It is a kart racing video game developed by Nintendo in 2005. The game is the fifth installment in the Mario Kart series and was released for the GameCube on November 14, 2005, in North America, November 17, 2005, in Australia, November 25, 2005, in Europe, December 8, 2005, in Japan, and April 5, 2007, in South Korea.
The game is the first in the series to feature online play through the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. Like other games in the series, it includes characters from the Mario series, allowing players to race on tracks in karts and interfere with each other.
Mario Kart DS was well received and scored 91% on Metacritic. While critics praised the game’s graphics and gameplay, the repetitive single-player mode was criticized. Mario Kart DS won various awards, including Editor’s Choice Awards from GameSpot and IGN, G-Phoria’s Best Portable Game award, and IGN’s Best Racing/Driving Game. It was the best-selling game in its launch month and maintained that position the following month. As of March 2016, it is the third best-selling Nintendo DS game, with 23.60 million copies sold worldwide.
