Nintendo products haven’t been doing well in the UK as of late, with many retailers like Asda and Tesco slowly reducing their shelf space for Nintendo games. That hasn’t stopped Mario Kart 8 from being a runaway success in the UK, however. Over the weekend the game managed to hit the top ten best sellers list at number three. Though it didn’t beat out Watch Dogs, which released a few days earlier on nearly every gaming platform available, the Wii U console sales generated by the release of Mario Kart 8 were through the roof.
According to figures released by UKIE, it’s estimated that sales for the console were boosted by 666% of previous numbers, and that nearly 82% of consoles sold were thanks to the Mario Kart 8 Wii U bundle. This is just a quick slice look at the sales of Mario Kart 8 in one of Nintendo’s worst performing regions. It should be interesting to see how the game performed in Japan when sales are released for that region on Wednesday. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait the entire month of June to see how well Mario Kart 8 performed in the US, thanks to the monthly release schedule of NPD Group.
