Mario Kart 8 helped boost Wii U hardware sales over 250% in Australia
Nintendo held its belated investor briefing today and the transcript of that meeting has now gone live.
Australia doesn’t get much of a mention at these things usually, this time was different with Satoru Iwata revealing some impressive stats for the Wii U down under. In the first half of their current fiscal year Wii U hardware sales just shy of 250% in Australia and New Zealand, software too got a boost with sales increasing to just under 250% as well. The similarities in percentages isn’t just a coincidence either, it’s all down to one thing.
That thing? Mario Kart 8 of course which was released in May last year, Satoru Iwata also attributes the higher sales to our ‘Toy Catalouge Season’ of June-July. The Wii U had some crazy discounts during that period last year as well so the results aren’t at all surprising.
It’s not just Australia though with software sales in Japan, Europe and America also increasing over 200%. Hardware sales too were up with Europe, America and Japan all having different increases from 200% to 100% respectively.
Were you one of the people to pick up their Wii U during the big sales last year, did you pick Mario Kart 8 up with it? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Nintendo
I wonder how well it would do, if it got a price drop. we are the only region yet to receive an official permanate drop
The basic Skylanders bundle was readily available for under $200 (which also includes Nintendo Land). How much more of a discount did people want? In fact, I think that Target may still be selling it for about $180 or so, but since that SKU has been long discontinued, it will not be as widely available as it was a year ago. The remaining $200 that would ordinarily be spent on the Mario Kart 8 bundle could be spent on the standalone Mario Kart 8 game along with a Wii Remote or two (if necessary), a hard drive and if there’s any money left over, an accessory or two. I can’t fathom why people would even bother with the Mario Kart 8 bundle when the Skylanders bundle was so cheap.
I bought the mariokart 8 Deluxe WiiU bundle
(Australia)
I got my WiiU about 3 weeks before MarioKart 8 came out for $190 brand new… Now you can’t find one under $400
I also picked up my console in this period due to the EB bundle which included this, the base console, skylanders and Nintendo land for like 200. That Mario kart had a free game promotion at the time sure helped.