Mario Kart 8 is an unqualified hit. Nintendo has announced that the latest entry in the kart-racing franchise has sold more than 2.82 million copies since its release in May. Even more astonishing is the fact that it accounts for 64% of all Wii U game sales in the April-June quarter. To make that number even more ridiculous, remember that Mario Kart 8 was released towards the end of May, so it’s only been available for a little more than a month.
While it’s good news for kart-racing fans everywhere, it’s bad news for everybody else. With Mario Kart 8 sucking up all the attention these past few weeks, every other Wii U game in existence could only account for 1.57 copies sold in the past three months.
Nintendo isn’t faring much better on the hardware front. The Wii U checked off about 510,000 console sales in the April-June quarter, bringing the worldwide total to 6.68 million. That’s not bad, but it’s still well behind the PS4 (and Nintendo’s expectations).
Perhaps a packed Fall, which begins with Hyrule Warriors on September 26, will turn things around.
