona 6 possibly. Maybe AC GameCube?

I was most excited about the Ai The Somnium Files sequel but they announced that in the March Direct so that wasn't news. The new Layton is cool too but not "place a preorder for Switch 2 right now" level cool.
posted by creatrixtiara at 1:51 PM on April 2

Maybe AC GameCube?

I really expected that to be one of the announcements!
posted by mittens at 2:22 PM on April 2 [1 favorite]

Mario Kart getting the open world Zelda treatment! With what seems like F-Zero like amounts of players. Guess this is as close as we get to a new F-Zero? Though the Fast Fusion game looks good.

Zelda ToTK S2E gets a Zonai construct sharing service, but I kinda already did it all. But it'll be great for getting a perfect hoverbike build if you haven't experienced perfect level flight yet.

I'm really confused at who and where they think people will be using mouse mode enough to justify building a game requiring it. Combined with the alarm, music, and calendar apps they launched it feels like they're gearing up to compete against android somehow, but Nintendo's never had great online service competence you'd need for that.

4k docked mode is good news -- there were rumors it might be 1080p only. May only work in media playback, given how the OG switch struggled with parts of Zelda?

Apparently that little experiment was so successful that Nintendo decided, fuck it, people will pay ANYTHING for these games, let's gouge the shit out of them.

My hack has been to borrow games from the library, and bookmark a search for new items to check every week so I can get on the wait queue early. In theory, physical games are something you can sell when you're done to recoup some of the cost, but if the demise of GameStop is any signal, that's going away.
posted by pwnguin at 4:20 PM on April 2

I talked to the kid about it. Her boss at work rescheduled a meeting so he could watch the announcement. She laughed at the expense of the games, a bit too long. but she's a big Bloodbourne fan, so she'll eventually be getting the console, and that game at least.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:27 PM on April 2

Re: game prices. I not a gamer but as understand this the $70+ price point is not nearly a Nintendo thing.

The price tag overall does seem a bit high to me.
I’ can’t remember what I bought my Wii for but I remember going to multiple store many times before I found one. ( Toys’R’us, circuit city, fry’s electronics rip)


My kids are now of age when a chore chart makes sense to earn one of these, but it is going to be a lot of chores.
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:43 PM on April 2

as understand this the $70+ price point is not nearly a Nintendo thing.

Once upon a time a time, a brand new copy of Street Fighter 2 would retail for $70. Pretty sure the flagship Square games were on that price point too, if not higher. Inflation is a hell of a thing, and the tarriffs are gonna make it even worse.
posted by pwnguin at 10:45 PM on April 2 [1 favorite]

If those are the only restrictions then maybe I'll wait and have him pick up the Switch2 there.

Another restriction is that you can only use Japan-based eShop accounts with the Japan-discount model, and those require a Japan-based payment method. It almost certainly isn’t worth it in the end I think.

The pricing is interesting to me. Part of it is just considering the inexorable march of inflation — $300 in 2017 is now $390, so the $450 price point isn’t a huge leap (Japan’s two models have an interesting dynamic too, where the Japanese-only model has the same roughly 50% price increase over the original, like the USD price, while the ¥70,000 Real Edition one is pretty much exactly $450 right now. Japan got hit pretty hard here though, with two decades of inflation catching up in the last three years, and the exchange rate going from ¥115 to the dollar to ¥150). Likewise, I keep needing to remind myself that, prior to this recent price hike, video games have kind of never been cheaper! I remember $70 or $80 SNES games back in the nineties, and then when optical media became the norm, the going rate became $60 for two decades, even as the price of development has skyrocketed.

So, well, it sucks when things get more expensive, but we’ve also been lucky enough to get to pretend that inflation doesn’t exist since basically the PS2 era.
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:12 AM on April 3

The Mario Kart games sounds amazing. I want to play it now!

That said, the Switch 2 is definitely out of my price range for the foreseeable future. If I'm going to save up for a console, it's going to the PS5 with VR -- or maybe just groceries given the way things are going in the US. I have more than enough games on my current Switch to last me quite awhile.

It's going to be interesting to see how well these price points -- which currently seem to be being received as excessive -- hold up in the face of what may be a really significant recession/inflation in the US (and its ripple effects across the globe)
posted by treepour at 6:47 PM on April 3

lots of people on Twitter have been effectively blaming Nintendo for the fact that their own employers haven't been keeping pace with inflation, which is kind of a bummer to see

incidentally, apparently Mario Kart World is an outlier, costing $10 more than Donkey Kong Bananza — I have kind of a hunch that it might be kind of a TotK-style "the game already includes everything we could have possibly imagined cramming in as DLC" situation to merit the higher price point
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:34 PM on April 3

Newsweek: "Pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 have been delayed "in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs" imposed by President Donald Trump this week, Nintendo said in a statement to Newsweek on Friday.

The announcement comes after Trump placed high levies on Vietnam,where Nintendo has reportedly shifted much of its Switch production from China in recent years."

(am assuming this just applies to the USA)
posted by Wordshore at 9:55 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Once upon a time a time, a brand new copy of Street Fighter 2 would retail for $70. Pretty sure the flagship Square games were on that price point too, if not higher. Inflation is a hell of a thing, and the tarriffs are gonna make it even worse.

This is true. I also recently learned that in the early 1980s, a VHS tape of a movie would typically cost £80 in the UK at the time, which, adjusted for inflation, amounts to roughly £300 (though it dropped rapidly).

Still. Given that Nintendo is making so many more millions of sales than ever before at next to zero marginal cost, it does *feel* off.
posted by hankmajor at 10:55 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Pentiment is also on PC! It's probably easier with a mouse too, since it's mostly a point and click game.


The new joycons have an optical mouse function.
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:03 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]