Since its announcement last April, Mario Kart World has been the subject of heated controversy. Not because of its content, which immediately appealed to many players, but rather because of its price, which many deemed both exorbitant and excessive. In fact, between two calls for a boycott on social media, one could wonder if the title, which serves as a spearhead for the Nintendo Switch 2, would achieve the expected success. And like Hogwarts Legacy, the numbers are there to prove that between the networks and reality, there is a real world.
Mario Kart World explodes all records
Indeed, if we believe the information shared by Famitsu, Mario Kart World is currently enjoying a much better start on Nintendo Switch 2 than The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at the launch of the Nintendo Switch. As proof, in the space of just three days, Mario Kart World has sold 782,566 copies in Japan, compared to only 193,060 units for Breath of the Wild in 2017. And the most impressive thing about all this? These are only physical sales, the most expensive version!
Because as specified by the famous Japanese media, the details of Mario Kart World's digital sales are not yet known. In other words, the reality would have it that this figure is even higher, to the point, perhaps, of approaching or even exceeding one million sales in Japan alone. Suffice it to say, then, that we are dealing with a truly colossal success with this new opus, which more than quadruples the results recorded by Breath of the Wild at the launch of the first Switch.
A question of context
Of course, it is always good to point out that the context obviously has a lot to do with it. Let us remember that at the time, Nintendo was just coming out of an absolutely abysmal Wii U generation, while the Switch 2 follows a successful Switch generation. Likewise, Mario Kart naturally aims to be a much more mainstream series than Zelda, as evidenced by the 68 million Mario Kart 8 Deluxe games sold on Switch – making it the best-selling game on the machine.
That being said, this obviously doesn't take anything away from the feat achieved by Mario Kart World, which then duly accompanies the historic launch of this Switch 2 generation for Nintendo. Because with 3.5 million units sold worldwide in the space of four days, the Japanese firm has achieved the best start in its history to date. It should also be noted that, in a way, Breath of the Wild continues to contribute to this with the arrival of its Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, which allowed it to rise to eighth place among the best-selling games in Japan during the week of June 2 to 8.
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