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Mario Movie Effect drives Mario Kart 8 Deluxe lifetime sales above 60 million units

Sales continue to rack up for Nintendo's kart racer.

Ozzie Mejia

February 6, 2024 12:18 AM

Universal Pictures

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At this point, it's becoming fair to ask who keeps buying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. One would think by now that the game has been sold to anybody and everybody, but Nintendo continues to sell millions more copies of its kart racer. As part of Nintendo's Q3 2024 earnings report, the company revealed that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold another 6.79 million copies in the first nine months of FY 2024 to bring its lifetime sales total to 60.58 million units, a number that can be partly attributed to The Super Mario Bros. Movie's continued success.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's sales figures come from the Nintendo Q3 2024 Financial Results Explanatory Material. The game's 6.79 million sales are behind only The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Bros. Wonder for highest sales during Nintendo's 2024 fiscal year. As pictured on the Top Selling Title Sales Units page, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's lifetime sales are comfortably ahead of every other Nintendo Switch title with Animal Crossing: New Horizons' 44.79 million units sold in a distant second place. It would need a blue shell worth at least 16 million units to catch up.

How does Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continue to sell all these years since its debut as a Nintendo Switch launch title? Part of that can be attributed to the game continuing to receive new content with the Booster Course Pass DLC tracks, which wrapped up with the game's 3.0.0 update. Another major factor is the continued success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, in which kart racing played a big role.

"The April release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie positively impacted sales of Mario related titles, such as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which recorded sales of 6.79 million units (for cumulative sales of 60.58 million units)," reads the Nintendo Q3 2024 earnings release.

Don't expect this to be the end of The Super Mario Bros. Movie's impact on Mario titles. We'll continue monitoring its effect on the sales of games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe among other titles. Don't scoff at the idea of Mario and Donkey Kong's buddy dynamic in that movie potentially giving a push to Mario vs. Donkey Kong when it releases later this month.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?