Okay, let's start over here. Ignore everything else I've said in this thread and let's begin anew. To preface, I love Nintendo. I've owned almost all of their hardware since 1985 and they'll always have a place in my heart as they've been one of the few things that I enjoyed as a child that I also enjoy as an adult, so know that everything that follows is positive and i no way a sleight on Nintendo or their current success.
It's completely unsurprising that Mario Kart 8 is currently selling like candy-coated crack because it's in a perfect storm of market conditions.
To begin, Mario Kart is a huge franchise. Arguably Nintendo's biggest IP only behind Pokemon. Most kids that were born or grew up in the late 80s and 90s have played at least one Mario Kart title; if nothing else Super Mario Kart on the SNES and/or Mario Kart 64 on the Nintendo 64.
Secondly, the Nintendo Switch is currently the hot shit; the talk of the town. Like the Wii was at its release, everybody is currently talking about the Switch. Part of this is Nintendo's stellar marketing, part of it is the novelty of the Switch gimmick itself, part of it is how amazing Zelda is. For some people it's one of these reasons or more, for some people it's a combination of these reasons.
Thirdly, the Switch currently doesn't have a whole lot of games available for it at retail. A customer looking for a new game to buy at Wal-Mart or Best Buy will be met with 9 games, assuming Best Buy's website is up to date:
- Mario Kart
- Zelda: BotW
- Bomberman
- 1-2-Switch
- Puyo Puyo Tetris
- Just Dance
- Binding of Isaac
- Lego City
- Skylanders
Mario Kart is easily the headline of this lineup outside of Zelda. Lego City, Bomberman, Isaac, and Puyo are all great games to be sure, but none of them have the name recognition of Mario or Zelda. Because of this, Mario Kart is easily the next "must-have" game of the Switch lineup for customers that are wrapping up Zelda.
My use of the word "starving" earlier was incorrect, but I can't really think of a proper word to replace it with. Switch owners have their shiny new toy and are looking for games to buy. They're riding high on the Switch wave will their wallets out and ready to buy.
So Mario Kart is in this perfect storm situation so
no freaking duh it's selling well. It's a major nostalgia-driven franchise on a popular new console with customers that are hyper-aware of new releases to buy. No, nobody is buying Mario Kart just to buy Mario Kart or because there's nothing else to buy, but people ARE buying Mario Kart because they know Mario Kart - it has a history of high quality gameplay and it's easily the best objective Switch game outside of Zelda at the moment.
Minecraft is going to go through the same motions. Popular franchise. Popular console. Folks looking for games to play. It'll sell super well for sure.
...am I making more sense now?