Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U has smashed a record, becoming the fastest selling Wii U game to date- and perhaps forever. After all, it will be difficult for another game to dethrone this formidable challenger from the top spot. In just its first three days of availability (November 21st-23rd), the game sold 490,000 units (counting both physical as well as digital copies from the Nintendo eShop). Over the years, the Super Smash Bros. series has been very popular, selling over 14 million units (across all titles in the series) in the U.S. alone. It’s been six years since Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released for the Wii, and it looks like people are rather excited about this new entry to the series!
In contrast, Mario Kart 8 (which released on May 15th) sold about 2.82 million copies in its first month of availability. This would be an estimated 94,000 or so units sold in a 3-day period during its first month of availability. Hyrule Warriors (which released on August 26th) sold about 100,000 units in Japan during its first month of availability (and about 190,000 units in North America, nearly double the Japan number). That would be an estimated 10,000 units sold in a 3-day period during that month in Japan (or an estimated 19,000 units sold in a 3-day period during that month in North America). So clearly, Super Smash Bros. has literally smashed these games in sales, though that isn’t much of a surprise.
|
|
|
As you may know, the Wii U has not been doing as well as Nintendo had hoped, but having a bunch of big new titles coming out this year has caused an increase in hardware sales for the system. This is good news, but Nintendo says they still have work to do. Of course, other games like Bayonetta 2 have also helped to some degree. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U will likely give an even bigger boost to Wii U sales on top of increases from titles released earlier this year. The holidays are looking good for Nintendo, and hopefully things will continue to look up for them!
