With 1.2 million in sales the opening weekend, Mario Kart 8 is off to a solid start. However one could argue that is essentially the first must own game for the Wii U and that many people who have waited patiently for a top flight game to justify their ownership of the system were early purchasers. The game and system may face an uphill climb to help vindicate and redeem the system especially from those like myself who shelled out $399.99 for a deluxe unit at launch and had to endure waves of bad games and a lack of quality exclusives that left us with a pricy paperweight until Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and Mario Kart 8 arrived. This has led to some bad blood with consumers especially those who purchased with the promise that certain titles would be available soon, many of which we are still waiting on our were outright cancelled.
It is well documented that several developers have shunned the Wii U and at this point it seems that only quality exclusives from Nintendo can help redeem the unit. As such the sales of the prior games in the Kart series have been huge and as such does Mario Kart 8 have the gas to push sales of the Wii U to help Mario Kart 8 sell on par with it’s brethren?
The game is fun with a known name brand and with falling prices on the Wii U, this might be enough to get people to give the system a try.
Nintendo projects to sell 3.6 million Wii U systems in the coming fiscal year but it will take more than Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros as Nintendo must keep their foot on the gas.
Super Mario Kart Super Nintendo 8.76 million
Mario Kart 64 Nintendo 64 9.87 million
Mario Kart Advance Game Boy Advance 5.91 million
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Nintendo GameCube 6.88 million
Mario Kart DS Nintendo DS 23.56 million
Mario Kart Wii Wii 35.53 million
Mario Kart 7 Nintendo 3DS 9.62 million
Total: 100.13 million
