Mario has been Nintendo’s most important character for 32 years – and his popularity is showing no signs of slowing down.
Initial sales of Super Mario Odyssey have exceeded 2 million units worldwide in just three days, the company says. Put another way, that’s a rate of 463 copies per minute (or nearly eight per second).
Super Mario Run, the company’s mobile Mario game, meanwhile, has now been downloaded more than 200 million times.
The phenomenal numbers put Super Mario Odyssey on the path to becoming the best selling game for the Switch, Nintendo’s latest gaming console; fans are buying it even faster than they bought The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a launch title that was heralded as one of the best games in the Zelda franchise’s history.
And having two top-reviewed games from its two largest franchises is keeping players hooked. Nintendo says its internal data shows people are actually playing with their Switch, rather than having it sit in the entertainment center. (A big problem with the Wii, Nintendo’s most successful console, is that users didn’t actually play it much after they tired of Wii Sports.)
Nintendo on Monday boosted its full year sales forecast for the Switch from 10 million to 14 million units. If it hits that number, the one-year sales of Switch will top the lifetime sales of Wii U, its previous home console.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has another hit on its hands with the SNES Classic. The hard-to-find retro console has sold 2 million units so far, according to the company, with the bulk of the holiday season still in front of it.