Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: An Eight-Player Tournament on One Switch

Eight guests want to race, but your original Switch has four local places. This rotation gives everyone twelve races, keeps all eight in the competition and makes the scores easy to check.

Run six heats of four races, with four people in each heat. Everyone enters three heats: twelve scored races per person, twenty-four races on the console. Award 4, 3, 2 and 1 house points for each finish, then add all twelve results. Plan about two and a half hours.

What you need—and which Switch this covers

This plan is for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the original Nintendo Switch in TV mode, eight people including the host, one copy of the game and four usable controller setups. A dock, power supply, television, paper and two pens complete the essentials. Charge and pair everything before guests arrive; reserve a separate 20 minutes for preparation.

Nintendo distinguishes two to four local players on Switch from two to eight on Switch 2. Eight-person wireless play involves multiple consoles. Here, four people race while four wait. This is neither Mario Kart World nor an eight-way split screen on the original hardware.

A single horizontal Joy-Con can be one controller: four Joy-Con means two pairs, not the two individual Joy-Con supplied as one pair. Pro Controllers or other compatible setups also work. Keep the same controller style across the four places where possible. A small split-screen quadrant needs a clear sightline; seat spectators behind or beside racers.

Use one settings sheet for the whole evening

Choose Multiplayer, four players and VS Race. Use these house settings consistently:

• 100cc; no teams; normal items; no CPU/COM; four races; choose courses manually.
• Smart Steering on, Auto-Accelerate on, motion steering off for a mixed-experience group. Check all four places at every handover.
• Choose freely from the characters and vehicle parts already available on this console. Keep each person's combination for all their heats; write it down if needed.

All-on assists give newcomers a simple starting point. Nintendo explains Smart Steering and Auto-Accelerate, including the loss of the third Mini-Turbo stage with Smart Steering. For an experienced group, agree before the draw to use 150cc and turn both assists off for everyone. Do not change policy halfway through the scores.

Use the same four courses, in the same order, in every heat. Before assigning letters, each guest nominates one base-game course; draw four different nominations and write their exact on-screen names on the sheet. This keeps DLC ownership out of the setup and gives everyone three runs on each selected course. Let both opening groups have one unscored practice race on the same course first; reserve extra time if needed.

The six-heat rotation

Draw letters A–H once. A letter belongs to a person, never to a controller or character. The letters in each row below identify the four racers; assign them to screen places 1–4 in the listed order. Complete all four races before changing the group.

Every letter appears three times: 6 × 4 × 4 = 96 player starts; 96 ÷ 8 = 12 each. Nobody is eliminated. Spectators can record finishes and announce the next group, but need not perform a task to keep their next turn.

This is a social tournament with equal race counts, not a full round robin. Some pairs meet twice, others once or never; the draw cannot guarantee equal opponent strength. For a more competitive evening use the longer balanced variant below.

Score finishes, then resolve ties without extra races

Write 4 points for first, 3 for second, 2 for third and 1 for fourth after every race. These are our house points, not a claim about the game's own scoring. Use the individual finish order, not the cumulative order shown across a VS series. With CPUs off, the four human finishers are the whole field.

Each heat distributes 40 points across its four races; all six distribute 240. An individual's final total must lie between 12 and 48. Record wins and second places as you go. Add the three heat subtotals for each person only after all six heats finish.

Rank by total points, then number of race wins, then number of second places. If still tied, share the position. Skip an extra final or sudden-death race: it would give only some guests additional starts. Check an unclear entry against the results screen before moving on; one waiting guest reads it aloud and another confirms the names.

Reserve a two-and-a-half-hour window

Allow 20 minutes per heat: 16 for four races including loading and results, plus four for recording and changing players. Individual courses and groups can run longer, so treat the timetable as reserved slots. There is no fixed three-minute race timer. The opening ten minutes are for rules and readiness; extra practice comes before the scheduled scoring.

The total is 10 + (6 × 20) + 10 + 10 = 150 minutes: a 19:00 start ends at 21:30 on this plan. The longest gap between scheduled appearances is two heats; when that gap includes the shared break, reserve about 50 minutes outside a racing place. Equal starts do not mean nobody waits.

If a heat overruns, move later starts together. Do not drop only the last heat: four guests would lose promised races. With a hard deadline, use the shorter complete variant from the start. Keep the next four names visible so swaps do not turn into another draw.

A score sheet you can copy onto paper

Make six copies of this heat grid, one for each roster above. Enter house points in R1–R4, not finishing positions; write the heat number, four course names and controller-to-person mapping at the top.

Use this second table for the overall result. A dash means the person is not in that heat; enter one subtotal for each listed heat. Keep wins and seconds from the individual race grids, rather than trying to infer them from a heat total.

A quick check catches most errors: each race column adds to 10, each heat to 40 and all personal totals together to 240. Confirm the figures before announcing places. You do not need a bracket app, an online room or a paid subscription for this local format.

Handover rules and useful variants

Return to character selection after a heat, pass the four controllers to the next roster and confirm screen positions, kart combinations and assists. Announce the same first course before starting. Nobody takes over a friend's controller mid-race. If equipment fails, pause immediately, fix it and rerun that race for all four with the abandoned result crossed out; it does not count. An ordinary crash or an unlucky item is not a replay reason.

Shorter evening: run only heats 1 and 2. Each person then has four races; allow about 60 minutes for ten minutes of rules, two twenty-minute heats and ten minutes of scoring. Complete both groups. More balanced opposition: use seven complementary pairs of heats: ABCD/EFGH, ABEF/CDGH, ABGH/CDEF, ACEG/BDFH, ACFH/BDEG, ADEH/BCFG, ADFG/BCEH. Everyone plays seven heats, 28 races, and meets every other guest in three heats. At 20 minutes per heat, reserve roughly five and a half hours including setup, three ten-minute breaks and scoring.

For a different shared-screen evening, see our Jackbox player-limit and rotation guide. Browse NerdSpot Guides for other plans. For this one, the useful promise is precise: publish the roster before racing, record every finish and give every guest the same twelve scoring starts.