Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is already looking like a huge success for Nintendo and their newly released Switch console. We previously reported that the title was the fastest selling game in the 25 year old series thanks to over 459,000 copies being sold on launch day in the US. Now we have Japanese figures for the launch week, which shows the game is off to another big start across the Pacific.
According to official Media Create figures, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold 280,229 copies during the week of 4/24-4/30. The game hit stores on the 28th, so these sales were just over the first dew days after launch. According to past figures shared on NeoGAF, this makes MArio Kart 8 Deluxe one of the best selling MK games at launch in Japan as well. However, it was beaten by the original Wii U release, along with Mario Kart 7 and Wii, all of which did have larger install bases at the time of release.
These sales easily made Mario Kart 8 Deluxe the top selling game for the week in Japan, with second place going to Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission X on the 3DS, which sold just over 92,000 copies. The 3DS, once again, dominated the overall software sales charts, earning 10 of the top 30 spots.
For hardware, the Nintendo Switch once again won the week, selling through 74,217 units. This is easily the best selling console in Japan right now, but it is likely still being constrained by supply issues. Stores in the US, Japan, and around the world are still selling out of the extremely popular console.
PS4 was able to beat the 3DS once again when combining all versions of the hardware. The original PS4 console is still selling far better than the PS4 Pro, something that I definitely found surprising upon first seeing it. Do Japanese gamers not own 4K TVs, or do they simply not care enough to pay the somewhat higher price?
