Super Mario Bros. Wonder will be the first REAL Mario game in over a decade, so it's going to win the race to 20m and lifetime sales too.

The first bunch of responses in this thread reminds me of 2009 when it was considered laughable by some and a big stretch by most that New Super Mario Bros. Wii could outsell Super Mario Galaxy. These people choked hard when Japan's first week sales of NSMB Wii had almost eclipsed SMG's LTD figure in Japan at the time. The final global sales were something along the lines of 30m for NSMB Wii and 12m for SMG; it was a landslide victory for one game, just not the one that most people had assumed.

The next stage in the rollout of the SMB movie is Blu-ray and streaming. When all other Mario games on Switch could already ride high on this movie's success, then you can be certain that the REAL deal will do that to an even bigger degree. SMB Wonder is Nintendo's big holiday title in 2023, and not only that, it's the only big game they have in the holiday quarter. They are giving it a favorable release date too (October 20th), so launch, Black Friday and Christmas will stack.

You guys who doubt should consider that NSMB Wii reached 10.55m in its first 1.5 months. SMB Wonder will have three weeks more for its first fiscal period on top of releasing on Switch, meaning it's selling to a bigger video game market than 14 years ago on top of being on a console that has been blowing away many previous software sales records. If you take all of this in mind, it would be surprising, if not shocking already, if SMB Wonder's shipment figure for the holiday quarter did not start with a "2".

Either you're forgetting Super Mario Odyssey or to say 2D

No way Mario's launch is as big as TotK. Mario ain't hitting 10 mil in a weekend, maybe 7-8 mil.

Mario might beat Zelda to 20m because it's got the holiday season. Zelda hit 18.5 million in like 49 days, which is about a week into December for Mario. At that point I think Zelda will definitely be ahead of Wonder. But with a few more weeks of Christmas sales after that I could see Wonder possibly catching Zelda and hitting 20m by end of the year which would be like 72 days and I very much doubt Zelda sold another 1.5 million in the first ~22 days of July, I would guess its sales had slowed down well beyond that by then. so if Wonder hits 20m by end of the year then yeah it probably beat Zelda to 20m. If it's only like 18-19m though then Zelda won that race.

No way Mario sells more lifetime. Zelda has a good chance of going over 30m. Wonder will easily do 20m, should do 25m, 30m is a stretch I think. I could see it ending up close to 30m right alongside Odyssey. I think TotK is going to be selling for several years even after Switch is replaced. While I see Mario Wonder sales drying up in 2025 once we are on to the next gen.

TotK is going to be THE Zelda to buy for the next like 6 years. It'll keep selling next gen as people pick it up to play on Switch or on backwards-compatible Switch 2. Mario Wonder I think will mostly go by the wayside on launch day for Switch 2 when we get the next 3D Mario. 2D and 3D Mario are of course different things, but all the Mario hype by then is going to be about the new 3D Mario. TotK will still have all the Zelda hype for many years to come and will keep selling. I could see Mario at 20m by end of the year, and Zelda at like 25m. If Switch 2 launches Fall 2024 maybe they are at like 28-29m Zelda and 26m Mario by end of 2024. After that Wonder probably picks up another 2+ to finish at 28/29m million but TotK keeps selling as the Zelda game to buy for most of next gen so it maybe goes to 35m. And note I'm not saying it gets remastered for next gen, I'm just saying people are going to keep picking up TotK for years to come next gen as its going to be a looooong time until the next new Zelda (unless Nintendo makes a new 2D Zelda next gen) and so both Switch and Switch 2 owners are going to be continuing to buy it for years because the game is just THAT big!

Fair enough, I didn't realize NSMBU Deluxe had sold that much. And I don't think TotK is outselling BotW so it could be closer than I thought.

If it were about 2D, then there were also two Super Mario Maker games in the past decade. REAL means REAL.

Tears of the Kingdom hits 20 million first. It probably also outsells Wonder in the long run.

So why don't you consider SMO a real Mario title?

I can understand for the Mario maker titles, as they are more kits to make levels yourself than an actual complete game, but I'm a bit puzzled about SMO.

NSMBWii was a huge seller, it reached like 80% of MKWii's sales, 2.5 times 3D Mario or Smash, and some 4 times Zelda's (!)

NSMBU didn't met the same success, however. The Deluxe version on the Switch is a fraction of the sales of MK8, Smash, Zelda, or even Odyssey. It's struggling to outsell, launch-aligned, the port of 3D World to the Switch, though it seems to have better legs.

So, hard to gauge from a sample of two how well a new 2D Mario will fare these days. I suppose it could do as well as TOTK, though. That seems reasonable enough in the wake of the Mario movie.

I'm confused by what you consider to be a "real" Mario game haha, cuz ya know Odyssey came out 7 years ago. 7 years is not over a decade. If you're talking about classic 2D Mario then sure.

Also I don't see what this has to do with NSMBWii and Galaxy. Galaxy sold 12 million, TotK passed that in probably less than two weeks. So not exactly a good comparison. TotK is wayyyyyyyy bigger than Galaxy was. And we don't know much of anything about Wonder yet so there's no way to know if it'll be as big as NSMBWii was.

Yes Wonder is going to be huge. But its a stretch to say its gonna be open-world-Zelda huge. We just don't know enough right now. If Wonder turns out to be an absurdly good critically acclaimed game that becomes THE game to get that everyone is talking about then it has a chance at beating TotK. If it's just a good Mario game then it'll hit 20m and probably 25m but unlikely to put up TotK numbers. One thing I'll say is it probably won't have epically long legs. If it has any chance at beating TotK lifetime it's gonna have to not only pass TotK in sales but pass it probably by a few million by the time Wonder hits 1 year old because once next gen starts people are still gonna be picking up TotK to play for years but probably much fewer people are gonna be picking up last gen 2D Mario, especially when a new 3D Mario is pretty much guaranteed to launch on day 1 next gen and will likely have a lot more hype than Wonder.

I want to believe that innovation and ambition will win over nostalgia and repetition

In my delusional world quality needs to be rewarded

Therefore, my vote goes to Zelda