Mario Kart still dominating Japan
Japan’s weekly sales report for April 6–12 shows Pokémon Pokopia and Mario Kart World continuing to dominate game sales while Nintendo Switch 2 led console sales for the week. That sales snapshot suggests Mario Kart remains one of Nintendo’s strongest active franchises in Japan. (universo-nintendo.com.mx)
Mario Kart World stayed near the top of Japan’s weekly physical game chart in the week ended April 12, selling 7,238 more copies as Nintendo Switch 2 led hardware sales. (gematsu.com) Famitsu’s April 6–12 chart put Pokémon Pokopia at No. 1 with 23,738 copies and Mario Kart World at No. 2 with 7,238. Starfield was the top new release at No. 3 on PlayStation 5 with 5,368 copies. (gematsu.com) Mario Kart World’s cumulative physical sales in Famitsu’s chart reached 2,895,712 copies in Japan. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, released in 2017, still added 1,897 copies in the same week and has reached 6,564,241. (gematsu.com) On hardware, Switch 2 sold 52,058 units for the week. That was ahead of Switch Lite at 10,630, Switch OLED at 7,042, and the full PlayStation 5 family at 8,673 combined, according to Famitsu data summarized by Gematsu and Nintendo Everything. (gematsu.com) (nintendoeverything.com) The pairing matters because Mario Kart World is no longer a launch-week story. Nintendo released it on June 5, 2025, and it is still outselling most current releases in Japan more than 10 months later. (gematsu.com) The chart also shows Nintendo’s hold on Japan’s boxed market across generations. Alongside Mario Kart World, the top 10 included Minecraft on Switch, Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Switch, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Mario Tennis Fever on Switch 2. (gematsu.com) (nintendoeverything.com) A week earlier, Switch 2 sold 59,543 units, so the new total marks a drop of 7,485 week over week. Even with that decline, it remained Japan’s top-selling console by a wide margin. (nintendoeverything.com) For Mario Kart, the latest chart says the series is still doing two jobs at once in Japan: moving current software on Switch 2 and continuing to sell an older Switch evergreen almost nine years after release. (gematsu.com)
