The 2017 release Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has been an absolute juggernaut for Nintendo during the Switch generation and if you needed a reminder about just how successful it's been, here's a little fun fact.
The 61.97 million units shifted as of March 2024 actually means this single game has now surpassed the lifetime sales of Nintendo's classic home console NES hardware. As highlighted by Did You Know Gaming creator Shane Gill, Famicom / NES sales topped 61.91 million units worldwide.
In terms of Nintendo's other Switch games, nothing even comes close to the sales of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons sitting on 45.36 million units in second and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in third having shifted 34.22 million units.
Technically, Mario Kart 8 has sold even more copies when factoring in the 8.46 million units the original game sold during the Wii U's lifetime. The original game was also released back in 2014, so this particular entry has now been around for an entire decade!
To keep racers coming back for another lap during the Switch generation, Nintendo bolstered the game with a huge 'Booster Course Pass' DLC, adding a whopping 48 additional tracks (including new and retro courses), eight new playable characters, and a bunch of Mii Racing suits.
Can you believe Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has overtaken NES sales? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
[source nintendo.co.jp, via x.com]
Comments 51
Jeez, someone give this game a life imprisonment or something, because it's killing the competition.
We've known this for over two months now.
I feel bad for the next Mario Kart game; it has far too much to live up to. Even if It's stupendously good, it likely won't match up with those sales numbers.
MK9 has a hell of a lot to live up to.
MK8D is practically perfect in my view.
Good luck devs!
@BTB20
To be fair I didn't.
And people still use the sales argument with the new Zeldas. This is just further proof that that argument is moot. IPs in the Switch sell like beasts regardless of anything. This is a 10 year old game!! It’s Nintendo’s GTA V.
Time to release another racer Nintendo. I don’t know, maybe one with an F.
Dude, I’m so tired of the game. I’ve been playing it since December 2014 and have been ready to move on for years. I know I’m literally the only one who thinks this, but I wish Mario kart 8 Deluxe never came out and we had just gotten a new installment in like 2019
MK8DX is very good game, definitely deserves to sell really well! Can’t wait for the next Mario Kart!
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is great, but too overrated in my opinion.
Not to mention the extra DLC for $25 that supposed to be for next Mario Kart.
I think the other 3rd party cartoonish racing games like CTR / PAW Patrol Grand Prix / Smurfs Kart / etc are still interesting to play and deserve more likes.
8 DX is an excellent game that deserved its sales for sure and I enjoyed all of the DLC, but I'm more than ready for something new. I'm not worried about the next game at all. Smash is in a tougher spot than Mario Kart. A new Mario Kart game just needs to exist.
This game is just meh. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it just isn’t that good tbh. I just want a new Mario Kart that isn’t a port of a Wii U game with paid extra content ported from a mobile game
As long as the next Nintendo console is backwards compatible they’ll have a hard time selling a new game. Double Dash is the only time they’ve mixed up the formula and something like that (or exactly that) is their only chance.
This game is like SSBU. The new entry would have a giant shadow to try to overcome. Playing any old MK or Smash game prior just feels like a huge step back from quantity of content to QoL refinements.
@Yoshi3 Fffffridge Racer!
@Yoshi3 I dunno man. You hop on f-zero 99 and you get 12 people in a race, and a billion cpus. There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest for it.
@PersianZSR
fzero 99 is not a good fzero game and it's not actually like fzero at all, to play.
speaking for myself a new F zero game is at the top of my list and has been for years, but I tried fzero99 at launch and i put it down forever after a week or two. I pray that they dont use disinterest in that mess of a game as an excuse to never even try to follow up GX.
@NFrealinkling
"I know I’m literally the only one who thinks this, but I wish Mario kart 8 Deluxe never came out and we had just gotten a new installment in like 2019"
I literally also think that. ✌️
(in fact I liked 8 U better to begin with)
@PersianZSR It's such a bummer too. I think f zero 99 is such a blast. The series is a blast in general. F zero x is sublime. I just wish it could become popular. It seems to sadly have the same problem as Metroid. Great games, but a very small audience.
@-wc- I have just got to ask, what makes you like the Wii u version better? Not trying to be toxic in any way just genuinely curious.
Great sales numbers for Mario Kart. Population has grown a few billion since the NES days, so not sure what to take from this comparison.
@Bigmanfan
the main thing is the single weapon "slot," but also I liked the way wii U games looked and "felt" better than their Switch versions, in general. I havent gone back to confirm this but I definitely felt that way when I got a switch in 2020 after being well acquainted with mk8 and Botw on U.
A Mario Kart Ultimate, with more racers and every track ever and something like F-Zero elimination mode. Maybe get back double dash's special items? 😄
The DLC/upgraded expansion pack was great for this game. 96 tracks makes it very replayable, some are clearly better than others but I've gotten my monies worth.
@-wc- Yeah, that's definitely understandable. The single slot added a lot of strategy, which was really cool. Me personally, I prefer the more chaotic side of Mario kart, which is why I prefer the double slot to the single one. As for the feel, there's no technical reason I know of, but I think it's just due to context. For when it released, it was honestly really impressive. But now, with next-gen consoles to compare to, it doesn't have the same effect. At least that's my theory. I felt the same way for years and struggled to figure it out.
Surprisingly, never played.
I played all the others and I own all between and including N64, except Super Circuit (GBA), up to MK7.
Mario Kart DS remains my favourite. Online multiplayer and N64 like graphics on the go was fantastic for its time.
Not many people to play locally against these days and I’m tired of the rubber banding AI.
Heard nothing but good things about MK8 / MK8 Deluxe. Kudos to the 60M+ people enjoying it but I suspect most of those numbers come from the Switch bundle.
That's great news! It deserves this success. It shows why they ported it in the first place. Not to start an argument but i feel deluxe is the definitive way to play mk8. Now with the booster course pass and an actual battle mode. My only concern is because of how well this game has done the next entry is going to have some big shoes to fill.
Like everyone else I do wonder how the next Mario kart is going to live up to this, heck it was already good but the dlc just jumped it for me, their are so many stages now and so many faves! Unless Mario kart 9 somehow adds every stage from eight and then some.
@Bigmanfan
two slots is definitely more chaotic! i will give you that. 👍
it's an interesting theory, and you are right: mk8 on wii U was an absolute marvel 10 years ago! of course it cant shine like that forever.
also, as much as i love my switch, the Wii u just lacks that slightly laggy, janky, tablet-y feel. 😂 🤭
@-wc- I am honestly shocked mk8 ran on the Wii u at all. That little thing was more powerful than one might expect. Can't wait to see what they can pull of graphically for Mario kart on the next system! Also, very accurate on the last point.😂
@Dr_Corndog LMAO thanks! you made me laugh out loud with that. XD
@PersianZSR to be fair, even me, a hardcore fan of F-Zero didn't like too much the 99 version, but its because, for me, battle royales lose their fun after a couple of hours. This isn't real F-Zero. Real F-Zero is F-Zero X/GX .... those are the games that one must play and that fans clamor for a revival. Classic F-Zero is... mostly, a retro experience, which I like but I'm not in love with. So I wouldn't call it fair to compare that live service game with what the IP really is.
@MegaChem feels a bit like ‘more milk sold than there were cows in the days of the
Romans’
The fact almost 50% of ALL Switch owners have this game is something incomprehensive.
@Denoloco I am actually surprised it isn't a bigger proportion of Switch owners to be honest.
Other than pack in games, I do wonder what the highest attach rate games are? Possibly an older game as their were far fewer games being released back in the day.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a force of nature.
I like facts like these. It’s a different and interesting way of looking at the sales information.
Great achievement and great game.
But god knows how Nintendo move MK forward with this game, it has so many tracks and so much diversity for a racing game.
The online is still so strong as well and I’ve racked up about 8000 racing points and still enjoy now and again.
I’m not sure how I would take the MK series forward if it was my decision.
As impressive as these numbers are, I'm ready for the next Mario Kart right about now. MK8 is great but after so long with it, it's gotten to feel a bit sluggish in parts, particularly when getting hit with an item and it taking a while to get going again.
I hope the next entry really blows this one out of the water with content and overall game feel.
My personal theory is that MK9 is already finished but they won't release it until people stop buying MK8.
You know, if Nintendo were to ever make games as a 3rd Party for someone else's hardware, it should be Meta Quest. That way, they could continue the 3D effects they were exploring with the 3DS. Imagine Mario Kart 8 in VR. That would be amazing. And Astro Bot showed that platformers can be amazing in VR. Imagine Mario Galaxy VR.
I just hope that the next Mario Kart fully embraces the Nintendo Kart idea. MK8D went some of the way there but if we got a Smash Bros style roster that would be amazing.
If anyone somehow had still doubts about 8 Deluxe being incredibly successful, well, here you go and I love to see it!
There's no way to know how much the next Mario Kart will sell (in general and also considering it most certainly will come out on Switch 2 and we don't know how much that will sell either), but I'm also among those that think it's not in the same position as Smash as there's a lot that can still be added to it in terms of not only characters and tracks, but also features and even just from past games including Tour - character-specific items, reverse and/or trick variants of tracks instead of just mirror ones, two characters on the same kart à la Double Dash either in general or in a specific mode and so on.
Not a new take, but this has a problem like Smash Ultimate - it's hard to see what the next installment really adds aside from just "more."
@Yoshi3 theres zero chance of that happening
I remember back in early 2017 when there were people saying "everyone who wanted Mario Kart 8 played it on WiiU".
But its really the perfect game in terms of accessibility, design and fun. Extremely well crafted but at the basic level only needs the accelerate and analogue stick to control.
@Dr_Lugae Mario Kart Wii sold a clean 37 million, nowhere near that many even bought a Wii U, I feel like it should've been obvious there was a huge audience that was open to Mario Kart but not enough to get a Wii U just for it!
I'm still shocked, though, looking at the charts, and seeing how, still, whenever people finally pick up Switches for whatever new game they apparently get MK8 with it. I mean, I did that when I finally got BotW, but I'm surprised there's anyone left who hasn't played it by now
@Yoshi3 "Time to release another racer Nintendo. I don’t know, maybe one with an F." - Oh hell yeah, bring back F1 Race!
@Hwatt Take a look at weekly software charts in the UK, and you'll see MK8D and GTA V basically never seem to leave the top ten. I imagine the same is true in the U.S.
Bundles only explain most of the sales in the sense that people seem to buy the game alongside the console. It's the sort of system-seller the competition dreams of.
Imagine if they port it to the SwitchU
@Ralizah
100% accurate that it’s been up there, even in the former “NPDs” for NA, MK8 Deluxe had an insane streak being in the top 20.
Alas, the sales numbers are nearly double the next best selling games like Animal Crossing, BotW, and Smash. The only reason I can foresee for that disparity is the fact M8K Deluxe has been bundled with Switch since early days. Somewhere between 2017-2019.
They even pack it in with the OLED. I’m sure the game deserves the praise but context is important. Why else is this game doubling every thing else and sticking up in the top 20?
I would like to point out that Mario Kart on SNES was by far a better game that required true skill to play.
Star Cup on 150cc with the optional setting of being small at the beginning of every race anyone?
I never got into this new version much (tens of hours spent) but I do return to the SNES one. That’s why I have bought SNES controllers for Switch. That and Mario World.
Sadly I love CTR More 😅
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