Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Drops Out Of US "Top 20" Games Chart For First Time

Wow… truly the end of an era I guess.

I really hope that this means we will finally be getting a completely from the ground up NEW Mario Kart for console (that doesn't involve an rc car).

The Mario Party is over!

Pretty sure it’s still there with digital. I doubt anyone at Nintendo is panicking.

Only 78 months huh, those be rookie numbers Nintendo!

It’s Mariover…

I think peoples already getting bored with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Mario Kart Maker here we come!

Does really seem like the Switch is losing steam at this point...not to a huge extent or anything, but it does feel like it'll be time to move on soon

I blame the terrible last dlc wave. Not really, but it was awful and disappointing.

Probably #21. Will be back next time for another 78 months!

That should be a sign to tell Nintendo that Mario Kart 9 needs to happen soon.

Nintendo, this is what happens when you recycle tracks from Tour…

One, two, three, recycled tracks from Tour are not too bad, I guess, but after four, five, six… people being to notice…

It’s not like Nintendo is a company without resources and has no other option other than recycling tracks from tour… come on, eventually people get fed up with the excess slack on Nintendo’s behalf …

@Deltarogue this is obviously going to happen when the Switch 2 comes out. Do you really think Nintendo hasn't started development on Mario Kart 9? In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if it was already finished, just waiting for the next system to come ouy

Something something, Nintendo is doomed.

Nintendoomed. Clearly they should go third party now.

It's all downhill from here

@nintendo90

78 weeks in the Top 20 and over 57 million copies sold (on top of the original’s 8+ million) making it the 6th best selling video game of all time…

…is what happens.

I mean, I also found the Tour tracks somewhat underwhelming and I would have welcomed more varied course design in general, but… this is a very difficult case to score ‘See Nintendo I told you so’ points on.

The game has been an astonishing, enduring, undeniable success.

@Poodlestargenerica I wouldn’t say awful, but it was fairly disappointing. Dk, Pirrana, Rainbow road and bowser were good tracks, plus funky Kong, Duffy and new Mii suits were cool. Not all disappointment……

Damn I guess MK8D flopped if it wasn’t 79 month streak. It’s doomed.

Not surprised there are a person or two unironically saying the booster pass was bad when objectively for the content you got (courses, characters, QoL) vs the price asked (not even $30) makes this one of the more consumer friendly dlc out there. Essentially doubled the game for less then half the original price. Today standards you get way less and get asked to pay for the full price of the game again.

There is usually one or two sour grapes in these kind of articles. Who gives a single care that “it was in the mobile game first!”? Guarantee you ton of people never touched the mobile game. Are we also supposed to care that MK8 was on Wii U and literally millions never touched it until it was on Switch?

@rockodoodle I just meant the tracks. The characters were good additions.

@nintendo90 The whole DLC is just recycled from Tour. Even the retro tracks are mainly just touched up versions of their Tour remakes. The whole Booster Course pack was just a cheap Tour port disguised as a new expansion.

@Maxz There's a sucker born every minute I guess. And you wonder where casual hatred comes from.

Nintendo: That’s the signal! Release the Switch 2 🐙

@Anti-Matter and I think you're daft. mk8 is one of the best selling games EVER. Not my personal favorite mk, but certainly appealed to the masses. I'm gonna fire it up with my siblings this Thanksgiving though. Definitely not "bored."

All good things must come to an end as they say.

Damn, first time in 78 months without DIGITAL SALES considered? That's crazy.

Edit: fixed typo

Nintendo is doomed. 3rd party confirmed

@Altaria_97 EXCLUDING digital sales, I believe!

Still impressive, nonetheless.

Agent Smith: "Is it over?"
Agent Smith: "Yes."
Agent Smith: "NO! no no no no no no no!!! It's not fair!!!"

Flop Kart

Midio Kart

It will be back as I bet some retailers will bundling it up with a console for Christmas sales.

Lol, switch is still selling like hot cakes.
And retailers are bundeling it with the switch oled.
So expect the sales to go up again.
There are so many good games right now. (All consoles) peoples wallets are burning already lol.

oh, i think mario kart will keep on doing just fine. The fact its STAYED so high for so long is what impresses me.

You get the best power ups when you fall behind.

Just imagine if Nintendo release Mario kart 9 and a new 3d Mario game on release day of Switch 2.

Preorder fast or the scalpers will be coming.

@TheBigK I'd play a Super Mario Kart: Downhill.

The game spent 78 consecutive months in the top twenty and here people are acting like it's a lack of quality in the DLC that's 'killed' Mario Kart. How many more Switches do you think are out there waiting for Mario Kart to be installed on them?

The start of Nintendos demise.

Still play and love mario kart 8, and will play it for a long time, but also feel like mario kart is ready for a fresh design with some new modes and ideas. 😊 Hopefully a MK9 is coming for the switch 2 within 1-2 years 😊

@Bolt_Strike so did they not make any tracks from scratch for BCP ? either the retro remade tracks or the apparently brand new tracks ?

@Maxz and while we're at it, another thing that has happened is that at least a chunk of the content from a mobile freemium is no longer sentenced to be sealed in this freemium's server shutdown tomb in the future.

Anyone trying to spin this in a negative light really does need to give their head a huge wobble. For the game to be in the charts for as long as it has is insanely brilliant!!!

Literally nothing at all to see here.

@Deltarogue This specifically doesn't mean anything for this game or future Mario Kart games.

That tracker, Circana, doesn't include bundled games in these charts and for the first time they started bundling the game in October and with an OLED Switch. Additionally there were like 9 new games in the charts, which is unusually high and pushes old games further down. Both of these factors may have played a role in pushing the game out of the top 20.

Mario Kart 8 is such an achievement. A game that came out on release day of the Wii U, and still is sold for the dayone recommended price!! In the gaming industry this is something that virtually NEVER happens.
It really says something about the quality of Nintendo's games.

@Poodlestargenerica The last DLC wave released in November. This is about it not charting in October.
@Liam_Doolan You should have mentioned this in the article. These are monthly charts and this is about October, which was before wave 6 was both announced and released. This is not right after, this is before. There is no connection.

@nintendo90 What are you even talking about? "This is what happens". What happens? One of the most successful games of all time doesn't chart for a random month in one country's top 20...is supposedly because of some random Tour tracks. Great logic right there.

@gamerswereamistake 😂😂😂

@DennisNOR There will be a new MK no doubt and along with the new Nintendo Switch.
MK8 will be back in the top 20 soon enough.

@Baler Yeah. Doomed. Again. 😂

Yeah the last DLC wave was not enough effort. Instead of going out with a bang it felt like a wave somewhere in the middle.

As for the game itself, it was a spectacular success, but (it’s been said before) the core gameplay has run its course. I consider myself a Mario Kart superfan, however lately I played the new courses twice or so before booting up a different entry.

It is a huge success. There is no other way to spin it. Even trying to turn this into a negative is laughable

Well, they must be running out of people to sell it to at this rate

It’ll definitely be back up by Christmas, but wow! 6 and a half years in the top 20?! Kudos, MK.

@Maxz "over 65 million copies sold"

57 million shipped according to Vgchartz. In any case (65 or 57), it's a huge commercial success and something that very few games manage to do (sixth best-selling game combining Wii U and Switch sales), but mostly because of being the more popular choice on a hybrid console that has been selling well since 2017. The game wasn't able to sell as much on Wii U in spite of being a Wii U exclusive. That means that even if Mario Kart 9 is better, it doesn't mean that it will sell as much.

It's not like Mario Kart 8 is the best entry ever but it has become the biggest after being marketed for almost ten years, recycling the Wii U DLC and the mobile tracks. Maybe I'm saying all this because, as a huge Mario Kart fan since Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 8 is bland and dull compared to the older titles, so it's one of the weakest entries in terms of gameplay, the biggest in terms of content.

Disclaimer: my opinion, comments section and all that. I bought the Wii U game, the Wii U DLC, the Switch port and the Switch DLC. Actually, the main reason why I bought the port was because the original battle mode is a joke.

Sorry guys, I normally buy 100k copies of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe every month, but with the state of the economy right now I could only afford 50k copies this month. It's probably my fault it dropped.

@JakobU It was not a Wii U launch title, it was released one year and a half later. I'm not sure if shipping 57m of Switch copies is just a question of quality, Wii U would have been a massive success because of it, then, OR a combination of many factors like the ones I mentioned above and the fact that it has not a successor since 2014.

I'm glad it's not just over the top crass, violent games like GTA that have this sort of staying power. The success of GTAV makes me concerned for humanity.

@Banjo- No need to ask VGchartz 🤡, there’s official sales data on Nintendo’s page:
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/index.html
And yes, the 65m number seems to be both Wii U and Switch combined.

VGCharts was a fun little messy site 10-15 years ago, but they never collected any source data themselves, they merely compiled what professional tracking companies published. And eventually they stopped updating most of their database. It’s a digital lost place, the MySpace of video games. Looks like it too.

@Banjo- Thanks, I’ve edited my post. I believe the 65 number is total sales for ‘Mario Kart 8’ (including the original Wii U version) but given this is about the Switch version spending 78 months at the top, the 57 number makes a lot more sense!

@NintendoWife This is an excellent resource! Thank you for sharing it!

@Maxz Sure! They update with every financial report, so 4(?) times a year. Too bad they restrict numbers to the Top 10 :/

@NintendoWife @Maxz

Yes, I have realised that Vgchartz doesn't have data for many games at all and they update hardware and software data when and if an official source is revealed or reported, so rankings are not complete, not to mention the uneven tracking of physical and digital sales.

I check these rankings sometimes, but the only sales data that matters to me is that of games that I consider great but are unappreciated and underperform commercially. Nintendo doesn't have that problem, that's why I'm slightly harsher with them, but many publishers and even IPs of well-known publishers have that problem, sadly.

@Banjo- I spent a lot of time on VGChartz back then, but eventually I realized that they're really just a handful of kids moderating a forum. They have zero resources or infrastructure or business connections for collecting data. These kids (likely in their 40s now) copypaste commercially published info, and then one of them writes some editorial about what he sees, kinda like a weather report. And like you said, if there's no new data for whatever reason (let's say because an actual sales tracker put up a paywall because they were tired of getting scraped) they'll just stop updating. It's a joke.

@NintendoWife I also have my issues with reviews these days. I know many fanboys review bomb games (and the opposite), but reading random opinions on a thread is often more enlightening than "professional" reviews and it's easy to tell if they're honest or not.

ok, wow. the game is in the top 10 for almost 80 months, we get legacy tracks that double the size of the game, new drivers, and ya’ll are unhappy that this streak is over?

just be patient, we’ll get mario kart 9 in the future. and if we get a mario kart 7 remake or smth somehow…

i honestly wouldn’t be mad. ¯(ツ)/¯

@Deltarogue except they have is called Mario KART!

@jco83 No. Everything made for the BCP is in Tour, and is relatively similar. Every single track.

@Exerion76 Since Wii U...

MK 9 is probably mostly done and a day 1 release for "Switch 2".

@Serpenterror Would it really be Mario Kart "9"? It would be "10" if you count Home Circuit. And "11" if we also count Tour. But they didn't count Arcade GP when thet named "7", so what do I know?

@Deltarogue wooow, I didn't knew Nintendo would actually make a new Mario Kart game after 8 went to the 21st spot on the best selling games of the US! It'll be back in the top 20 on the month of November.

@nimnio ? That’s not what I’m talking about. Why would I dispute MK8’s overwhelming success. It is already one of the all-time bestselling games, #6 according to Wikipedia. But I am not referring to the sales data at all. I am speaking as someone who’s been playing this game for, like you say, a decade, and I’m done with it. It is no longer drawing me back in, no matter how many more courses they add. Because I’m bored with how it feels, across all the courses.

So with that in mind, it’s obviously time for a new game in the franchise. Yes, they’re still selling the game to new customers, but they haven’t sold a new MK to existing customers in many years. The DLC came to be for exactly that reason: Because you have an install base of 60 million people willing to spend money on Mario Kart.

And it’s obviously coming, early into the next system.

I mean, the game had a heck of a run, it was bound to fall off eventually. I personally have been patiently waiting for the next entry in the Mario Kart franchise ever since about 2 years after Mario Kart 8 originally released on the Wii U. I only play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch with my family. I can't stand to play it anymore by myself.

@Dpullam “I can't stand to play it anymore by myself.” That’s what I mean. Playing MK8 feels like sleepwalking by now. I do it fully automatic.

Dooooooooomed

@JohnnyMind Well multiplayer is not part of my life anymore, at my age Time is very limited, and I couldn't assemble friends for Mario Kart sessions... not going to happen. I play by myself, to relax.

Not sure I agree that the unlock structure has much to do with how fun MK iterations are. My favourite is Double Dash, it has a fraction of the courses that MK8D offers, and I've "unlocked" those 20 years ago, but I'm still replaying it.

But I don't even mean to dismiss MK8. It's a really strong entry and deserves all the success. My main criticisms: It's a bit loose and not as focused on precise driving, many courses are just wide and 'whatever' in terms of their layout as a racing circuit. Don't like the cheap arrow barriers to block off parts of the course. Flying and underwater has turned me off from the start, it's like a commercial break in the middle of the race.

@JohnnyMind Yes, excited to see what they come up with! Don't get me wrong, I still love the series, and I'm really happy for Nintendo that MK8 got vindicated in the end... I remember the infamous Polygon article that predicted it would be the worst selling MK ever. Now it's the bestselling entry by a landslide, whoops. And I did enjoy MK8 for a long time, but I guess no game can keep you interested for TEN years.

@JohnnyMind Exactly. Previous Mario Kart games had more staying power in terms of single player, though to be fair Mario Kart as a whole has gotten stale over the years for me. It would take a quite a bit of innovation to get me excited for another entry.

... to be fair, there would have been a new entry of sorts. But sadly I couldn't play Mario Kart: Home Circuit at all, to my surprise - it made me dizzy / a bit sick 😳

@JohnnyMind I l truly hope so! I have faith in Nintendo!

@HaileySheridon But then it's not even MARIO Kart anymore. Miyamoto disapproved of adding the Miis in Wii and ESPECIALLY Link and the other dlcs in 8. He doesn't want that to happen.

@Anti-Matter "already getting bored with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe".

Yeah, it's only taken 6 and a half years. I wonder why they even bothered releasing it if people were going to lose interest so quickly!

@Maxz Ah, I made a typo. I read the article and just mistyped lol.

@HaileySheridon yes, but it wasn't miyamoto's vision. he didn't want to do it, he said "it would become 'smash kart' " if it did happen, but it did anyway.