As If You Needed Another Reason to Visit Japan Multiple Times
Nintendo made waves with their decision to announce limited time sales to celebrate Mario’s 35th Anniversary, with Super Mario 3D All-Stars available only for a short time. While we still don’t know whether other companies will jump on this trend – or even if Nintendo will continue to do stuff like this in the future – it looks like they’ll be incorporating this, oddly, in the newly opened Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Japan.
Specifically, the Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge ride may be getting timed content. While updates aren’t anything new to rides – the famous Jurassic Park River Adventure in Universal Studios Hollywood recently got an update to reflect the changes in canon – Mario Kart: Koopa’s Challenge’s AR elements are built with a game engine, making it easier than ever before for the ride’s designers to update elements, and it looks like the team behind the ride are planning to utilize that.
“Because it’s in a game engine, we can keep updating, upgrading, putting new characters [in], changing themes, changing actions on the fly. So if there’s a special event, anything we want to release can be done overnight if we really wanted to. That makes it so much more flexible – it freshens up the experience. Every time you come back you could experience something new and exciting,” said Thierry Coup, CCO and Senior Vice President of Universal Creative.
While he doesn’t outright confirm that special events will see changes, that’s not to say that they won’t happen at all. Perhaps upcoming anniversaries will see substantial timed updates to the ride, or we’ll get Halloween or Christmas-themed experiences to coincide with the holidays. After all, Mario Kart Tour featured timed events based on the holidays, and it wouldn’t be too hard to see those events take place in the ride, as well.
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