Mario Kart 7 Hits It Big In Japan With 420K Sales

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It wasn’t too long ago that the 3DS was the butt of everyone’s jokes. Many (myself included) in the gaming community criticized Nintendo for launching too early and not supporting their new handheld, and rightly so. Some even took it a step further and said that the 3DS was a failure, something that the Nintendo faithful didn’t take kindly to.

While it’s definitely too early to call the 3DS on the whole a failure, those critics were correct, at least, in saying that the 3DS launch had failed. Nintendo’s massive price cut so early in the handheld’s life was a better indicator of this than anything else, but even though things were looking grim for a while, it seems that the 3DS has bounced back.

That’s according to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who told Nikkei (as translated by Andriasang), that the 3DS is quickly approaching 3 million sales, and is on track to hit that milestone two weeks before its predecessor, the original DS, did.

Iwata also said that Mario Kart 7 is off to a strong start in Japan, managing to sell around 420,000 copies in its first week. In case you were wondering, that means that Mario Kart 7 is selling twice as well as Mario Kart DS did, a game which went onto sell a total of 20 million copies.

Of course, it can be argued that Mario Kart 7 is selling so well because there’s still something of a lack of games on the 3DS. Super Mario 3D Land, Star Fox 64 3D, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D helped this drought, but 3DS owners are still hungry for new first party titles, so it isn’t all that surprising that Mario Kart 7 is doing so well.

In any case, it’s definitely great to see the 3DS start to bounce back from its botched launch. What do you think? Surprised to see Mario Kart 7 selling so much better than Mario Kart DS? Do you think think the 3DS is headed for a good year in 2012, or will things will start to fizzle out for the handheld? Head down to the comments section and share your thoughts!