Mario Kart 8 – can it take the Wii U from zero to hero?

A reader, who also happens to be an economist, looks at the numbers to see what the best case scenario is for Mario Kart 8 and the Wii U.

Can Mario Kart 8 save the Wii U? Mario Kart on the Wii sold over 35 million copies and is the second best-selling non-bundled game of all time (after only Minecraft). With such a large market interested in the Mario Kart series, Mario Kart 8 can surely help to sell more Wii Us. Being an economist by trade, I thought I would consider the situation more closely. How big will the boost be to Wii U sales? And how big do Nintendo need it to be?



Regarding the first of these questions, we will of course have to wait and see. However, we will easily be able to make an ex-post assessment of the difference Mario Kart 8 makes in the short run. According to the latest sales data the Wii U has sold around 6 million globally. I think it is a safe assumption to say that if Mario Kart 8 did not exist, global Wii U sales in May and June would be about the same amount as they were in May and June last year (a time when Nintendo did not release any major new Wii U games).

Therefore, we can assume that by the end of June 2014 the Wii U will have sold about 6.3 million without Mario Kart 8. So when it comes to the end of June, we can check again the sales data for the Wii U, and reasonably say that any sales in excess of 6.3 million are due to the release of Mario Kart 8 (and all the extra marketing Nintendo is reportedly planning to go with it).


The next issue is, how big a boost does Nintendo need to the sales of the Wii U? Let’s assume the minimum acceptable performance from Nintendo’s perspective is to match the sales of the GameCube – which despite badly under-performing itself still did well enough to keep Nintendo in profit. When the GameCube was the same age as the Wii U is now it had sold about 9.6 million. So the Wii U already needs to catch up about 3.6 million sales.

Can Mario Kart 8 help the Wii U immediately catch up? Probably not. If I had to guess, I would say that the best case scenario is that Wii U sales will jump up by an extra 1 million worldwide by the end of June, reaching a total of 7.3 million. If Nintendo can achieve that or more the Wii U might still have a chance of catching up with the GameCube over its lifetime. If not then the Wii U’s future really does look very bleak.

Of course this is only a short run assessment. Mario Kart 8 could also continue to have an affect further on into the Wii U’s lifespan. Coupled with the attraction of other new exclusive games, and possibly a price cut, Mario Kart 8 should help the Wii U achieve a much larger Christmas sales spike this year than the Wii U achieved last year (when it only had Super Mario 3D World as a system seller). But the longer it goes without sales really picking up even a moderate fight back will be become less and less likely.



The performance of the Wii U could be massive for Nintendo’s future, so as a fan of their home consoles, I can only depart with these words – good luck Nintendo!

By reader ecejmm

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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