End of an Era: Nintendo’s Long-Running Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Black Friday Bundle Is No More

After seven straight years of providing the most consistent good deal on a brand new Nintendo Switch system annually around Black Friday, Nintendo appears to have finally discontinued its traditional holiday bundle of a Nintendo Switch 1 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for $299.99.

https://twitter.com/IGNDeals/status/1987891504291946666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This comes from the announcement of Nintendo’s Black Friday deals today, which include various Nintendo games marked down to $30 and a $20 Cyber Monday discount on a microSD Express card for Nintendo Switch 2, but notably no discounts on any consoles.

The Mario Kart 8 Nintendo Switch bundle has been a staple of Nintendo’s Black Friday offerings for seven years running, beginning in 2018, the second year of the Nintendo Switch’s life, and reappearing annually ever since.

Its disappearance from this year’s lineup is indicative of several recent trends. Most obvious is just that this is the first holiday for the Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo understandably wants to sell lots of those rather than direct people to a cheaper version of a system that’s rapidly becoming obsolete.

On top of that, there’s also new Mario Kart in town: Mario Kart World. If Nintendo isn’t interested in inadvertently cannibalizing Switch 2 sales, it’s definitely not into the idea of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe stealing sales of Mario Kart World. And given that the Switch 2 just released a few months ago, it’s far too early to expect to see a Switch 2 + Mario Kart World bundle at a discount this holiday. Sorry, maybe next year.

It’s also true that Nintendo just raised the price of a retail Nintendo Switch 1 to $339.99 from $299.99 in the U.S., as well as prices on its OLED and Lite variations, the Alarmo, and Joy-Con 2 controllers. The company warned at the time that price hikes on the Nintendo Switch 2, physical and digital games, and Nintendo Switch Online memberships “could be necessary in the future.”

Though Nintendo didn’t explicitly call out tariffs as the reason, multiple analysts IGN has spoken to throughout the year have pointed directly at ongoing increased U.S. tariffs on countries that Nintendo uses for hardware production as a likely reason for this choice. Which could also explain why Nintendo isn’t interested in discounting its hardware around the holiday this time around.

All that together makes perfect sense of the idea that Nintendo has officially retired its ever-popular holiday bundle. Will we see a Nintendo Switch 2 variation on this bundle in future years? With games and systems getting increasingly expensive, one can only hope so.

Keep an eye on IGN for all our Black Friday 2025 coverage, including the best discounts on games, systems, and basically everything.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.