14 DAY TRIAL // The release of the much-awaited Mario Kart 8 is having a big positive impact on the sales numbers of the Wii U home console from Nintendo, which has seen an increase of 666 percent in its sales during the launch week in the United Kingdom.
The special bundle that includes the device and a copy of the title has accounted for most of the increase, with 82% of all the sales registered in the territory.
This is the second best performance for a Wii U title in the country and, if it is sustained in the long term, it might make the platform viable for Nintendo.
It will be interesting to see whether Mario Kart 8 can have the same impact in other territories, especially the United States.
Mario Kart 8 is designed to be attractive to long-term fans of the racing game series and includes one major new gameplay feature, anti-gravity, as well as a large number of social mechanics, like the dedicated TV channel that can also deliver videos to mobile devices.
The Wii U was supposed to move 9 million units during the previous fiscal year, but only managed less than 3 million.
Now Nintendo hopes that Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. will be popular enough to increase sales of the hardware and allow it to compete with the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.