Mario Party 9 May Not Be Partying Hard Enough

When Nintendo released Wii Party back in 2010, the game sold close to 235,000 copies in its first week in Japan, debuting at the #1 spot on the software sales chart for the week. Mario Party 9, developed by the same team and released last week, wasn’t quite as lucky.

Mario Party 9 sold close to 153,000 copies in its first week, and sales tracker, Media Create, report that this was a mere 40% of its first shipment. For further comparison, Mario Party 8 sold 265,000 copies in its first week and sold through 57% of its first shipment.

Something to consider is that Mario Party 9 was also launched right before Golden Week, a week-long holiday before and during which the sales of popular videogame hardware and software tend to see a rise across the board. Nintendo could simply have shipped excess copies of the game in preparation for strong sales throughout Golden Week itself.

That having been said, Mario Party 9 sales still compare poorly to Mario Party 8. Perhaps more casual gamers don’t require more than one Mario Party console game per generation. Or perhaps the unhealthy state of the Wii software market in Japan played a role in the low sales of the game. Or perhaps it’s both.

On the bright side, Mario Party 9 will likely see steady long-term sales. Since launch, Mario Party 8 has gone on to sell 1.5 million copies in Japan alone.