Mario Kart Wii dated for Australia, but what about the US? @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on March 07, 2008

News: Is this compensation for the delayed release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl?

Nintendo of Australia recently announced that Mario Kart Wii will be released in the land down under on April 24th. This comes hot on the heels of an April 11th release date for the game in Europe.

This is all well and good, but what about America? As of right now, Mario Kart Wii has been tagged with an unspecified "Spring 2008" release date even though an April release looks almost like a certainty.

The way I see it, there's only two reasons for this delay in the announcement:

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the biggest release the Wii has seen yet (sorry Mario Galaxy fans) will be released in America this week. As such, Nintendo wants to keep all of its PR focus on SSBB and not on any other franchise.

This also accounts for the announcement of Wii Fit's release date, even though it will likely be released after Mario Kart Wii. Wii Fit is a new franchise and it's development is of particular importance to any third party that wants to make use of the Wii Balance Board. So Nitendo featured it heavily at the Game Developer's Conference.

The only other option is that...

2. The Mario Kart Wii announcement in Europe and Australia is a mea culpa for the Super Smash Bros. Brawl delay. It's quite possible SSBB may not be released in those territories until the summer or even the fall, so what better way to say "I'm sorry" than with Mario Kart Wii?

Either way, hopefully we'll have more (American) news on Mario Kart Wii soon. My guess is that the official release date will be revealed sometime in the last two weeks of March. That'll be enough distance from SSBB while still giving gamers enough time to get hyped up about Mario Kart Wii.