We’re a week past the release (re-release?) of Mario Kart 8, lovingly re-titled Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and it’s no surprise that the game’s sales have boosted past a million units sold in only one week on store shelves. Sales records in North America and Europe have been decimated, so it’s almost like we should have expected to see industry analyst Daniel Ahmad list the game as one of 2017’s million-sellers game club.
It’s not an easy feat, and it joins other Nintendo Switch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the list. It’s also somewhat of a head-scratching moment when one considers that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is simply a second go-round of a Wii U game… and honestly, it hasn’t been that long since it was a brand new title on that system.
However, it has been postulated on various forums and sites that the million-marker achievement may have come as a result of the low Wii U sales through that system’s lifetime—not a lot of people had a Wii U, so not a lot of people played Mario Kart 8, making it a very clever title to repackage for Nintendo’s hot new system.
It’s a solid theory from where we stand. Is it accurate? Who knows. Do we care? Not really—we just want to get back online and toss some blue shells around.
