Mario Kart is still one of Nintendo’s best-selling Switch games

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Mario Kart cannot be stopped. You can only watch as all the other games go by. Screenshot: Nintendo

Nintendos Super Star isn’t the bright and shiny New Pokmon Snap or even the behemoth that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. No, well into the Nintendo Switch lifespan in the year 2021, it is Mario Kart 8 that takes the lead.

Mario Kart is still one of Nintendo’s biggest sellers. It was Nintendo’s second best-selling game in the last quarter, which included two new releases, New Pokmon Snap, Mario Golf: Super Rush, and Miitopia. It even beaten the insanely popular and much cooler Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Seven years later, Mario Kart 8’s stamina is a bit of a marvel. First released on Wii U in 2014, the racing game still receives the love of marketing from Nintendo and continues to hold its places on the Best of the Switch lists. It’s a pillar of Kotakus’ roundup of the best Switch games. It sold 37 million copies in total.

But the seven-year game is a seven-year game. It hasn’t received a substantial update in years, settling instead for integrations with whatever Nintendo thought that year (Labo kit, Switch online, the Toy-Con bike). The latest DLC for Mario Kart 8 has been released on Wii U, included in the repackaged Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for Switch. Nintendo also continues to advertise it from time to time despite its age, with advertisements and mentions running on official material until the end of 2020.

It’s clear that Mario Kart doesn’t need major changes to maintain its momentum. After all, the series is a classic from Nintendo and Mario Metaverse. It’s familiar, easy to play with others, and just as fun to play with your grandparents and younger siblings. He found the sweet spot of Nintendo cooperative play. Shorter (and funnier) than Mario Party, but still more accessible than Smash, which was actually nowhere in Nintendo’s revenue breakdown.

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And so, he finds himself biting the heels of New Pokmon Snaps, which sold a whopping 2 million units in the first quarter on the market. That number is likely even higher as its Japanese sales are not included as the game is sold by The Pokmon Company in Japan. But Mario Kart still earned 1.7 million. The old Animal Crossing: New Horizons only had 1.3 million sales, being swept away by Mario Golf: Super Rush, which also just came out this quarter.

The only thing that can stop Mario Kart now is a well-aimed Koopa shell.

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