News Articles
Wednesday20th Dec 2023
News Bandai Namco Announces New Dev Studio For Commissioned Projects
Nintendo appears to be a big part of the plans
Update [Wed 20th Dec, 2023 00:55 GMT]: New job listings for Bandai Namco Studio 2 & Studio S have reportedly surfaced on the official company website. One, in particular, is believed to be linked to a Nintendo project that first made headlines in April last year. It could supposedly be a...
Wednesday2nd Aug 2023
News After 5 Months, Mario Kart 8 And Splatoon Are Finally Going Back Online For Wii U
Titles underwent 'emergency maintenance'
Nintendo has announced that it will be resuming online play for Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon for the Wii U after commencing emergency maintenance back in March 2023. Both games will be back online from August 3rd, 2023. The titles were taken offline entirely after a potentially severe vulnerability was...
Friday3rd Mar 2023
Update: Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 for Wii U taken offline
Update [Fri 3rd Mar, 2023 15:30 GMT]: Nintendo has announced that it has begun temporary emergency maintenance on Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. While unconfirmed, it's heavily speculated that the maintenance - which at the time of writing has no time frame attached to it - is...
Monday12th Dec 2022
UK Charts Nintendo Continues Its Strong Performance Amid Stiff Competition
God of War Ragnarok reclaims its crown
The latest UK boxed charts are here and it's a familiar scene for many, with no new entries into the top ten for this week (Cuphead's physical release came in at number eighteen, with the Switch version making up 79% of the copies sold). God of War Ragnarok reclaimed the crown to come in at number one,...
Thursday18th Aug 2022
Japanese Charts Nintendo Switch Sports Knocks Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Off The Top Spot
Game, set, and match!
The latest Japanese Charts are in courtesy of Famitsu and it's predictably another strong turnout for the Nintendo Switch. Coming in at number one, Nintendo Switch Sports managed to sell an impressive 53,900 units, bringing its total so far to 677,393. Meanwhile, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 hold strong at the number two slot,...
Thursday21st Jul 2022
Japanese Charts Monster Hunter Rise Is Still Top Of The Pack Thanks To Sunbreak
The expansion is bringing in the loot
Capcom and Monster Hunter are once again top of the class in this week's Japanese charts. Published by Famitsu and shared by Gematsu, we can see that Sunbreak is still pulling in the numbers for Monster Hunter Rise, and the set is once again the best-selling game of the week with 29,006 sales. No surprises there...
Friday27th May 2022
News Mario Kart Tour Is About To Get One Of The Franchise's Best Tracks
Yeah baby, yeah!
Mario Kart Tour is continuing to truck along nicely, adding new content and events at a pretty brisk pace. The latest update, due on May 31st at 11pm PT, will introduce the Cat Tour and will naturally feature the cat costumes from Super Mario 3D World. Better yet, the Cat Tour will bring one of Mario Kart's best tracks, one that...
Tuesday31st Aug 2021
Random Modder Adds Mario Kart 8 Tracks To Microsoft Flight Simulator
Taking the popular sim to new heights
Modders are taking Microsoft Flight Simulator on PC and Xbox Series X|S to new heights with some Nintendo-themed creations. Twitter user 'Illogicoma' decided to recreate tracks from Mario Kart 8 such as Mount Wario, Cloudtop Cruise, Moo Moo Meadows and even Rainbow Road. To get these tracks into Microsoft...
Sunday18th Apr 2021
News Mario Kart 8 Becomes The "Best-Selling" Racing Game In US History
Combined sales overtake the Wii entry
The eighth entry in the Mario Kart series has finally surpassed the sales of Mario Kart Wii in the US to be crowned the "best-selling" racing game in this country. This information comes from NPD Group's Mat Piscatella. According to IGN, this includes the "combined" sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and the original...
Monday1st Feb 2021
News Mario Kart 8 Overtakes Mario Kart Wii As Best-Selling Series Entry
Combining Wii U and Switch sales, that is
Having published its latest quarterly financial results, it appears Nintendo is doing all right — if you define selling software by the truckload as Switch outperforms 3DS lifetime sales less than four years into its lifespan 'all right'. One of the secrets to Nintendo's success is the evergreen appeal of...
Saturday1st Jun 2019
News Mario Kart 8 Is Now Five Years Old
We're ready for a new entry
Sure, Mario Kart Tour is coming to mobile devices later this year, but right now, we're still technically playing the same Mario Kart game we were on the Wii U five years ago. Yep, on 30th May 2014, Mario Kart 8 was released in North America and Europe on a Nintendo system that was at the time struggling to appeal to the...
Tuesday7th May 2019
News Mario Kart Wii Sold Five Times As Many Copies As Mario Kart 8 Over The Last Financial Year
Despite being 11 years old
If you need any further proof that Nintendo's evergreen classics are of incredible importance to the company, this little statistic should do very nicely indeed. Towards the end of last month, Nintendo shared its latest financial report. Thanks to this, we were able to share lists of the all-time best-selling games across...
Friday1st Mar 2019
News Get Discounts On Zelda, Metroid, Splatoon And More With The Latest European My Nintendo Rewards
Some real greats included this time
The latest batch of My Nintendo game discounts for Europe has now gone live, giving players the usual chance to grab some 3DS and Wii U games at discounted prices. There are a grand total of eleven games up for grabs this time around, split into two groups. Nintendo describes the second group as a collection of...
Monday22nd May 2017
Random Mario Kart 8 Mod Adds Everyone's Favourite Pink Blob To The Starting Grid
Kirby Air Ride 2?
Thanks to the modding community Kirby is the latest character to join the Mario Kart 8 ranks on Wii U. Previously we wrote about Sonic the Hedgehog and Captain Olimar from Pikmin joining the roster, now it's the pink puffball's turn to join the race - albeit unofficially, of course. This is not the first time Kirby has been...
Tuesday16th May 2017
Random Sonic Joins The Mario Kart 8 Roster In This Cheeky Mod
The Blue Blur gets in on the action
While Sonic may have had his own karting games in the shape of the rather lovely Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, that hasn't stopped lovers of the blue blur from wishing that he could be a playable character in Mario Kart 8 also. As you can see from the...
Monday17th Apr 2017
Video Let's See How Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch Compares to the Wii U Original
360 progressive difference
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe may not be a wholly new game, or really that much different from its original Wii U version at all, but nevertheless we were promised a solid 1080p 60fps experience from this souped-up version of Mario Kart 8, so we've pitted the two releases side-by-side in the video above. Naturally YouTube does an...
Tuesday6th Dec 2016
Video These Kids Might Be The Luckiest Mario Kart Fans In The World
Living the dream
Playing Mario Kart all day long is fun, but there's no substitute for having your very own circuit to race around in real life - and that's exactly what happened to two young fans of the series. Jack and Maddi Mello were given the treat of their lives when their parents Johnny and Krista created a track complete with working karts,...
Thursday17th Nov 2016
Random Scarlett Johansson's Favourite Game Is Mario Kart, But She Didn't Say Which One
Toad in the Shell
When she's not busy taking down Hydra as Black Widow in the Avengers movies, it seems that talented actress Scarlett Johansson enjoys playing a bit of Mario Kart in her downtime. In a recent video chat with IGN, Johannson revealed her love of Mario Kart, though we don't know which one is her preferred version. Double Dash? Super...
Wednesday2nd Nov 2016
Weirdness Mario Kart 8 Contains Hidden Swearing
But you'll have to do a lot of digging to find it
Modern computers allow gamers to dig into video game data files to their heart's content, and this often throws up some interesting discoveries which perhaps should have remained hidden. That certainly seems to have been the case with this latest Mario Kart 8 find. YouTube user Harm - who perhaps...
Wednesday26th Oct 2016
News Mario Kart 8 Has Now Sold 8 Million Units Worldwide
On a system with just over 13 million owners
Nintendo's has confirmed that Mario Kart 8 has sold 8 million copies since launch. The popular racer launched in 2014 and has become the Wii U's biggest commercial hit. What makes this achievement all the more remarkable is that the Wii U has only sold 13.36 million units to date. Elsewhere, Super Smash...
Tuesday19th Jul 2016
Random Turns Out Mario Kart Might Make You A Better Driver In Real Life
Just don't thow any bananas skins, please!
Gamers rejoice - a recent study has revealed that playing action videogames can improve your real life driving skills. New York University Shanghai participants were trained by playing Mario Kart, using a steering-wheel controller to drive a go-kart on a track. The data showed that by playing Mario Kart the...
Monday6th Jun 2016
Say hello to the "Make Believe Digital Event"
Those of you with long memories will recall that we covered the first episode of The BitBlock's "Make Believe" series a while back. Focused on the idea of the Wii U Animal Crossing game we all really wanted (rather than the one we actually got), it boasted lavish production values rarely witnessed on...
Saturday4th Jun 2016
Rumour Nintendo UK Hints at More Mario Kart 8 DLC
Hmm, Kalimari Desert wasn't in the game...
Mario Kart 8 was arguably one of the most polished entries in the series yet (barring the botched battle mode, argh) and featured a substantial DLC campaign that greatly expanded upon the existent content that came with the disc. Many thought that the DLC was "done right", as it offered an impressive amount...
Tuesday8th Mar 2016
News Mario Kart TV Website Confirmed for Closure on 5th April
In-game functionality remains, however
Mario Kart 8 has had a lot of excellent features that have earned it plaudits, such as anti-gravity mechanics, amiibo support and paid-DLC. A much trumpeted feature when it launched, also, was Mario Kart TV, which allows you to upload highlight reels directly to YouTube. Though you can access much of this...
Wednesday24th Feb 2016
News Nintendo Targets and Blocks Mario Kart Hack Videos From YouTube
MrBean35000vr just switches them to Twitch
In the past we shared some videos from the MrBean35000vr channel on YouTube, particularly in the case of intriguing mods and hacks to Mario Kart 8. The channel had found a way to mess around with the source code for the Wii U title - though had minimised public details of the hack - and created some fun...
Friday5th Feb 2016
News Mario Kart Flashmob Surprises And Potentially Terrifies UK Shoppers
The UK's own Coconut Mall
We love a good flashmob here at Nintendo Life Towers - unless it's threatening to make us late for our train ride home, of course. The crazy thrill seekers on YouTube channel Base37 certainly know how to do a flashmob in style, as they recently descended on London's Westfield Shopping Mall armed with motorised go-karts in a...
Tuesday2nd Feb 2016
News Nine Nintendo Titles Pass One Million Sales For This Financial Year
The green and the evergreen
With Nintendo having shared its financial reports for Q3, therefore covering the first nine months of the financial year, we can get an idea of the year's notable successes, especially as these sales figures cover the all-important Holiday period. Overall Nintendo can point to nine of its games that have sold over one...
Friday22nd Jan 2016
Video See How Much Mario Kart has Changed Since Mario Kart 64
56 degrees of separation
It's been over a year since Mario Kart 8 was released on the Wii U and nearly 20 since its N64 sibling Mario Kart 64 graced our systems. A lot's changed in that time, and in order to highlight all the refinements a company like Nintendo can make in such a span, we've cobbled together another cheeky little comparison of the...
Tuesday22nd Dec 2015
Play Get on the Grid for Festive Mario Kart 8 Races With Nintendo Life
Aim for the podium
As announced earlier this week, we're having a couple of short community gaming sessions to warm us up for the Holiday season. It kicks off today (22nd December) with Mario Kart 8. You voted for the rules in our polls, though we're keeping it light-hearted and fun; as a result the Tournament we've set up is 150cc, with All Items...
Monday21st Dec 2015
Play Enjoy Some Festive Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. With Nintendo Life
Playing as a community
It's been too long since we last ran some community online gaming here on Nintendo Life, so with the festive season and some extra play time at our disposal we thought we'd bring it back for some Holiday fun. It's a slightly off-the-cuff and late decision, but the plan is to host events that you can join for both Mario Kart 8...
