Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Has Now Outsold Mario Kart Wii

Please stop buying it, people, we want Mario Kart 9.

Whenever exasperated racing fans ask why we're still playing a rather good expanded port of a Wii U game on Switch, the answer is always the sale figures. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch included all previous DLC and added a Battle Mode when it arrived, but otherwise we've been playing the same MK game since May 2014. Why? Because people keep buying it.

As Switch hardware sales stay high, plenty of new adopters naturally grab the brilliant racer as well. It's become the ultimate evergreen title since its Switch release in April 2017 - in the first two quarters of this year alone it's shifted another 3.34 million units. In those six months (up to 30th September) it was the second-best seller on Switch, only behind newcomer The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD; that's crazy.

And now it's overtaken what was considered the untouchable leader of racing games, in terms of sales. Yes, it's surpassed Mario Kart Wii.

• Mario Kart Wii lifetime sales - 37.38 million
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so far - 38.74 million

It's the best-selling Switch game to date, too, ahead of Animal Crossing: New Horizons; the racer has stronger ongoing momentum, too.

It's wonderful success for Nintendo and it is an absolutely fantastic entry in the series. This continued momentum perhaps helps to explain why the next entry in the series is taking so long to emerge. What's the rush when the existing game is still doing so well? And no, Mario Kart Tour and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit don't count as 'main' entries in our book.

So there you have it, MK8 Deluxe is still dominant. MK9 still feels quite far away, as a result.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com