Wii U sales double in Japan as Mario Kart 8 sells 350k

Mario Kart 8 has topped the weekly Japanese charts and boosted sales of the hardware in Nintendo’s home country.

It may not have sent Wii U sales rocketing 666 per cent as it did in the UK, but the game’s arrival did double weekly Wii U sales to over 19k units. Note that Japanese sales of the console were significantly higher than they are in the UK, which may well be why Mario Kart 8 outpaced the UK’s week one sales by some magnitude, shifting 350k units at topping the Famitsu charts.

The boost also sees Wii U outsell PS4 for the second week in a row and even jump ahead of PlayStation Vita.

For the month of May, 3DS was the best performing system with 133,170 unit sales followed by Vita with 71,289 units.

Nintendo said on Monday that Mario Kart 8 sold 1.2m units worldwide in its opening weekend.

Here are the hardware numbers for the week ending June 1st:
1. Nintendo 3DS LL – 19,622
2. WiiU – 19,031
3. PS Vita – 11,755
4. PS4 – 6,866
5. PS3 – 6,818
6. Nintendo 3DS – 4,863
7. PSP – 1,237
8. PS VitaTV – 769
9. Xbox 360 – 140

And here’s the software:

1. Mario Kart (Nintendo) Wii U – 350,749 (New)
2. Mobile Suit Gandam: Side Stories (Bandai Namco) PS3 – 79,377 (New)
3. Yokai Watch (Level Five) 3DS – 26,555
4. Cho Megami Shinko Noire: Gekishin Black Heart (Compile Heart) Vita – 26,015 (New)
5. Pro Evolution Soccer 2014: Aoki Samurai no Chosen (PS3) Konami – 24,061
6. Wii U Party (Wii U) NIntendo – 10,214
7. New Super Mario Bros U (Wii U) Nintendo – 10,175
8. Pro Evolution Soccer 2014: Aoki Samurai no Chosen (3DS) Konami – 9,421
9. InFamous Second Son (Sony) PS4 – 8,827
10. Arcana Heart 3: Love Max (Arc System Works) PS3 – 7,860 (New)

Here is the monthly Famitsu Japan Top Five for May 2014:

1. Yokai Watch (Level Fire) 3DS – 181,386
2. Mario Golf: World Tour (Nintendo) 3DS – 97,963
3. Idol Master: One for All (Bandai Namco) PS3 – 90,916
4. Mario Party: Island Tour (Nintendo) 3DS – 56,179
5. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment (Bandai Namco) Vita – 51,575