Mario Kart 8 Claims Top Spot in Japanese Charts, Wii U Remains as Number One Home Console

WAHOOO~!!! (vroom vroom!!!)

I'm willing to get a lot of people bought Persona Q...and didn't like the EO-style gameplay.

Good for Nintendo to see that MK8 gas shifted nearly half a million units in Japan (?!?!?!?!), of all places.

Good news....

I wonder if IGN and company will ever start to blame PS4 to be a failure in Japan as they kept doing with WiiU.....

I would be curious to know how big are the user-base of WiiU and PS4 there

That brought a huge smile to my face!

"One Piece: Unlimited World Red had a very quiet launch on Wii U, well below equivalents on Sony platforms."

I don't know the PS3 install base in Japan, but I'ld bet my house it's higher than the Wii U. Vita is probably close but Japan likes it's portables, so neither is a very fair comparison. Japan needs a simultaneous 3DS - Vita game release so we can see what's what.

Good to see MK8 and Wii U doing ok. Two months until Hyrule Warriors in Japan, which should sell well just for this clock:

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/06/16/hyrule-warriors-tells-time-with-a-bonus-triforce-clock-in-japan

Or a really cool scarf in a treasure chest:

http://www.destructoid.com/in-japan-you-can-get-a-scarf-with-hyrule-warriors-276733.phtml

Hasn't helped hardware sales much which is a shame.

Kirby Triple Deluxe basically at 600k in Japan alone. That's pretty impressive. Probably will be a million seller worldwide in the end. Nintendo needs some other titles beyond Mario, Link to pull those numbers.

But yeah, those are bad hardware numbers. Other notable small surge is the Vita....

Not bad, not bad. That PS4 though is doing pretty bad in Japan.

@Blast Both consoles are clearly struggling at the moment in Japan.

Numbar 1

Well done Nintendo.... top home console in Japan, top game in Wii U and general 3DS dominance.

@rjejr Did you mean to say PS4? Because PS3 has I believe close to 20 million.

Anyways just look at Monster Hunter continue to sell well even with Ultimate 4 on the horizon!

I love how Xbox is always like 255 sales, and everybody else is like 12,000. Good job, Ninty! They deserve it. And Microsoft deserves their 255 sales.

The 3ds is going to be the winner by far, from October 3rd- until Smash Bros. Wii U. Then the Wii U will quadruple it's sales so far.

@rjejr I'd say a Wii U / PS4 release for a game like One Piece would be a good tool to measure up popularity of the newer consoles. I'd bet the Wii U would come out on top, but I think it would be close.

Not great sales but not completely woeful and it's June which isn't exactly peak time for console sales. At least the Wii U has plenty of announced games coming during and after the summer this year.

I honestly thought the lifetime sales of Persona Q and Mario Kart 8 were going to be higher. I mean, they're still good, but...

Good job Nintendo!!! Mariokart deserves such praise. As for Yokai Watch, I know nothing about it, but I love DQM, so I might give it a try.

Anyone who is not a PC/Sony/Microsoft fanboy can agree that the Wii U will win this gen. But it will still lose to Apple robots. For 500$, you can get an iPad and a handful of ad covered games, or you can get a Wii U with MK8, a Wii Remote, one of the four games, two more games, and still have fifty dollars...

It's about time.

Really surprised it's not bumped hardware sales up. Japan seemed so buzzed about the game before release with huge crowds at demo events. Console gaming really is dead there.

Who the hell is STILL buying X360????? In Japan of all places!!!???

Will they launch the XBOne in Japan? Will it sell?

Good for Ninty though, No.1 in everything, 26,000 or so 3DS's in one week is really good. I still dont undertand why they seperate the 3DS and the LL in sales, its the same system isnt it?

EDIT: On a side note re MK8, I stopped playing it this week as, played it too much lol, but I decided to play my fav game of the past year, TLoU on PS3, man, love that game SOOOOO much, but wow, graphic's wise, compared to MK8, it dont hold a candle to it at all! Still love the game though. But Mk8 is so beautiful.

I am glad to see the Wii U still in the 5 digit range. Hopefully it will stay there. That is more hope than expectation right now though.

@readyletsgo There are about 2,000 Microsoft employees in Japan. Perhaps a certain number of them are required to purchase an Xbox 360 every week.

Good to see it still pulling good numbers in Japan. Hopefully they can maintain the momentum through the year.

Fun fact: PS4 in Japan just got Thief, which was on sale on Steam this past weekend for $15 in the USA.

@Darknyht LOL!!!

you know, I find it funny when people went on about how dismal the Wii U numbers were when they hit below 10k. lucky for the PS4 that is is doing good in other places of the world.

HEY UBISOFT. CHECK THIS OUT.

@ricklongo - "I'd bet the Wii U would come out on top,"

I think OP:UWR would sell better on PS4 than Wii U b/c not every PS4 owner wants to play Thief but every Wii U owner wants to play MK8, games don't release in a vacuum. PS3 did 18k, Vita did 10k so PS4 might have done 5k but Wii U only did 4k. Some of those PS3 owners would have opted for PS4.

@Spoony_Tech - "Did you mean to say PS4? Because PS3 has I believe close to 20 million."

No, I meant PS3, TW was comparing game sales between the PS3, Vita and Wii U, I don't think One Piece released on PS4 as it's not on the list.

@ThomasBW84 - "It's that old conundrum of last-gen ports not doing much for Nintendo's current-gen system."

And, lets face it, it's 3rd party.

You were saying, Ubisoft...

@audiobrainiac @whodatninja I'm sure Ubisoft will be right behind the Wii U with it selling 50k a month in Japan. Let's forget the PS4 and Xbone selling around 300-500k a month in the rest of the world. Seriously, people, use a bit of common sense!

Those lifetime sales for the consoles can't be right. 441,205 copies of Mario Kart 8 sold but only 13,776 people own Wii U?

Nintendo can't be happy about these results. Just in its third week, Mario Kart Wii sold over 300,000 copies in Japan, reaching over 1,1 million copies total. Even Mario Kart 8 is failing to push more than a marginal number of Wii U consoles all around the world. At this rate, it's possible Nintendo won't even reach their massively reduced 3,6 million Wii Us yearly worldwide estimate.

@sketchturner It's last week's figure. It means that even the miniscule hardware bump that Mario Kart 8 gave to the Gamepad console is decreasing.

@sketchturner The numbers in parenthesis for hardware are last week's numbers. Wii U's LTD for Japan is 1,790,881. It's sold 265,451 so far this year.

Time for a celebration

@Mega719 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roRQ2mNwMMQ&feature=kp

Again proves the Japanese have more sense than money.

@Mahe Oh look another negative comment from you in a positive article

@Mahe
I don't uderstand. MK 8 has been around for 3 weeks now and it has more than 400,000 sold copies in Japan...

@electrolite77 Compared to previous gen, it is indeed just a decent number. But if you compare them to this gen, dude that number is humongous. Just look the the PS4 sales number and make a comparison. Mind you the PS4 is much newer than the Wii U so in theory it should be selling more due to the "freshness" of the console.

I mean seriously people should look at things both ways. True the Wii U is not doing Wii numbers, but it is doing very well in Japan compared to its competitors. I do understand Mario Kart 8 is a big tittle, but it is what is it. As it seems the Japanese have moved away from home consoles. Lets just hope the market over there picks up as the console gets more games.

@Shiny_Sentret As much i love the wii u and hate sony fanboys. That commant makes you look like a Nintendo fanboy.

@electrolite77 I'm guilty myself. I switched to mobile gaming at around 2011, and it lasted for almost 1 year. In the end I decided to come back to PC/Console gaming because mobile gaming is just.... damn awful after a while. Everything is reptitive and the game doesn't have much depth. Maybe mobile gaming is just not my thing.

I'm not surprised PS4 is doing bad in Japan, I'm actually surprised that the PS4 is doing so well in the rest of the world. I was one of the people who was hyped about the PS4 and was trying to get one. After my head had cooled down, I realised all the PS4 has is hype. There is 0 reason to get a PS4. Not only does the PS4 do not have good exclusive games, all multi plat games are still coming to the PS3! Not to mention you have to pay to play online on the PS4. After realising all this, I'm still content with my PS3. Until the PS4 picks up pace and have good exclusives, I won't be buying a $450 living room ornament.

Freedom Wars is coming out soon in Japan for Vita. It is a very Monster Hunter like game that could really push units. Also, I don't think any consoles are going to do real well in Japan. They seem to be stuck on the portables. I love my portables too, don't get me wrong.

@Mahe Man, you're just ruining your reputation here, just stop.

While everyone seems to be stuck on the Wii U only doing 12,000 units this past week, remember it was down in the 7,000 range before Mario Kart hit and the numbers have stayed up where they are. The Wii U has a little momentum now. More stellar games will only help from here on out.

I don't care if the Wii U is first or last this generation, as long as excellent game after excellent game keep coming out, Nintendo's got my support.

Well those aren't great sales but hopefully they'll stay at these levels even for just a little bit for Nintendo's sake.

Console gaming is sooo dead in Japan. Add to that the way the Japanese market seems to work is a hit game sells most its copies in the first 2 weeks and then normally falls off hard. WiiU is doing pretty good in the face of this in Japan and Nintendo has had some successful titles on WiiU. I was really suprised that W101 tanked so hard in japan and worldwide. A great game that I thought would sell well in Japan with Platinums rep and the anime style of the game.

Yay! I love seeing that the big N is bouncing back. This gives me a lot of confidence that Smash Bros. will be the lynch pin that makes sales explode.

And the software download figures are? Honestly without those I think all we can do is a bit of informed guesswork, but in guess that's kinda fun...

still not big numbers though.

Chalk up another Wii U bundle buy

YAY NINTENDO!! You're on top again, just wait until Smash Bros and you'll see many dollar signs!