Following the revelation from several weeks ago thatMario Kart 8 Deluxeset afranchise sale recordto become the fastest-selling title in the series, it has now been revealed that the sizable amount of purchases for the Nintendo Switch release have helped make the brand as a whole the best-selling racing game series of all-time in the U.S. This information stems from recent market research from the NPD Group’s analysis of the gaming industry’s sales for April 2017.
According to Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the NPD Group,Mario Kart 8 Deluxeended up becoming the top-selling title in America last month even though it had only been available for purchase for just two days. Over the course of that brief period, it has been reported that over 460,000 physical units of the game were sold, and when one includes digital sales, the total figures exceed 550,000 units in all.
Considering the compounded sales of the Nintendo franchise as a whole ever since its initial entry withSuper Mario Karton the SNES, it’s not too surprising to discover that the series has now become the best-selling racing game brand on the market in the U.S. After all, theDeluxeedition of the eighth installment sold an impressive1 million copies in just three days, even after the title had technically been available before on the Wii U.
Of course,Mario Karthas plenty of competition when it comes to the racing genre, such asForza,Need for Speed, andGran Turismo, but it stands to reason that most, if not all of those titles lack the universal appeal of the Nintendo brand, as they’re geared more toward diehard racing fanatics who enjoy their technical and simulation aspects. Bearing all of this in mind, it will be interesting to see ifMario Kart 8 Deluxemanages to continue selling well throughout the year and beyond in order to assist in retaining the franchise’s status as the best-selling racing series of all-time in the U.S.
