Mario Kart Tour is going to be 'free to start' but what does that actually mean?

We've been talking about it since Mario Kart Tour was announced a couple of weeks back, but it looks like Nintendo's mobile title's got a price point.

DeNA CEO said "Mario Kart Tour," a Nintendo-DeNA smartphone game planned for FY18, will be free-to-start. — Takashi Mochizuki (@mochi_wsj) February 8, 2018

WSJ reporter Takashi Mochizuki noted on Twitter earlier today that the CEO of DeNA said that the game would be 'free to start' and further confirmed release sometime in the next fiscal year.

On the outside 'free to start' immediately throws up ideas that MKT will be like Super Mario Run, in that you can try out the first bit and then buy the rest. However, as pointed out by Oscar Lemaire, Nintendo's late CEO Satoru Iwata preferred to use the term 'free to start' instead of 'free to play'.

As we each felt similarly in our opinion piece on the game and Jon Jordan's view on it, going the free to play route in this case will likely be the smarter idea so long as it'll be handled appropriately. I'd hate to run into paywalls mid-race or have to pay to unlock more karts, but only time will tell.

Do you think going free to play is a good idea? Let us know in the comments below.