UK Charts: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Returns To The Top Of The Podium

Awesome sales from Nintendo's number one franchise, now give us Mario Kart 9, the sales will be huge.

In before the Mario Kart 9 comme-dammit!

Gray Brittain, what's for dinner? Spam.

When Mario kart pops up, does it signal a lul in first party releases from Nintendo?

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is back on Top 10. 😊

Talk about evergreen title. I know everyone’s excited for a MK9, but damn this demonstrates even further that Nintendo are the best developers in the world.

@Moistnado Not really. It just comes bundled with Switch consoles a lot here and is a must-have game for nearly all Switch owners. Same reason GTA5 is always in the charts.

@Moistnado usually means a big batch of Switch consoles arriving in the UK as it's often bundled with it.

I count 6 games for Nintendo Switch. 🤷

I sometimes buy GTA V at the grocery store when I pick up milk and eggs. You can never have enough copies

@Moistnado More likely healthy hardware sales.

Good results, but as with others I'm increasingly sceptical of the relevance of physical-only charts, given a lot of people are buying digital-only consoles from the new generation as well as the popularity of Game Pass. And that's leaving aside the fact that Nintendo also does good business with AAA titles selling digitally via eshop sales which don't feed into this.

Hades sold 93% of its copies on ps4/ps5.... Wow

Doesn't this simply mean that hardly any physical games are bought these days?

The switch dominated the top 30 in Japan this week not one ps4 or ps5 game in the top 30. The US ,skyward sword was number 1, now in the UK Mario kart is number one. I thought Sony was going to dominate the west and they did not need Japan. Yeah right. Nintendo is dominating all over the world. The ps 5 is in big trouble. They have nothing for the holiday season while Nintendo has Pokemon. Metroid and Mario. The switch has won the nineth gen wars with games. Great games triple A titles like monster hunter and Mario golf. The people have spoken. Nintendo does what Sony never has and never will. Make AAA QUALITY GAMES. the sales show the proof. The scalper excuse is no longer working Sony. You lost.

@ThomasBW84
But why the distinction? A game on Switch is a game on Switch. 🙂

@GrailUK "sob....sob....at this rate, we will never get Mario Kart 9..." 😭

Something like that?

@michellelynn0976
At least, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5 was still selling pretty good. 😛
I wanna play that game.

MK8 Deluxe's lack of content added since launch is still very disappointing. At least GTAV has gotten new content consistently over the past 8 years.

I wonder how many people don’t own the top three?
They keep best selling most weeks… are people double dipping?

@WiltonRoots Yes. Exactly like that.

@Clyde_Radcliffe sounds like a good explanation. New hardware sales, it is the kind of thing you buy with the console. So people who already own a switch are not buying as much. Kind of a lul for existing users? Not a lul in releases like I said earlier, maybe a lul in sales of new releases. I'm guessing skyward sword isn't setting the world on fire.

I suppose the PS5 is not doing well because it's only playing PS4 games in higher def at the moment. It's not like Switch isn't almost doing the same though, just with 720p Wii games

Believe it or not, MK8 is back on top of the charts, followed by GTA 5, believe it or not.

I can't believe it.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is selling so much that it might as well be the next Grand Theft Auto V

I swear if we don't get an original Mario Kart on Switch....

@Alpha008
I suspect its likely new console owners, as the top 3 are often bundled with systems.

Was there a sale or something on Tokyo 2020 The Official Video Game?

The Olympics have finished, I wouldn't expect to see a video game based on a timed event to sell after said event.

This list says a couple of things:
-if nothing major gets released, and even when new platforms release, Nintendo is doing best right now.
-GTAV is a great game that keeps selling but hasn't been released on handheld OR on a Nintendo platform yet.

Rockstar's secret notes: release GTA on Switch, it's the best on the best.
Rockstar releases GTAIII-logy. Or Trilllogy. Or whatever clever or dull name they'll give it.

NOOOOO!!! That's not what I wanted! But still also YES I want that AS WELL!

I'm confused.

@UltimateOtaku91 could you point me where you found this info? Haven't been able to find any platform specific sale figures.

@Anti-Matter I hope you like it.

@JohnnyC Eh its sold almost 40million and doesn't seem to slow. I'd think it'd be moving a pretty big number of physical copies

I really wanted gta V on switch, but the way it keeps on selling on other platforms it's already available into, why would rockstar bother to spend money to make the port?

@Dr_Lugae Agreed, but unless I've missed something Nintendo have never said how many of those 40 million are physical Vs digital. Same with other evergreen titles like GTAV and Minecraft. The charts really need to start including digital sales to show the full picture. No doubt MK8 would still feature highly though.

@ItsjustAnotherGamer Exactly. It would be foolish to release MK9 like one year before the Switch 2. MK9 will be a next gen game.

@ItsjustAnotherGamer This is exactly right. Nintendo doesn't have any reason to create MK9 since this game already serves that purpose. It's sad that this is the case, Nintendo should see it the other way around and give the fans the next entry. It isn't like they already cashed out on MK8 to the fullest extent. How many more years will they continue to milk this cash cow? Mario Kart Tour is a joke and way to cash even more on a franchise that everyone loves.

Anyone who thinks Mario Kart 9 is releasing before the Switch 2 is kidding themselves.

The begging for Mario Kart 9 to release soon is kinda tiring - it's very clear that Nintendo views Mario Kart 8 DX as the definitive Mario Kart title on Switch, and the sales more than justify that view.

Nice to see Hades make the chart, that's a great game

@westman98 Totally agreed, but would love some new DLC (and maybe a physical copy with everything on the cart.)

@GrailUK
Any effort that Nintendo would have made to produce Mario Kart 8 DX DLC has likely gone into Mario Kart Tour and what will eventually become Mario Kart 9.

@westman98 Mmm...I can't really agree or disagree with that. If Mario Kart 9 has a new 'gimmick' or design brief then maybe not.

@westman98 why not do something totally different to get the best of both worlds like an open world Nintendo version of Forza Horizons….?

@rockodoodle
I'd be in favor of Mario Kart Horizon (though I should note that just because a concept works for Forza doesn't necessarily mean it works for Mario Kart).

Personally, if I were Nintendo, I'd commission the development of a new Diddy Kong Racing game.

@westman98 they have said that they are “redefining the lifespan of a console…” or something like that. If this is true, I think we get MK9 out of the blue next year for a 30 year anniversary. They are going to need something big to keep selling software if they truly want to stick with the Switch for several more years, rather than just a few more.

@FishyS lol exactly the same. I haven’t got Mario Kart on Switch either. Waiting for Mario Kart 9 which will never happen.

@rockodoodle
There are plenty of big selling software that Nintendo has in development for Switch that aren't Mario Kart (we already know of a new Pokemon, Zelda, Splatoon, and Xenoblade are coming in 2022, with surely more to be announced later).

Mario Kart 8 DX sells 7-10 million copies annually anyways, which is as much if not more than what many other big Nintendo games sell in their lifetimes.

@westman98 the market is a bit saturated for Splatoon and Pokémon. While I am sure they will do well, I don’t see them doing REALLY well, especially Splatoon and Xenoblade. I am sure Nintendo knows what’s best, but I am losing interest to a degree and will get a Series X and may even a Steam Deck. I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

@rockodoodle
Splatoon 2 and Xenoblade 2 both launched in 2017; Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade 3 are scheduled to launch in 2022 - 5 years later. That's not at all what I would call "market saturation" for those two franchises.

Pokemon, the one Nintendo franchise that is almost annualized and therefore the most likely to actually face saturation, has always sold incredibly well and continues to do so.

Heck, the biggest PlayStation and Xbox games each year are Call of Duty, FIFA, NBA 2K, Madden, etc, and none of those franchises seem to have any issue facing market saturation or fatigue.

@westman98 like I said, I don’t think they will do poorly. I just don’t see them reaching the heights that a new MK would reach. Not even close. They can coast on by with 8-9 million or get an easy pop of 20- even 30 million with this large install base.

@rockodoodle
Mario Kart 9 would undoubtedly be huge, but it's likely to just cannabalize Mario Kart 8 DX's existing momentum. In the end, Nintendo would still sell roughly the same amount of Mario Kart on Switch, just split across two games (8 DX + 9) rather than one (8 DX). Meanwhile, Splatoon 2 and Xenoblade 2 sales have slowed a lot since launch (especially Xenoblade), signaling the need for sequels to maintain franchise engagement.

Also, the earliest that Mario Kart 9 would launch is 2022, 5+ years into the Switch's lifespan. Better to save it as a big Switch 2 launch title.

For the current Switch, a new Diddy Kong Racing as I have proposed would be a better release as it would still be a new kart racer but would differ enough from Mario Kart 8 DX to not cannabalize it. I'm not at all certain if Nintendo will do this, but I believe it would work out very well for them.

@westman98 my guess is that there might not be a new console as we have traditionally thought of them. Probably more like the iPhone with incremental upgrade and updates.

@rockodoodle
The issue is that iPhones are released practically every year, while the absolute earliest the Switch 2 could release is late 2022 or early 2023, when the Switch is 6 years old.

That's basically a standard hardware generation.