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Discussion Is Mario Kart really a System Seller?

Do you have MK8DX on your Switch,? Was it one of your main reasons for purchasing the console?

  • I have MK8, and yes, it was the main reason that I bought a Switch

    Votes: 6 3.7%

  • I have MK8, it wasn't the main reason, but was on the top 3.

    Votes: 40 24.4%

  • I have MK8, but it wasn't in the top 3 main reasons that I bought a Switch

    Votes: 97 59.1%

  • I have a Switch, but I didn't buy MK8DX.

    Votes: 20 12.2%

  • I don't have a Switch.

    Votes: 1 0.6%
  • Total voters
    164
  • Poll closed .
Mario Kart 8D was a reason for me buying Switch. I had the Wii U version, but I wanted to play it in handheld form so ¯\(ツ)/¯

It wasn't the only reason. But general rule is I wait until there's seven games, either now or upcoming, before I buy hardware (so, Splatoon 2, Odyssey, Xeno2, BotW, FE Warriors, and one more); but wanting to play Mario Kart 8D in handheld form when I suddenly had a craving for the game I distinctly remember being the feather that tipped the scale.

Edit: for other systems, I feel Mario Kart DS was the only noteworthy title because Animal Crossing+Mario Kart on the go felt like a dream. Others, I had the system before Mario Kart was being discussed.
 
Not for the Switch for me (that was BotW for sure) but I still bought it on release day.


It was for the Wii U though. I came late to the Wii (and DS) and loved it a lot. So I was very hyped for the Wii U until...they announced the launch line up. So I waited.

Mario Kart 8 finally sold me on it. After that it would have probably been Mario Maker or Xenoblade X.
 
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I'm pretty sure people misremember when Mario Kart 8 released on the Wii U and the console actually had some decent sales, most Nintendo enthusiasts were hopeful even during 2014. Hell, I wanted to get a Wii U back then because of it.

Mario Kart is a system seller. If only because that's the game people get alongside the console on Black Friday deals, and because that's a game that's literally equivalent to the CoDs, FIFAs and GTAs, people on the general audiences buy consoles just to play those.

I highly doubt Switch would've sold as much as it did if it didn't get MK8DX so close to launch. If anything, the console would have a massive bump whenever its Mario Kart released.
 
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It's not a system seller on Switch for us enthuastics since many of us has already played it. It is a system seller for wider audiences. And it is a system seller in general. That poll doesn't tell the truth because Mario Kart 8 is a remaster on Switch. If there would ne Switch 2 with Mario Kart 9, it certainly would be system seller.
 
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it is one of the biggest system sellers around. if it's not a system seller, then nothing is. more people bought a Switch to play MK with the family than people who bought a Switch just for BOTW.
 
A lot of people on this forum including me bought the game on Wii U played it loved it put lots of hours to it.... So I didn't bother to get it for switch untill dlc dropped
 
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Is Zelda a system seller?

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I bought a Switch for my sister in 2017 (the Super Mario Odyssey bundle) and I’m pretty sure Mario Kart and Animal Crossing remain the only retail games she’s purchased for it.

People love Mario Kart. Even people who don’t like video games like Mario Kart. Even people who think it’s called “Mario race cars” like Mario Kart. It’s universal.
 
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I don’t see people buying a system to play Mario Kart so I think not. Though when you already has the system not buying it is craziness.
 
It's system seller for sure, it just didn't save the Wii U but there's no other game that exists that would have.
 
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I bought a WiiU for Mario Kart 8. I bought a Switch with Mario Kart. I definitely would buy a new console if it came with a new Mario Kart. I know at least 4 families who bought their Switch for Mario Kart first.
 
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I honestly think no. It's a must have secondary game, but it isn't the game that makes anyone need a Switch. People need a Switch for Pokémon, or Odyssey, or Monster Hunter, or a million different reasons depending on personal taste. But about a third of those people then decided to also get Mario Kart, since they're getting the system.

If there were 50 million people who could look at Mario Kart 8 and say I need that then there'd've been 50 million WiiUs sold. There weren't, so it isn't. Unless you think inklings, King Boo, and battle mode were the tipping point for tens of millions of buyers.
 
VegiHam said:
I honestly think no. It's a must have secondary game, but it isn't the game that makes anyone need a Switch. People need a Switch for Pokémon, or Odyssey, or Monster Hunter, or a million different reasons depending on personal taste. But about a third of those people then decided to also get Mario Kart, since they're getting the system.

If there were 50 million people who could look at Mario Kart 8 and say I need that then there'd've been 50 million WiiUs sold. There weren't, so it isn't. Unless you think inklings, King Boo, and battle mode were the tipping point for tens of millions of buyers.
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I feel exactly the same. It's this reason I believe MK9 will help Switch 2 but having a 3D Mario game or a TotK upgraded version, would be more important.

Then again, I can see where posters above mentioning families, are coming from. Mario Kart can sell consoles to younger audiences and families. It's an important title to any Nintendo console.
 
Rampo360 said:
I feel exactly the same. It's this reason I believe MK9 will help Switch 2 but having a 3D Mario game or a TotK upgraded version, would be more important.

Then again, I can see where posters above mentioning families, are coming from. Mario Kart can sell consoles to younger audiences and families. It's an important title to any Nintendo console.
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Yeah, the thing is that having fun playing Mario Kart at a party may influence lots of people to know about and like the Switch. And I think people buy systems that have an attractive library of software and Mario Kart is a super important part of that.

Comes down, I guess, to what you mean by system seller. If you mean "thing that helps makes people think the system is cool and desirable" then yes, it's that. If you mean "must play title that gets them to finally pull the trigger on the purchase " then nah
 
Rampo360 said:
Then again, I can see where posters above mentioning families, are coming from. Mario Kart can sell consoles to younger audiences and families. It's an important title to any Nintendo console.
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Yet as we all know, despite being a massive part of the audience, kids and families simply don't exist or count.









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Funny to see the tread have a last dance like that. lol
Today I have a slightly different view, in the country where I live a video game is really very expensive, for that reason I never met a person who bought the Switch as the main reason being Mario Kart.
In countries where a video game is less than half of a monthly minimum wage, this purchase seems much more rational.
There is a certain bias in the sample collected by the survey, users here on the site are much more engaged than the average Switch installed base.
I still don't know if I can consider it a great system seller (according to some it's Nintendo's biggest), but I see that it is indeed a reason for others to acquire a console.
 
VegiHam said:
I honestly think no. It's a must have secondary game, but it isn't the game that makes anyone need a Switch. People need a Switch for Pokémon, or Odyssey, or Monster Hunter, or a million different reasons depending on personal taste. But about a third of those people then decided to also get Mario Kart, since they're getting the system.

If there were 50 million people who could look at Mario Kart 8 and say I need that then there'd've been 50 million WiiUs sold. There weren't, so it isn't. Unless you think inklings, King Boo, and battle mode were the tipping point for tens of millions of buyers.
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This line of thought completely ignores the reality that both the hardware and software have to be desirable. There's absolutely no chance that BOTW would have been the sensational breakout hit if it was a Wii U exclusive. It's just not possible when the hardware is that much dead weight. By the time MK8 launched, almost a year and a half after the console did, it was part of the walking dead and nothing could have revived it. We would still be discussing TP as the sales peak of the series, at bare minimum.
 
VegiHam said:
Yeah, the thing is that having fun playing Mario Kart at a party may influence lots of people to know about and like the Switch. And I think people buy systems that have an attractive library of software and Mario Kart is a super important part of that.

Comes down, I guess, to what you mean by system seller. If you mean "thing that helps makes people think the system is cool and desirable" then yes, it's that. If you mean "must play title that gets them to finally pull the trigger on the purchase " then nah
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‘System seller’ includes the peer pressure/pester power of kids finding Mario Kart a system seller when it’s probably one of the easiest big Nintendo games to get into. You need all of 4 buttons to play it, matches take a couple of minutes and multiple people can play at once with a single joycon each. That’s quite an attractive reason to have a switch for families.
 
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Rampo360 said:
Obviously I'm speaking for myself here - the poll results show that many people agree though - while I own MK8D, I wouldn't buy a Switch for that.
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The poll results don't show that many agree, they show that many ppl on a Nintendo enthusiast forum were more hyped for games other than MK8D. I bet if you polled this forum for whether the next Metroid game or Pokemon game was more important to them, Metroid would win that poll. That result would also be way out of step with the broader market.
VegiHam said:
If there were 50 million people who could look at Mario Kart 8 and say I need that then there'd've been 50 million WiiUs sold. There weren't, so it isn't. Unless you think inklings, King Boo, and battle mode were the tipping point for tens of millions of buyers.
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There weren't 50m Wii Us sold with MK8 bc you can't polish a turd by telling ppl it comes with something nice. Most ppl (if they were even paying attention to Nintendo's massive failure at that point) saw a game like MK8 and thought "that's cool, but I'm not jumping on that sinking ship."

Y'all all being obtuse about this question. Nintendo has been bundling MK8D for its Black Friday sales for 6 years now bc it sells Switches. It's the best selling game (2nd best seller in Nintendo history) on what may end up being Nintendo's best selling console ever. They even found a way to shoehorn it into the Mario Movie bc of its extreme popularity. If MK8D isn't selling Switches, then nothing is a system-seller.
 
balgajo said:
I don’t see people buying a system to play Mario Kart so I think not. Though when you already has the system not buying it is craziness.
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So when you buy the system you expect to buy it eventually.
It may not be the 1st reason but it adds up to the value you expect to get from the system. Hence it does have an influence on your decision.
 
Speaking for myself, none of the Mario Karts have ever been the sole reason for me to purchase Nintendo hardware. Nintendo's general output across the board is what pushes me. However, to say that MK is not a system seller is crazy talk. 50 million + units sold and it's not stopping. It's a system seller for many out there.
 
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Think Mario Kart is an auxillary series. If you have a Nintendo system you buy [Mario/Zelda/Pokemon] + Mario Kart, but you wouldn't go out of your way to buy a banter system (Gamecube, Wii U) specifically for it, even if it's one of the best Mario Kart games (Mario Kart 8).
 
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If anything, I think Mario Kart is so visually attractive, so easy to pick up and play even if you’ve never used a controller before due to only needing a few buttons (racers in general making the right way to go being very clear and accelerate/brake being obvious concepts), and such a good game for a group due to a short gameplay loop, that it’s a seller for the hobby as a whole. Sure, there’s tons of attractive video games. But Mario Kart’s really easy to get into even if you’ve never touched a video game. My daughter and her friends took to it like ducks to water where 3D action games like Zelda with a gajillion inputs and a camera to control can be a bit offputting to them.
 
I think it's a bit of both . Mario Kart does expectionally well on Nintendo platforms , but there's a ceiling if the product is unappealing. Case in point, it also can't single handedly sell a system, it likely sold some Wii Us, but MK8 could not rescue it from its 13.5m LTD sales.

That said, if you pair the game with an appealing product, the synergistic qualities of Mario Kart on a Nintendo console does lead to the kind of sales we saw on Wii and Switch.
 
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Even if it isn't someone's main reason to get a Nintendo system, I think that for so many to have the thought process of "Well, if I'm already buying the console, I've gotta get Mario Kart too" means something. And since "Killer Auxiliary Purchase" isn't really a term, might as well just call it a Killer App.
 
Rampo360 said:
Obviously I'm speaking for myself here - the poll results show that many people agree though - while I own MK8D, I wouldn't buy a Switch for that.
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Is Mario Kart not a system seller because a port of a game many here had already played released the same day as Breath of the Wild?
 
Brock Reiher said:
Is Mario Kart not a system seller because a port of a game many here had already played released the same day as Breath of the Wild?
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Mario kart didn't release on the same day as BotW. That's all I can say. Everything elss is speculation. But it seems several people agree they wouldn't buy a Switch to play MK.
 
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A poll of users here is probably the worst barometer for this.

A better barometer is the fact that Mario Kart 8 sales trend with hardware sales: if Switch sales are up, Mario Kart sales usually are, too. And that's more true for Mario Kart than for any other game.
 
Mario Kart is the quinsentencial game you buy for families, friend and yourself, the perfect multiplayer franchise, you buy to play with randoms online or your family/friend,yes is a system seller, in fact everyone associate multiplayer on Nintendo with Mario Kart/Party, a game that sold 54 milions units is a single console, is obvious it point to be a system seller, nearly the entire Switch use base has bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, after Super Mario Odyssey/Breath of the Wild
 
Evidently, Nintendo constantly puts out MK8 bundles since the Wii U era because they want to inflate the sales numbers of Mario Kart, not because they think Mario Kart sells consoles.
 
neil said:
Probably not for people on this forum, since a lot of us had it on Wii U and like a broad range of Nintendo games. But generally speaking I believe it is a system seller.
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What percentage of people who bought it on the Wii U realistically chose not to buy it on Switch? I'd imagine 10% is generous.
 
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jnWake said:
Evidently, Nintendo constantly puts out MK8 bundles since the Wii U era because they want to inflate the sales numbers of Mario Kart, not because they think Mario Kart sells consoles.
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This is a CRAZY theory.
Giancarlo said:
Nearly the entire Switch use base has bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, after Super Mario Odyssey/Breath of the Wild
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idk about "after"
Dekuman said:
It also can't single handedly sell a system, it likely sold some Wii Us, but MK8 could not rescue it from its 13.5m LTD sales.
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8.46 million copies of Mario Kart 8 sold on the Wii U, which means roughly 5 million Wii U owners didn't buy the game. I think that debunks your theory.
 
AlwaysOnDeck said:
This is a CRAZY theory.

idk about "after"

8.46 million copies of Mario Kart 8 sold on the Wii U, which means roughly 5 million Wii U owners didn't buy the game. I think that debunks your theory.
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I'm sure Nintendo have data on how many Wii U actually sold because of Mk.

As pointer out, it's a no Brainerd first purchase if you get a Nintendo console. So the two are highly correlated as you pointed out. Much harder to say the game is THE driver of hardware all or even most sales.as someone pointed out, it's more of a Killer Auxiliary Purchase.

Usually when people buy a console they have games they want to play on it, it's a much more complex calculation than matching numbers. That only shoes a correlation
 
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I have over 200 Switch games, according to DekuDeals, but Mario Kart is not one of them.

However, I do not wear my pants on my head so I am aware that Mario Kart is 100% a system seller for the general audience. Absolutely ludicrous to entertain the thought otherwise. All evergreens are system sellers. That's what makes them evergreens. People buy them when they buy the system. The fact that Mario Kart sales strongly correlate with hardware sales tells you all you need to know.
 
Caviar said:
I have over 200 Switch games, according to DekuDeals, but Mario Kart is not one of them.

However, I do not wear my pants on my head so I am aware that Mario Kart is 100% a system seller for the general audience. Absolutely ludicrous to entertain the thought otherwise. All evergreens are system sellers. That's what makes them evergreens. People buy them when they buy the system. The fact that Mario Kart sales strongly correlate with hardware sales tells you all you need to know.
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I think it's just the opposite in the case of evergreens. BotW continues to sell well after years, but a person will not buy a Switch in 2023 to play BotW, if that were the case, the purchase would most likely have been made years ago.
Okay, yes, most evergreens were system sellers in their releases, and it's strengths in the console's library that make it even more attractive. But something changed on Switch in 2023 that made people buy one, and for some reason also buy BotW, but BotW is not the main reason for buying it because it has been here for 6 years, it has to have been something else.
 
LinkURL said:
I think it's just the opposite in the case of evergreens. BotW continues to sell well after years, but a person will not buy a Switch in 2023 to play BotW, if that were the case, the purchase would most likely have been made years ago.
Okay, yes, most evergreens were system sellers in their releases, and it's strengths in the console's library that make it even more attractive. But something changed on Switch in 2023 that made people buy one, and for some reason also buy BotW, but BotW is not the main reason for buying it because it has been here for 6 years, it has to have been something else.
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Right. The decision matrix to buy a console is usually not one game and while it could be when a big game releases, it's usually a number of factors with a new release a new bundle or new promo being the final straw.

Insisting a single game sells all these consoles is imho Inaccurate and plays into the Nintendo troll narratives and backhanded compliments around Nintendo fans only buying a few games and 3rd party games don't sell etc. Etc.
 
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LinkURL said:
I think it's just the opposite in the case of evergreens. BotW continues to sell well after years, but a person will not buy a Switch in 2023 to play BotW, if that were the case, the purchase would most likely have been made years ago.
Okay, yes, most evergreens were system sellers in their releases, and it's strengths in the console's library that make it even more attractive. But something changed on Switch in 2023 that made people buy one, and for some reason also buy BotW, but BotW is not the main reason for buying it because it has been here for 6 years, it has to have been something else.
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I'd argue BotW is not THE system seller anymore but just one of them.
Not everyone is keeping up with gaming all the time and if someone is buying it now they may pick up the Switch to play some new game and just buy BotW alongside it, but it might aswell be someone who is just late to the party.

When you look at oldsr consoles like the gameboy many people pick them up just to play Pokémon, and if it doesn't get a rerelease, people would probably do the same with the Switch and BotW.
So some goalposts people put up here for what a system seller is just seem weird.
 
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