Mario Kart Arcade GP DX

You may be wondering why we're suddenly covering news on a Mario Kart game today on this blog. Well, Nintendo holds the license to their own characters and Namco have tons of experience in making good arcade cabinets (and the cabinet camera seems to be their trademark), so the two gaming giants came together to make an arcade version Mario Kart.

That was a decade ago, when the first Mario Kart Arcade GP came out and closely followed by its sequel, Arcade GP 2. Both have the in-built cameras to record your face like Taiko 0 and Tank! Tank! Tank!, and have Namco characters and items in it, with Mametchi (from Tamagotchi) and Pac-Man being playable.

Now, the arcade Mario Kart adds gliders and more customization to the karts in commemoration of the features introduced on the 3DS version Mario Kart 7. But the point remains; why are we featuring it here? Remember what I said about Namco characters in the game? Well guess who's joining the party!

None other than our most adored drum character, Don-chan! He's going to be a playable racer in Mario Kart! (though how he's going to steer the thing I don't know yet; there's no actual screenshot of him behind the wheel) Don-chan also has a Matsuri-themed stage all to himself! Exciting stuff!

Mario Kart Arcade GP DX will be shown at the Japan Amusement Expo this month, the one where Taiko 0.5 and Taiko Wii 5 are due to show as well. Hopefully we'll be able to catch some footage of Don-chan in the race!

The images come from Namco's press-release PDF file for the game (a tank from Tankx3 is also usable as a race kart), and CRAZ1ah from Nintendo 5-Star tipped us off on this bit. Thanks!