Ah, the beautiful game. It's the world's most popular sport, so news that Mario Strikers: Battle League has already overtaken lifetime sales of Mario Golf: Super Rush in Europe less than a month after release may not come as a massive surprise, even if Super Rush has been out for over a year. We're big golf fans here at Nintendo Life — any excuse to wear loud trousers — but of course a football game is going to do better! Being based in the UK, we're legally required to love football more than any other country. Except that's not true, if physical European sales of Mario's latest kickaround are anything to go by.
According to GSD (Games Sales Data) physical sales figures from GameIndustry.Biz's June report, it's not the UK but France who has demonstrated the lion's share of the soccer love on the European continent — at least where Mario is concerned — with 40% of all physical copies sold so far going into the hands of French football (and Switch) fans.
GameIndustryBiz's Chris Dring highlighted GSD's stat on Twitter:
This data only takes into account physical sales in Europe, so it's possible that other countries bought more digital copies. Germany came second in the rankings with just over 19%, with Spain taking the bronze with around 10% of Euro sales. No, 'the home of football' couldn't even crack the top three!
Battle League came in at number three on the June European all formats chart behind F1 22 and FIFA 22 — both of which have digital sales included in GSD's data, remember (Nintendo doesn't disclose digital sales for inclusion, unfortunately). In the UK, the game sold well in its launch week, but fell to number 11 in the Switch sales charts this week.
From a physical point of view, then, it's France that seems to have the biggest footy fans, at least the Mushroom Kingdom rules version of the sport. In our review, the lovely Alex called it "the best sports game on Switch right now", so much like the fine people of France, we too were enthusiastic.
Surprised? Think the UK will make up ground when the World Cup rolls around? Let us know below how you've been enjoying the game since release, or if you're more of a golf person.
Further reading:
[source gamesindustry.biz, via twitter.com]
Comments 46
There are three things that the French enjoy.
Bread, revolution, and Mario Strikers.
I played it for a bit at launch and for a few days afterwards but that's it. I'm just waiting for it to be updated now.
Not played it since first weekend! Hopefully the DLC has substantial solo/story modes as it is so bare bones say.
Gameplay is fantastic but needs better cup, league and other modes
I'm also in the same boat of not having played it after the first few days. Just nothing to do, offline or online. Most disappointing game of the year so far for me despite the gameplay itself being pretty fun.
Shameful display by UK.
Yeah like many others, I’m waiting for some updates to make the experience better.
I was thinking about this earlier and found it kind of funny: Mario Golf Super Rush has a good amount of content but terrible core gameplay, and Strikers has really good core gameplay and a terribly small amount of content. Weird how it’s practically reversed.
I'm at that point where I don't think updates will even do enough to pull me in anymore at this point. Maybe I'll check it out again when all the updates are done. Disappointing game is disappointing.
glad im not the only one, fun quickplay but thats literally all this game has. ultra smash has more content than this, and not even extra characters can fix that
its a fun one-mode game not worth $60, and nintendos most egregious case of testing how little content they can put in a sports game. i almost dont want them to make a new mario baseball if this is the kind of treatment its gonna get
First, I play the game and enjoy it.
Not to be cynical, but I have seen a lot of comments in multiple places about people saying that they had a bad experience at first, so now they're waiting for the update before playing more. But what do people expect? Truly curious. Will the addition of Daisy (or other characters) really change the game for you? Nintendo gave zero promise of changing the solo/story mode, and I doubt they would do that since it would make the picture seem worse - "they updated the story later, this really was a half-baked game."
I just find it hard to believe that any updates are going to make the experience better for those who didn't enjoy it at launch.
I’ll buy one from you guys at $10
@sisodinr it wont, extra characters wont fix what little content this game has. at least past games had challenges, achievements, more stage gimmicks, items, ect. strikers never had a story mode, but there was still a bunch of little things to sink your teeth into and work towards
im not expecting to be pulled back in, cause i know nintendo could easily add nothing since this game was riding off the hype of strikers coming back. at this point im not expecting this game to be saved, but just voicing my disappointment at how much they pulled back. and from next level games of all companies too
@sisodinr Yeah, you're right unfortunately. Any updates they make will just be minor roster changes or whatever and won't fix the core issue at all. If I didn't buy it digitally I probably would have just returned it (which would have been the first Switch game I've returned) as I doubt I'll ever be compelled to go back to it. The Wii game from 2007 even had better online multiplayer as well as more single player content.
'"Cos unless you're Gareth Bale. Football > Golf
I still need to pick it up. It was out if stock at my local store.
@HotGoomba Don't forget alcohol 🍷 😉
Game is great! Could be more content but like halo, I play because the gameplay is fun. Though more characters/challenges for cosmetics/actual story mode would be welcomed by me. Also, they seem to not care too much about club name censoring. I’ve played against some FC’s that if I said their names here, I’d go bye-bye.
Pretty much what everyone has been saying in this comment section. I like the game and it’s actually my first Mario soccer game. Just not much to do. Hopefully Nintendo will have some good updates, it needs it. And bring in Daisy.
I dont know how the one for switch its so disappointing on lack of content in comparison to gamecube. Played the demo and not fan of it the sports games for switch is so disappointing its not worth it with little content and small roaster.
Seems like everyone here is upset they spent $60 on a half finished official Nintendough release. Ouch.
quelle surprise!
Hon hon hon j'aime le fromage du stinky!
Needs a league mode. Great gameplay though.
The fact that 4 people can’t play on the same team together online is one of my biggest gaming disappointments of 2022 simply BECAUSE the mechanics are there, they feel good. If that mode existed, I could overlook a LOT more with this game.
@HotGoomba
"There are three things that the French enjoy.
Bread, revolution, and Mario Strikers."
No.
Revolution, Swing Sex Parties and French Kiss
I really wished I had waited until this one had baked a bit more it really is barebones. So far I haven’t enjoyed the Mario sports games on switch nearly as much as the GameCubes.
I will get it when it's cheaper and has more content.
@Rykdrew "Revolution, Swing Sex Parties and French Kiss"
No.
Revolution, the guillotine and wigs.
Going by the comments here, I'm better off sticking with my GameCube version. I'll get it on a half price sale at some point but its disappointing what the game has become.
That's a lot of French people angry that I've dusted them online
Well, the French are the reigning world champions at the moment, that’s something I’m sure they must be quite proud of
This game is extremely fun playing friends 1v1; whether that be on the couch or online. I do wish you could play as a team of 4 online, as @commentlife mentioned.
But if you don’t enjoy that aspect of it, then there is no game for you here.
Good thing me and my friends love it
Oh but the game is hollow. Oh and I blame prerelease hype build by media. I basically bought it because of NL. Speaking of basic lack of content, this freaking game has 1 (one) music theme/song. 59€. Oui oui.
@Switch_Pro I hope that was an IT Crowd quote, but you get my vote either way.
I still haven't bought this myself. It's definitely the top sports game I want to buy, but... it's a sports game and that will never be my top priority, so as long as an occasional good RPG or shmup or management sim comes along, Strikers will probably keep on being "the next game I'm buying" until I see it on deep discount.
All I'm saying is Thierry Henry absolutely plays Wario.
(as an Irish person AND Arsenal fan, I always feel so conflicted looking at him in a French jersey)
❗️Bought it at launch and ONLY put the GameCard in the Switch to get the 50 G🪙ld Coins.
Can you imagine if they made a mario game using real sports like US Football and Basketball?
@N8tiveT3ch
"real sports" lol.
There was a Mario Hoops game on DS. But there should never be an American football Mario game.
Welp so much for some people here hoping the game flopped. Golf was considered a success and Strikers beat that
I've had the same experience many other users have reported before me: played it on the first weekend, then quit and haven't returned so far. I honestly don't know if there's a way to make it great and it's not gonna be easy to call my attention again. They could and should have offered more content, achievements, whatever, but not what they did. I've bought many games that made me regret in my life. I whole lot of them. But this one is different. It's not a bad game, it's means utter disappointment to me. They simply didn't want to offer a heftier product. If gameplay is great and a lot of people who bought the game are complaining about the same thing (little content), then it's on Nintendo and the devs for their decisions
@sisodinr lol
The French love football, but, they're absolute suckers for crazy cartoon animation, and the new Strikers has a LOT of it. :v
Makes sense. If I lived in France I would much rather play Mario Strikers than watch Ligue 1.
"Mon Dieu!"
In french, we place a space before all double signed punctuations.
So it's "Mon Dieu !"
Don't ask me why.
@N8tiveT3ch Mario Hoops on DS was excellent.
@Switch_Pro I think what you and others here may be forgetting is that France capped energy price rises whereas the UK invited the market to 'have at it', hence people in the UK don't have as much spare cash for buying games.
And given the amount of negativity about the game in this comments section, perhaps we should be giving UK gamers a little credit for not getting sucked in to this one.
@gcunit I think the lower sales in the UK is down to cultural differences.
The UK tends to treat Football games more official merchandise and value authenticity, so they're going to be as inclined buy a football game with made-up rules and Mario characters.
That's part of why I think EA are actually quite foolish in not accepting
FIFAs terms for the license. The branding is a big part of it.
@MontyCircus if I lived in anywhere I’d much rather play Mario Strikers!
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