Mario Kart 7 community features

Nintendo has revealed a raft of community features for 3DS racer Mario Kart 7's online multiplayer.

Gamers can create groups to race in against friends, with specific rules for racing environments and custom leaderboards to brag their blue-shell defying wins upon.

Mario Kart 7 will collect detailed records of your racing career, including racing scores, win/loss records, numbers of coins collected and more.

These totals can be exchanged with other players via the 3DS StreetPass feature and viewed without booting up the game in the new Mario Kart 7 Channel, revealed in a presentation by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata earlier today.

The Channel also contains details of the ghost data that players can download through SpotPass and race against in-game.

Up to seven ghosts can be downloaded at the same time, allowing gamers to play on their own but still take part in an eight-player race against real life human track times.

Mario Kart 7 features 32 courses in total: 16 new and 16 returning classics.