With over 67 million copies sold on the Nintendo Switch, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has been quite the success for the House of Mario. According to two former employees, though, Nintendo didn't have a "clue" that it would be the "juggernaut" it was.
Speaking in a new video titled "The problem with the new Mario Kart game on Nintendo Switch 2," Nintendo of America alumni Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang – Nintendo of America's former director of social media marketing, and former senior manager of creator relations, respectively – recall the Nintendo Switch's launch and its line up of games.
According to Yang, "inside Nintendo, [there was] not a clue that this was going to be the juggernaut," with Ellis adding that Mario Kart 8 was "kind of an afterthought." So many people missed Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U, so why not port it over and give it a second shot at life?
The rest is history, with Yang saying it "sold and sold and sold and sold and sold," as the numbers above demonstrate. According to Nintendo's own sales data, around 75 million copies were sold across the Wii U and Nintendo Switch, and it's fairly clear which console is contributing the lion's share.
Naturally, success throws up future challenges. Yang says Nintendo has done well to capitalize on the success of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with extra servings of content, though the developer is now in the position of needing to convince people to abandon their history with the game and pick up a Switch 2 to play the new Mario Kart game and start over again.
"I don't know there's that many people out there who are sick of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," Ellis says. "It's maybe not the game that we're playing day in and day out, but we all have our reasons for returning to it."
As for how Nintendo will do in drumming up excitement for Mario Kart 9, we don't have long to wait and find out. The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct is barely one week away, and the new racer is bound to feature. Who knows, maybe it'll be the one we'll be playing for the next 10 years.
