Mario Kart Tour has received a lot of scorn from the gaming media for its loot boxes, but that has done little to dissuade the general public, as the game has already been downloaded over twenty million times, which is more than the number of copies sold of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
The Mario Kart series has been one of Nintendo's most valuable franchises in regards to sales. The best-selling game on the Nintendo Wii U was Mario Kart 8, the best-selling game on the Nintendo 3DS was Mario Kart 7, and the second best-selling game on the Nintendo Wii was Mario Kart Wii, which only lost the top spot due to the fact that Wii Sports was a pack-in game. The current best-selling game for the Nintendo Switch is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has sold 17.89 million copies to date and keeps reentering the sales charts.
Mario Kart Tour has rocketed off the starting line in terms of downloads. According to Sensor Tower, Mario Kart Tour has been downloaded over twenty million times in its first day of release, shattering Nintendo's previous record, which was held by Super Mario Run and its seven million downloads. Mario Kart Tour has also already generated over a million dollars in profit.
The numbers are less impressive when you take into account that Mario Kart Tour is free to download and most players will drop it before spending a dime. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a full-priced game that requires expensive hardware to run, so it has still made a lot of money for Nintendo.
The question now is whether Mario Kart Tour will increase these numbers or if there will be a sharp drop-off after the initial download period. The game is still lacking in features (including any kind of multiplayer) and it doesn't take long until the pressure to spend money kicks in. Mario Kart is one of Nintendo's most popular franchises and it's easy to see why Mario Kart Tour has had such an incredible debut, but it remains to be seen whether it will maintain its momentum in the coming months.
Source: Sensor Tower