Super Smash Bros. for Wii U pre-orders at a record high

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed pre-orders of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has set a record high for the games publisher.

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Pre-orders of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U are at a record high and have beaten pre-order numbers for Mario Kart 8, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Bloomberg in a recent interview. As a result, Nintendo expects Wii U hardware sales to be significant this holiday season.

“The launch of Mario Kart 8 has essentially doubled our Wii U sales year-on-year,” Fils-Aime tells Bloomberg. “Our expectation is that the sell-through for Smash is going to be very strong, certainly on par with what we saw with Mario Kart 8. We think the impact on hardware will be similarly dramatic.”

Nintendo hopes Wii U’s increased sales could spark more interest from third-party publishers to want to hopefully supply high-profile games onto the console. “Consumers buy the hardware so they can play the software,” Fils-Aime said. “When you have a robust library of games, that’s when consumers jump in.”

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 12, 2014 8:00 AM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U pre-orders at a record high

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      November 12, 2014 9:11 AM

      The first sentence reads like you're talking directly to Reggie.

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        November 12, 2014 9:12 AM

        I also hope the Nintendo Network is ready for Nov 21st.

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        November 12, 2014 10:38 AM

        Thanks for pointing that out. I went ahead and fixed it.

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      November 12, 2014 9:45 AM

      wouldn't it be quite unusual if Smash sold as well as Mario Kart?

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        November 12, 2014 10:59 AM

        Yeah, I always thought Mario Kart was hands down more popular. But I guess not with the core audience. Smash Bros Melee was the best selling Gamecube game.

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        November 12, 2014 11:02 AM

        I would have thought so. Don't get me wrong, I've always loved the Smash series, but I always found that to be more of a niche title than Mario Kart.

        Then again, GameCube sales were mainly carried by Melee when it first came out, so what do I know?

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          November 12, 2014 11:26 AM

          Smash sold more than Mario Kart on Gamecube, Mario Kart sold more than everything on the Wii (I mean it. 35 million copies, Jesus).

          Smash has always been pretty popular though. Brawl actually sold more than Melee, and Melee was huge.

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            November 12, 2014 11:39 AM

            so if Smash sells as much as Mario Kart on the Wii U that is a very telling indicator of the change in demographics for Nintendo this generation (a change they've mostly failed to account for).

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              November 12, 2014 1:03 PM

              It means things have normalized more than anything. The Wii was a weird phenomenon

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      November 12, 2014 11:05 AM

      It's me, I am one of those preorders.

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      November 12, 2014 11:49 AM

      I'm excited for Smash, but I don't know if I'm going to buy it. It's never been fun to play by yourself, which is usually how I game, and SSB Brawl's online was broken, so I only ended up playing that game for a month before shelving it. Kinda want to see how online turns out before I take the plunge.

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        November 12, 2014 11:51 AM

        Mario Kart online is the bomb, sooooooooooo, hoping for the best.

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          November 12, 2014 1:04 PM

          Same. MK8 online is totally smooth, crossing finger the same happens with Smash on Wii U

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