There’s an official Mario Kart tournament this weekend on Switch

January 21, 22, and 23

A heads-upMario Karttournament is one of my favorite childhood pastimes. When you absolutely needed to throw down, that was the way. Well, that orGoldenEye. But back then,Mario KartSNES or N64 were both viable picks!

Nintendo is bringing that nostalgic spirit back this weekend with a new “Mario Kart North American Open” forMario Kart 8 Deluxefrom January 21 to January 23. US, Canada, and Mexico can participate, and there’s going to be three separate tournaments: one on each day. If you’re serious about this, here’s the instructionsstraight from Nintendo:

Mario Kart North American Open tournament

“To enter, you must participate in the Tournament in theMario Kart 8 Deluxegame during the Tournament Period. To access the Tournament, select the following, in order, within the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe game: Online Play, Tournaments, Search by Code. Enter the following code to enter the in-game tournament.”

It’s that simple! You don’t need to go anywhere or do anything special other than be available one or more of those days, from 12PM PT to 6PM PT. But the low effort involved also translates to a smaller pot. The prize is 2,500 My Nintendo Gold Points for the “top eight players” on each tournament day. So literally $25, but in “Nintendo Bux.” Still, if you were going to be playingMario Kartthose days anyway, why not?!

a look at two players using the Game Chat feature on the Switch 2