Video: Mario Kart World And Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Side-By-Side Graphics Comparison

I personally prefer Mario Kart 8 aesthetic with anti gravity tracks.
Too bad, no anti gravity tracks in Mario Kart World.

MK8 definitely looks more hardcore, and I kind of like that. World looks great, but the characters and vehicles just look kind of weird with their squashed sizes.

This comparison brings two thoughts to mind. The first is that it really is hard to improve much on Mario Kart 8's visuals. The second is that I don't actually know if Mario with or without the super mushroom is the normal one. He usually seems closer to the former in 3D games, but World's version is definitely leaning more towards the little gremlin look.

I made a quick analysis of how much nintendo had made from Mario kart 8 based on the reported sales. Assuming a price of 60 dollars. They’ve made approximately 4 billion dollars from 67 million sold games. That’s a hella lot of money. I think they are making a crazy bet by trying to sell the new game at 90 dollars. For a product that is digital we don’t have any physical costs for the product. That means that basically every dollar it sells for is profit. Selling at a lower price would garantee much more sales and wouldn’t risk the blowback they’ve gotten from gamers. The high prices of games will lead to less sales both of systems and games themselves.

I can’t see that they can jusify the higher prices by saying that mario kart world cost more to make. Seeing as the first has made maybe 4 billion dollars in sales. What can a mario kart cost to produce? 100 million dollars? I have no idea. I just think it’s both greedy and maybe stupid to increase the price of the games this much.

Graphically, I do prefer the cartoonish style of World that matches the classic 2D Mario & friends cartoons aesthetic.

In terms of the course structure and vision, I'm kind of baffled they'd cartoonify the graphical aesthetic, only to double down on the Tour 'real world' setting for the courses and built environment.
That's what stands out the most next to MK8D which has so many varied locations from bathroom floors, to pinball tables, cheese planets, rainy rooftop metropolis, ribbon roads, Yoshi's Island, other Nintendo properties... Not to mention the three-dimensionality of anti-gravity...

In comparison, World feels 'real-world' which is ironic considering the cartoon graphics. And the courses are kinda flat in comparison. Being split by climate regions also means we end up with a cup of desert courses, a cup of snow courses, a cup of grass courses, a cup of lava courses, which is kind of a shame. And a lot of the in-between roads from the rally mode have also been kind of... just a straight-line road with hardly any turns. And the rail grinding... do you actually control anything while on it, or is it automatic ? Cause if it's the latter, I can't see how it's different from an iPhone game like Subway Surfer...

Anyway, still psyched for this, I just hope they use the open world and grander but flatter/more open course design to give us a mission mode, boss fights, open-world battle mode, or other ways of playing I can't even think of that use the format to it's highest potential. I'm glad they're taking a big swing, and hope it lands.

The animations in MK World look more lively compared to 8.

@Anti-Matter How do you know that? You can see there is still some anti-gravity at 3:45.

@Residentsteven

I've pre ordered one with Smyths, it's a click and collect order from my local store.... Id rather have the pleasure of collecting it myself when the store opens than have to potentially be waiting in all day for a delivery driver.

The pre orders did sell out fairly quickly though so it was just a case of being alert at the right time.

They obviously sold their initial allocations but hopefully they will get more and there will be another chance to order one

@Residentsteven

interestingly enough I had the opposite problem with PS5, they instantly sold out and I thought I'd missed out but I did manage to get a pre order in the end...... I just happened to be awake at 3am one morning, decided to check Argos website and there they were.

Just keep checking Smyths, Argos, Amazon, Currys etc on a regular basis...... good luck

Pretty much looks like the same game. I’m interested if there’s a compelling single player experience (like Diddy Kong Racing)

I think the big thing that World has over 8 for me is the character animations and expressions. Even down to the character selection screen.

In 8, the characters are already sitting inside/on their vehicles on the select screen which means we never see them standing otherwise. The last time Mario Kart had a character select screen that had the characters animated outside of their vehicles was way back in Mario Kart Wii and even then, most of them reused animations from Double Dash's selection screen which means we haven't had new out-of-kart animations in over 20 years!

World bringing back the selection screen with each character having a little animation as they wait to be selected is so charming and cute! A lot of effort seems to have been put into this game and I can't wait!

The difference is massive if you know what to look for. But on games with more cartoon look graphics it can be difficult. The lighting is night and day. Also if you view the uncompressed fottage on a 4K display you will see birds flying on the opening track, and clouds moving and evaporating on others. Add this to the much higer polygon count of the karts and racers... everything just looks so more solid and the water effects are insane. I think we need to see this on a 4K OLED dispaly and the differences will be stark. You also have to consiider you are getting all of this on a massive open world map. The fact the game is doing all this with scale and scope of this game rather than single tracks is mind boggling.

@Member_the_game I pre-ordered the original Switch at Smyth's and collected it at midnight so I was playing shortly afterwards! A nice memory, although I was exhausted for work the next day!

Signed up to the pre-order announcements with Smyth's for the Switch 2, but by the time I saw the e-mail they had sold out. Managed to bag one elsewhere luckily, but will have to wait for the postie this time...

I love the animations and expressions in World. 8 Deluxe still is a beautiful game. The grinding on rails seems interesting.

@Skunkfish Nothing beats that feeling of picking up a new console on launch day..... it's the closest thing to feeling like a little kid again on Christmas day.

What's great is that MK 8 is still available on the console. So we can play both titles !

@Ladasta First off, please stop spinning the narrative that the game is $90 USD.

It's $80 for physical, $70 for digital.

To add to what you have said, please note that selling a game isn't as flat as spending money to make it, then releasing it and making profit.

You have to pay for marketing, pay for the production of the physical cartridge and boxes, shipping out to multiple countries and retailers, then pay extra if you want your space to take an extra special place in the retail stores.

$70 for Mario Kart World isn't actually crazy at all, games have cost this much for forever now and the only premium you're paying is if you decide to go for the physical, which clearly costs more because of the higher speed carts.

Go online and try to find an SD card express, they are not cheap. The carts perform effectively on the same tech, sure they're smaller size (in GB), but they are large enough to warrant raising the price by $10 and have historically been known to inflate the costs for Switch games, and Switch games run on a previous version of said carts. Production of these isn't cheap, definitely not as cheap as discs, which at this point are becoming outdated technology.

Nintendo are also attempting to soften the blow by selling a bundle which almost everyone sane will buy which comes with a copy of Mario Kart World. This bundle literally cuts the price of the game for those who want it by almost 50%.

At first I was quite disappointed with the higher pricing of the game, but reading through the rage bandwagon as well as actually using my brain a little to think I have come to the conclusion that this isn't actually a surprise at all, and everybody is spinning this completely out of context (like yourself) which weaves a negative narrative which isn't at all true.

Please also note that this rule doesn't even apply to all their games, Donkey Kong Bananza is clearly at a $70 retail price.

I wanted to give my two cents as well as reply to your comment because I've been reading through this website these past couple of days and didn't want to contribute. There is an exceptional amount of people here who have registered to make a statement and tell others about how unhappy they are. It's highly likely these people were never planning to buy this system in the first place, it's just a way to join the rage and hate that all the normie YouTubers have been pumping out by the truckload these past few days. Switch 2 came out swinging with a lot of positive news, but at the end of the day the prices are what stuck the most.

Nintendo could have done a better job at communicating the 'why', but please for the love of god stop spinning things out of context and stop joining the childish 'riots' out there. This comment does not only apply to you but to everyone who has been spamming their Treehouse events. Spend energy better elsewhere.

World does not look significantly better than 8, maybe less blurriness and better animations are the only improvements i can see... (8 looked too good for its generation, maybe that's why)

@johnvboy I agree there are a lot of smaller details that may be completely missed to the non-techy people, though I think the biggest difference here is the fact that World is open-world, and Mario Kart 8 is not.

It's just a completely different kind of beast than 8. 8 was really impressive for its time driven by strong art direction and no nonsense on screen, they really didn't waste a single spot on the screen and still managed to run the game at 60 (59 on Wii U) which was impressive for the time. You simply cannot pack stages in an open world in the same way as you can small tracks, it's incredible that they are able to plug this much detail into an open world game overall, and have it run at 1440p 60fps is all the more impressive, especially given that the rest of the game world is still being rendered at all times.

Mario Kart 8 still holds up pretty well, but Mario Kart World has so much better image quality. World also has a nice sense of scale, as all of the tracks are in the same, connected world. I also like the new animations because the characters (and even the vehicles, if that makes sense) look so much more alive.

@Varkster Ok, sorry. I was wrong about the prices in the US. I’m from Sweden so our prices are a bit higher than yours. Our prices for switch games was 650 kr. World is priced at 929 kr, equivalent to 92 $. Which is a price hike of 30 %. Also the Switch 2 base pack is priced at 6795 kr with mario kart it’s priced at 7490 kr which is the equivalent of 680 and 749 $. The original Switch base pack costs 3690 kr and a ps5 digital costs 5500 kr just for reference. And I know vote with your wallet, yada yada. But we must be able to discuss what we feel about the price. But of course they know best their own cost and investments and gets to decide what they think is best. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. I’ve owned every Nintendo system (except Virtual boy) since the NES and definately plan on getting the Switch 2. But maybe somewhere down the line if the price gets reduced a bit.

@Ladasta For the record I'm not attempting to discredit your feelings, I am also upset about the price, I'm actually not from the US, I live in Australia and the price hike here is quite a bitter pill to swallow.

That being said I just wanted to give some ideas as to why the price discussion is overblown completely out of proportion, given the price of those carts is actually notoriously expensive.

I still think Nintendo did a poor job explaining why and that's the real issue here. Most people don't understand, just point their finger and rage.

I bought the Switch 2 bundle so maybe I'm a hack trying to justify the money I'm spending on this console, but having actually sat down and thought about it I think it just makes sense.

Well the difference isn't night and day. MK8 still looks very very good. Wish they'd use the same track for comparison, if indeed there are tracks from MK8 in this. Also wish they'd put the old on the left, new on the right in these comparisons. Because that just makes more sense imo.

Nintendo should release it on OG Switch too, it would sell millions in weeks

Many here have made it clear that graphics and frame rate are irrelevant and Nintendo can continue to be a generation behind to save money.

@Varkster German here! Physical Mario Kart World according to the German Nintendo Website is 90 Euro, that translates to 100 USD.
Would be nice if people would stop defending this price tag at whenever someone mentiones "90" start to argue the price is wrong and they are spreading fake news.
It's a fact, that this game costs 90. 90 whatever, but in some regions it's 90. Period.

@Paddle1 The right side in the video shows MK8, where the anti-gravity part is from. So far MKW hasn't shown any anti-gravity-courses.

@captaintoadette Good comment.

Could be, that there is a secret world (like the star world in Super Mario World), with more fantastical courses.

@mazzel Regional taxes and costs per country vary, $80 USD is the template, the rest of the countries are then increased and decreased depending on the market.

I am arguing the 'why' and not the economics study behind why things cost more in other countries.

I am also exhausted by the constant rage from people online without anybody actually delving in and attempting to understand why the price is higher.

Again, basing regional costs is asinine in an argument like this. The game is $80 USD advertised on their main page, their smaller markets in other parts of the world will likely cost more, but I notice you haven't mentioned the usual game price in your region. How much does AC: Shadows and other games cost? And if you compare AC Shadows, please do compare the digital price vs the digital price, and it will likely make a whole lot more sense to you.

Sure, you don't get your premium physical, but again, these carts are expensive to produce. I can't understate how expensive they are to make, this isn't a disc which is produced in 500000 factories around the world, this is a much more niche and complex technology. Nintendo Switch 1 carts at 32GB were around $17 USD to produce. This is a lesser version of the much more modern Switch 2 cart. I think the $10 price increase while does not sound great on paper, when you factor in that they're likely producing it at $20+ it suddenly accounts for that.

I have just ordered two bundles from my local Currys electrical store in the U.K.... One for my sister one for me. Both with the base console, a copy of Mario Kart World and a new Switch 2 pro controller.. both £545 each... Paid in full for them...

And I still have my Nintendo invite for next week.. so my daughter is sorted too..... Expensive times...

Of course it looks nicer.

World is definitely bouncier with the characters and vehicles, but otherwise it's pretty similar to 8. In fact, I prefer 8's lighting and contrast. I'm sure I'll notice a larger difference once the game is in my hands, though.

@Varkster Not sure what your point is for AC, but it cost 69€ digital. Accordign to the US page it is $69 as well. So by that logic, we should have the same price, but we dont. Also ncie that you consider Europe as a smaller market.

To make it a little more clear to you:
MK8 is 59.99€ here (US should be $59.99 as well). Now they are asking 30€ more for the physical.

Regarding your thoughts on the priduction cost:
The Switch 1 Tech is in production since 2017 or earlier. Chips and storage did evolve in that time. Production cost of this fully automated production is rather going down instead of up. Therefor I would suggest that the priduction cost is either stable or lower then before.
Also, the import taxt bewteen Japan and EU is 0 for almost all products, Japan to US is 24%.
Sinice all the cartridges are made in China, I wonder if the 24% is even applicable for the cartridges or if US will charge the China-Tax.

No matter how i turn it, this price increase is not reasonable.

Graphical differences are too subtle to make any meaningful difference, it all comes down to gameplay and course design as with every MK game.

@Ladasta The Adventures of Batman & Robin on the Genesis was $79.99, Garfield Caught in the Act Was $89.99 at Toys r us in 1995. Consider yourself LUCKY you didn't have to pony up such money for such average games with merely a review in a magazine and a few screenshots to gawp at to decide whether they were actually good or not. They were both ass. Games were a rip off then and a rip off now. Nothings changed. People just have rose tinted memories of the past. I guess smoking was better then too.. tsk

@Migoshuro The right side has nothing to do with my comment. If you look closely at MKW at that timestamp you can see the kart switch to anti gravity mode after grinding on the rail. It seems the mechanic exists if they want to implement it in a course.

@Paddle1 Ahh, not convinced. Looks more like a different effect as feedback for grinding the wall instead of a rail or for that this charges a boost. The car looks more like it bounces towards the wall. That's why it looks flatter like in anti-gravity-mode.
I could be wrong, though. Would be cool seeing anti-gravity and underwater sections in the game.
I guess, we'll see soon enough.

@DonkeyKongBigBoy

A lot of it has to do with the ages involved. Gaming is way bigger now than when it was in the 90s. I grew up then and I vividly remember the insane prices of SNES and N64 games and how all over the place they were. That’s the reason the PS1 and Saturn adopting CDs was so important. It finally made a standard price (39.99 for the most part, although it jumped to 49.99 by the end of the generation) instead of that stupidity going on the N64, where some games like Resident Evil 2 costed almost twice as much as the game sitting next to it.

@OrtadragoonX yeah true. CDs did drop game prices and also alot more games were released. Thinking about it, when you take in the amount of online sales and discounts many games are actually pretty cheap now after a year or two. The eshop always has some sweet deals

The grinding tricks remind me a LOT of playing Sonic Frontiers or Sonic x Shadow Generations, which is a good thing because I love that gameplay style.

Is Luigi still mad?

@Anti-Matter You haven't even played Mario Kart World yet lol

Loving the animations and new style they gone for, can't wait to explore this world, hopefully there be some missions like DS and Wii had.

@Residentsteven

Smyth's have got them available for pre order again now if you're quick