Nintendo Shuts Down Unofficial Mario Kart Attraction

Tokyo District Court has handed down its judgment on Nintendo’s lawsuit against MariCAR, the company that rents out go-karts for a drive along Tokyo’s public roads, and also provides rental of costumes of characters from the Mario game franchise without permission from Nintendo.

According to released documents, the court has now prohibited the company from renting out costumes related to Nintendo’s Mario game characters and slapped the company with a 10 million yen fine (approximately SGD$125,000).

For a long while, there’s been debate surrounding the service as some of the tourists who use MariCAR’s service do not follow instructions, thereby causing accidents. The very low vehicle body also means that if one stops at the traffic lights in front of a taxi, the driver of the taxi will not be able to see the cart immediately in front and thus result in more accidents.

If you’ve already had fun with it, good for you. If you haven’t but would like to “try it someday,” I guess it’s not going to happen anymore unless Nintendo decides to acquire the company and run it officially, which seems unlikely. In any case, while I find the service interesting, I do not think it’s right to have people without proper driver’s licenses on public roads.

I am not interesting at parties.

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