MarioKartTour
Image: Nintendo

Okay, grab yourself a big ol' fistful of salt, everyone. A little datamined detail which is just plausible enough to be true suggests there might be a Nintendo game coming to PC at some point in the nearish future.

According to datamined information from the latest update to the mobile free-to-play racer Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo has added not only mouse support, but also various code references to 'native emulation' that suggest a PC port could — repeat, could — be in the works.

As noted by MondoMega on Resetera (thanks, My Nintendo News), the information was reportedly found by the Mario Kart Tour Community Discord. Updates to the mobile title have been the source of various advanced leaked details over the years.

While mouse support could be a leftover developer tool that will never be unlocked for the public, or even an accessibility option, the references to emulation potentially indicate the game's inclusion in the Google Play Games PC program (which will bring certain mobile Google Play games to PC) or that it could be playable on Windows 11 in the future.

To be clear, we're very much in the realms of speculation here. As @kart_tour points out on Twitter, this could also be the result of Nintendo switching between game engine versions:

So, does this mean Mario Kart Tour is definitely coming to PC? No. It's possible, but certainly nowhere near confirmed. Does this mean Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will soon be playable in an official capacity on a personal computer near you? No. No no no. MK8D is one of Nintendo's evergreen jewels, a regular fixture of the gaming charts over five years after its release — over eight if you count the original non-Deluxe Wii U release.

However, Nintendo has repeatedly stated it strives to drive engagement with its hardware and console games by connecting a wider audience with Nintendo's IP through mobile. With the arrival of Mario Kart Tour circuits in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, there seems to be no change in that strategy, and there's certainly logic to expanding this particular game into the realm of the PC.

Exactly how the MK Tour experience — which is very much built around vertical screen gameplay — would translate to a monitor and mouse is another question, but seeing an official Nintendo software release on PC in the 21st century would be most unusual.

Would you play MK Tour on PC? Let us know if you'd be down for revisiting mobile Mazza-K on your mighty rig. Yes, you heard us. Mazza-K.

[source resetera.com, via mynintendonews.com]