Mario Kart 8 Breaks Incredible Sales Record, Which is Bad News for Mario Kart 9

If you were hoping to see Nintendo announce Mario Kart 9 for the Nintendo Switch any time soon, you might be in for some bad news. Although the most recent installment in the iconic racing franchise from Nintendo was a big success for the company, which would seemingly lead to the creation of a sequel, Mario Kart 8 has almost been too successful. In fact, the game broke another staggering record this past month, which means the likelihood of a new game coming about soon seems quite low.

According to The NPD Group, which is an organization that tracks video game sales data in the United States, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was the 6th top-selling game of the month for March 2021. In accomplishing this feat, Nintendo also set another sales record for the title. As of now, Mario Kart 8 as a whole is said to be the top-selling racing video game in history. This takes into account the game’s sales across the original iteration for Wii U and this new Deluxe port on Nintendo Switch.

So why exactly is this bad news if you’re hoping to see Mario Kart 9? Well, basically, Nintendo has no reason whatsoever to develop such a game right now considering how well Mario Kart 8 continues to sell. To date, Mario Kart 8 is said to have sold over 40 million units around the world across Switch and Wii U. And on both respective platforms, it’s the top-selling video game from Nintendo. As we can see from this recent sales data as well, the game is almost always still selling amongst the top 10 titles any given month. For Nintendo to release Mario Kart 9 would only diminish the sales of a game that continues to be on fire nearly seven years after first releasing.

Even if Mario Kart 9 isn’t a game that we’ll see until a bit further down the road, that doesn’t mean this is all bad news. Mario Kart 8 itself might very well be the installment that the series has ever had. So if we’re going to have a long period of time between releases, Nintendo chose a good one to end the series on for the time being.

So what do you think about all of this? Do you feel like Mario Kart 9 is far away from releasing as well? Let me know your thoughts either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.