Super Mario Kart

Super Mario Kart is a racing game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the first game of the Mario Kart series, as well as the game that sets precedents to the fictional kart racing genre. Part of…

90 27 August 1992

Arcade Racing Fantasy Party

Super Mario Kart is an arcade developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development, released 27 August 1992 on New Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Wii and Super Famicom.

Verified 15 Oct 2026 Sources: IGDB , Wikipedia

What Super Mario Kart is

Super Mario Kart is an arcade game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development and released in 1992. It was published by Gradiente. It is available on New Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Wii, Super Famicom and Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

The premise, in the publisher's words

Super Mario Kart is a 1992 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The first game in the Mario Kart series, it was released in Japan on August 27, 1992, North America on September 1, 1992, and Europe on January 21, 1993. Selling 8.76 million copies worldwide, the game went on to become the fourth best-selling SNES game of all time. Super Mario Kart was re-released on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2009, on the Wii U's Virtual Console in 2013, and on the New Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console in 2016. Nintendo re-released Super Mario Kart in 2017 as part of the company's Super NES Classic Edition.

Description from Wikipedia · source

How it plays

It is played from a third person perspective. Its themes are fantasy and party. It supports multiplayer. Local play supports 2 players. Available modes: Multiplayer, Single player and Split screen.

Where it sits in the Mario Bros. series

Super Mario Kart is the eighth of 66 entries we hold in the Mario Bros. series. It arrived 2 years after Super Mario World. The next entry was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins in 1992. Its critic score of 90 is 16 points above the series average of 74. The highest-rated entry is Super Mario World at 100.

See all 66 Mario Bros. games in release order →

How it was received

Super Mario Kart holds a critic score of 90 out of 100. That places it above 95% of the 2,164 rated arcade games in our database, which average 70. Games released in 1992 averaged 67, so it scored 23 points above the year average. Player ratings track closely with critics at 86, across 460 votes.

What it launched against

Super Mario Kart launched on 27 August 1992, within three weeks of Axelay and Alone in the Dark. It reviewed better than all of them.

Released around the same time: Axelay, Alone in the Dark.

Cheats and codes

We have not confirmed any working cheat codes for Super Mario Kart yet. Rather than reprint a list we have not tested, this section stays empty until one is verified.

Know one? Send it in and we will test it →