Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Sets Record As Fastest-Selling Game In the Franchise (polygon.com)

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the fastest-selling Mario Kart title ever, selling nearly half a million copies stateside when it went on sale last Friday. Polygon reports: Nintendo announced that the game beat out Mario Kart Wii as the series' fastest seller, with a little more than 459,000 copies sold in the U.S. on launch day alone. (The Switch has moved 2.7 million units worldwide since launch, for context.) Mario Kart Wii, which went on to be the best-selling entry of the Mario Kart series -- and second-biggest Mario game ever -- moved just under 434,000 copies at launch in 2008. Nearly half of those with a Switch already have Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, two months after the console's launch. That's a remarkable attach rate, even considering The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Switch has sold more copies than consoles shipped.

Comments

Never understood it

[Waccoon]

It's a decent series, but it still baffles me how many billions Nintendo has made on a karting game.

Re:Never understood it

[by (1706743)]

I was always partial to F-Zero X (and PlayStation's Crash Team Racing was IMHO more better than Mario Kart).

That said, I think part of the appeal is that, although practice certainly helps in Mario Kart, there is a certain amount of luck (and negative feedback/realtime handicapping) that makes it fun to play with experts and n00bs alike. There are a lot of games which, unless you're really an expert, are just no fun playing in groups, as you're gonna get dead last every time.

Re:Never understood it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the luck/handicapping is a big element in the game.When you are in the lead, more of the weapons target you and it gives those in the back more chance to catch up.

For all the stigma about nintendo being kiddie games, though I disagree that their games are not for adults, I will say that their games are very family friendly. Mario Kart is one of many games (mostly on Nintendo) that I play with my 6yo daughter. And when she's able to use a bullet bill to shoot back up the ranks, or the spiky turtle shell to nuke dad from last place, it makes her day.

Re:Never understood it

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, what other four-player split-screen racer would you recommend for a dorm?

I look at what's out for PS4, and the games don't offer multiplayer, don't offer "weapons" (so winning comes down to meticulous concentration) and have super-realistic (i.e., super boring) tracks.

If you don't understand the appeal of Mario Kart I don't know what to tell you.

Re:Never understood it

[interkin3tic]

There's something weird about saying the eighth version of a game is fun because multiplayer, then complaining you're tired of what I assume are JRPGs (which tend to be single player only) and FPS (which can be multiplayer or single player.)

In high school/college the group games played were mario kart, bond, timesplitters, and smash bros. Today from what I can tell, there are a ton of FPS multiplayer games ranging from very "serious" counterstrike or modern warfare to silly like team fortress 2 or splatoon. They've evolved a lot in 15-20 years.

And then there's kart and smash which are basically the same thing still...

I'd submit you're not "tired" of those games, you just don't like them as much. You don't need to justify your opinion! You can just not like FPS! Just don't pretend you dislike them because they're stale while you play mario kart 8.

Re:Never understood it

[thegarbz]

but it still baffles me

Then let me clear it up for you. The game is fun. Actually fun. Fun alone, fun online, and especially fun with friends. It's ridiculous and anything can happen. If you can steer the kart you have a chance of beating a veteran.

A lot of modern AAA studios could learn a thing or two about making a game fun before sinking $40M into yet another bug riddled grindfest of a 3rd person shooter.

Re:Never understood it

[Midnight Thunder]

For the most part, multiplayer games for the two other consoles require your friends to have their own console.

I'll probably be getting a PS4 because it has a number of games that I want to play, but I may also get the Switch for the same room multiplayer games, which happen to not take themselves too seriously.

Re:Never understood it

[hipp5]

It's a decent series, but it still baffles me how many billions Nintendo has made on a karting game.

Probably for the same reasons Settlers of Catan has sold a bajillion copies:

• - It's pretty easy to learn the basics, so it's accessible to anyone
• - There's a lot of room to perfect your skills, so hardcore players have something to keep them around
• - You can pick up and play for a few minutes, or you can go for a whole-day playing session
• - There's a nice balance of skill and chance, so the better player will win more often, but beginners don't feel like they have zero chance
• - It's very social, with a good level of healthy, between-friends competition

Re:Never understood it

[Osgeld]

same here, I grew tired of the kart racer during the ps1 era, course look at nintendo's fan base, they will buy the same game over and over and over again, and just crap all over you if you question it

Re:Never understood it

[CohibaVancouver]

It's a decent series, but it still baffles me how many billions Nintendo has made on a karting game.

You can sit down and play it in 10-15 minutes, so you're not committing an entire weekend.

Grandpa and a 6-year-old can play it and have equally as much fun.

The control are reasonably easy to understand. There aren't 64 buttons you have to learn just to play it.

It's visually comedic and never takes itself too seriously.

I would've gotten first post...

[by (1706743)]

...but I got hit by a blue shell.

Re:I would've gotten first post...

[Slackwise]

Well, at least they've reduced the frequency of blue shells, and added a megaphone that destroys all nearby items, including blue shells hovering over you before they drop.

On the flipside, they doubled the amount of items being flung around, so if you get stuck in losers pack of 6th to 12th place, you'll be endlessly barraging each other with items and nobody can escape the cloud of shell death.

Supply & Demand

[bug_hunter]

Well wouldn't this be because everyone who just bought a Switch really wants to play games on it, but there's nearly nothing out?

Just like when Apple claimed their new laptop was the fastest selling in their history (because they hadn't updated it for years before and there was just pent up demand).

Disclaimer : I enjoy Nintendo games and Apple products. I just dislike it when people use positive sales figures to cover up a separate fundamental issue.

Re:Supply & Demand

[lucm]

and a "record" out of 8 titles isn't really that impressive. It's small enough to find some kind of record for each one.

Re:Supply & Demand

[NonUniqueNickname]

Spot on. Exciting new system boosts game sales for the early titles. In Nintendo's case it's very common for those early titles to be Nintendo titles. My guess is the motivation for getting Zelda is I-need-something-to-play, and the motivation for getting Mario Kart is I-need-something-to-show-my-friends.

Re:Supply & Demand

[tlhIngan]

Well wouldn't this be because everyone who just bought a Switch really wants to play games on it, but there's nearly nothing out?

There were a few decent games. Zelda is the obvious one, but there's a few digital only games that are pretty decent as well. Scissorclips is a digital-only puzzler that's really good. And apparently, even launch day bombs like Bomberman actually got updates that turned them from "skip" to "buy".

And remember this is comparing MK8 for Switch to all mario kart games out there - and only doing 1/2 million copies seems to be rather low.

The other thing is, other than launch day, there were very few supplies of Switch - other than on March 3rd, most stores only got a small supply of them a week or two later, and that's it. It seemed though that Nintendo deliberately prevented their sale until MK8 was released because I was seeing big ads for switches on sale on Friday - every store was going to have Switches in stock. And while some got a minimum of 10, others seemed to have lots - their stock lasted into the weekend before selling out.

Re:Supply & Demand

[thegarbz]

Well wouldn't this be because everyone who just bought a Switch really wants to play games on it, but there's nearly nothing out?

There's some 185 titles available for the switch. 8 of which are Nintendo exclusives, and half of those are truly epic in content. People don't buy games because they have no other games to buy. More likely of the several million switch consoles out there people couldn't wait to get their hands on Mario Kart as one of the staple platform games that pretty much everyone must have.

The awful transformationz

[HalAtWork]

The awful transformations that suddenly turn a 3-4 lane road into open air w/jets or a huge body of water w/boats really lose the plot for me, throwing accuracy and skill out the window in favor of a fight to figure out where the fuck the track turns back into a road is very annoying.

Not to mention the rubber banding and royal clusterfuck of items constantly homing in on your car to spin you out is incredibly annoying. In older games each player might get one item per lap if they didn't miss it. Now it's constantly raining turtle shells.

In addition there's a huge selection of cars and wheels and other crap to choose from, you end up spending 10 minutes setting up the race and 3 minutes playing.

Crap IMHO. They turned something that demanded skill to progress into a crapshoot party game.

Re:The awful transformationz

[bussdriver]

The game is the same as it was. Most the extras are just fluff on the same mechanics. You can alter the characteristics of the cars in more detail when before you could only choose a character with a fixed set of characteristics-- all which are pointless for a beginner but the MORE skill you have the more difference it makes. All those tiny tweaks matter to the more skilled players who can notice. I have my set of options I quickly pick, it doesn't take time. At first finding the right ones did but it added depth and most the time it didn't matter because I'd clobber everybody else whatever I ended up with.

The weapons have changed little but now they include everything all at once when before it was a subset. You can counter weapons now like you did before and the blue shell can be countered if you have the skill when in the past it was just about impossible regardless of skill.

The game is more intense with a full set of players and that is more of a problem than the number of items. The old one seems slower and is less appealing and the new one pushes you so hard that it doesn't feel old like the older versions because it is so busy and you are less comfortable - you never as safe. Part of this is the huge number of repeat players who want something NEW but also get upset if they change it. In this case, they even keep repeating tracks or variations of the old tracks! Oddly, Nintendo messed up on battle modes many times because that is the only part they have been willing to drastically change over the years.

So you make it the SAME but more intense (an easy safe change;) like a movie sequel is rarely good and when they are it's usually because it is a rehash with just enough changes to make it not feel like a clone. They also have a problem with making the sequels more intense on every similarity. (When is a super hero going to stop a lesser threat than the previous movie??)

Re:The awful transformationz

[HalAtWork]

Oh well, I just didn't have much fun with it, the last one I found fun was for DS. It started going off the rails for me with the 3DS entry and this seems like more in that direction. It's fine, I still enjoy the older games. I guess I just like different aspects than others do! I was very into perfecting a timed run of tracks in previous entries and attempting to do that in this game feels less rewarding, it seems almost pointless to play that way in this game.

Thanks for sharing your views I enjoyed reading it

Re:The awful transformationz

[Golddess]

Not to mention the rubber banding

If "rubber banding" means what I think it means, make sure that Smart Steering is turned off. It is on by default, and annoyed the hell out of me every time it activated, because I had no idea why I was suddenly being pulled away from the direction I was trying to drive.

When selecting kart parts, press +/- to bring up the stats screen, and the left-most option will be for Smart Steering.

In addition there's a huge selection of cars and wheels and other crap to choose from, you end up spending 10 minutes setting up the race and 3 minutes playing.

I'll admit there are a lot of options to go through, but is there any particular reason you are selecting a completely different kart configuration on match 2, and match 3, and 4, and 5, and so on?

Re:The awful transformationz

[HalAtWork]

I'm talking about when you too get far ahead, cars in back magically speed up

Thanks for the help though :)

Sorry everyone

[HalAtWork]

Did not mean to put a 'z' instead of an 's', a cringeworthy typo if there ever was one

Kart Rules

[PopeRatzo]

I started playing Mario Kart with my kid when she was about 5 years old. She's defending her PhD thesis in a few weeks, and I'm still playing some iteration of Mario Kart.

I don't usually even like the games that are usually on the Nintendo platform, but there's something about the Kart that gets me right here.

Re:Mario what?

[F'Nok]

Yeah, complain about an older game while making a youngsters on my lawn statement?

Super Mario Kart. Released 1992
Quake. Released 1996

GTFO my lawn.

No wonder

[SuperDre]

as there are hardly any games on the new system, it's no wonder it sells in big numbers..

Re:There are only 47 games out right now

[Midnight Thunder]

There may be a few games, but when you see the price of games you are unlikely to spend well earned cash on them unless they're worth it.

The truth is first party Nintendo games are usually a big reason why people buy Nintendo consoles. If you enjoy or appreciate cartoons and anime then you'll be quite happy to accept the lack of realism in the offered games.

Re:Mario what?

[Talderas]

Mario Kart 64. Released 1996
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Released 2017

I know, I know, tons of the stuff on the N64 was suffixed with " 64" but it's created amusement but it does lead to an interesting question. What happens when they release the 64th iteration of the Mario Kart series?

Classic Mini: Super Nintendo

[CanEHdian]

Hopefully the Mini SNES will contain Super Mario Kart (1992) and actually outsell MK8 Deluxe... notice how none of the journalists (or investors, for that matter) ask how Nintendo is going to avoid the "30 units per store' Mini NES debacle? In Canada regular retail Switches are hard to find so that affects MK8D sales as well. Personally still hoping for a Super Mario Odyssee Bundle around Black Friday.

Mini review

[keith_nt4]

I happen to have pre-ordered it so I got it day 1. Outside of popular youtube channels I'm probably one of the first ones to even have this game never mind play it.

I should mention I didn't realize until recently this was the Switch version of a Wii U game. So I don't know what's new the Switch and what was already there. And also the last console mario kart I played win "Mario Kart Wii". I don't know how many there have been since then.

There are the different CC kart classes as always and the different cups as always. I think there's 48 Grand Prix courses and I didn't try to count the number of characters to choose from (across at least three different weight classes). Also a ton of different vehicles a number of types.

One of the main things I found annoying about Mario Kart Wii was being by far in first place (while playing solo) and getting hit but a blue shell then multiple red shells, thus going from 1st to 8th place about 3 feet from the finish line. That just seems like broken AI to me. I haven't experienced that in this one.

I'm knowledgeable enough I know what the popular consensus is with the different cc classes. I know 50cc is entirely too easy and I get beat every track by half the track. And the 200cc is super-crazy-fast-tough (again, as a single player thing). But as with a lot of games now the single player is really just practice for multiplayer. At least that's the vibe I'm starting to sense.

Overall I would say it's very good game well worth the money but it seems very clear it is really intended as a party game.