‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’ for the Switch is faster seller in series history
The ZeldaTablet got another killer app this week, in the form of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. I really, really want to play that motherfucker with friends, and apparently a lot of other people do too.
Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for its Switch console is the fastest-selling title in the history of the entire series. The company says it recorded a total of 459,000 combined sales — both digital and physical retail copies — in the US on the game’s April 28th launch day.
The numbers result in an attach rate of 45 percent, so “nearly one in two Nintendo Switch owners in the U.S. purchased a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the first day it was available.” Put differently, clearly people were really excited for another, very good Switch game to play besides Zelda, Snipperclips, and a couple decent indie releases since launch.
The previous record holder was Mario Kart Wii back in 2008, which sold 433,900 on its first day. Mario Kart 8 for Wii U, which the Deluxe version expands on, has cumulatively sold 8.31 million copies so far — but that version has been available for nearly three years. Its launch momentum was definitely slower; Nintendo waited five weeks to announce sales of 885,000 units in the US. The Switch version did more than half that total in a single day. Pretty impressive. Nintendo says over 2.7 million Switch consoles have been sold globally so far.