Mario Kart Wii is the best version of the game followed by Mario Kart DS. The game has gotten tons better in recent iterations.

You got no respect.

I buy GTA yesterday at midnight launch...and ,NOW, im gonna play Mario Kart Wii,this game is awesome,say what you want.

Oh well, I wonder what is being evaluated here though... are we measuring hype?

If so GTA wins by a long shot.

As for fun factor - there is too much noise involved. Their not even the same genre and one is an exclusive. The only similarity is that their both expected to sell millions.

I agree with this statement entirely :) I thought Super Mario Kart was the best, followed by MK64, Double dash made me want to vomit. Yet to play MKWii, but judging from the direction they seem to be taking I'll walk that line carefully. 

Was whoever mentioned Penny Arcade NOT being Nintendo Fanboys joking? From since I've started reading they're commic strip they've ALWAYS had a very stong lean on the Nintendo franchises. Maybe it's not that obvious to some, but it just feels like they're REALLY FAST to praise a Nintendo game, and pretty damn quick to critisize elsewhere. I would totaly consider them baised towards Ninty. 

Comparing apples to oranges again, I see... GTA and Mario Kart fill such opposite roles on the gaming continuum that about the only thing you can fairly compare between the two is how well the driving physics work. And even there, what's your basis for comparison? The realism? The fun factor?

GTA4 and Mario Kart Wii are totally unrelated. Neither is going to have a meaningful impact on each other, and ultimately you'll just see a lot of cases where people love one and hate the other. Unsurprisingly; when you compare a "games are art/ultra-violence is king" style game to a "games are fun/family-friendly is key" style game, you're going to get some pretty big rifts in opinion.

Oh well, I wonder what is being evaluated here though... are we measuring hype?

If so GTA wins by a long shot.

As for fun factor - there is too much noise involved. Their not even the same genre and one is an exclusive. The only similarity is that their both expected to sell millions.

This would be a great post for a different topic. Please read the topic (not just the words "GTA IV" and "Mario Kart") and try again.

I have an Xbox 360 and a Wii. And I would never, ever consider taking GTA4 over Mario Kart, although I'm excited to play through GTA 4.  I imagine a lot of people who don't have Mario Kart Wii, or aren't planning on playing it, would never understand this, as GTA 4 seems to be that sort of gamer's paramount game.

The reason is this: GTA 4 will be fun for a few days, or maybe even a few weeks. But Mario Kart Wii will still be awesome two, three, or four years from now. And it will still be getting plenty of play time. Hell, me and my girl still played Mario Kart: Double Dash on our Wii fairly often up until recently. It's insane -- we'd have a fun, shiny new game and we'd go back to a few matches of Double Dash because it was just so damn fun.

GTA 4 looks like a great experience. But Mario Kart Wii is just a lot of damn fun.

It is fair to say that Penny-Arcade are fans of videogames in the most general sense ...

They own all platforms, play all major games for these platforms, and tend not to buy into the hype and (generally) have fair opinions about all games (regardless of who makes them). To call them fanboys generally demonstrates your own bias ...

Personally, I understand what they're saying because I have owned most Grand Theft Auto games (1,2, London 1969, 3, Vice City, San Andreas) and I'm probably not going to buy GTA4. In my opinion, ever iteration of GTA has become far less fresh and seems more and more boring. This isn't saying that these Grand Theft Auto games are bad, but that they no longer appeal to me like they once did ...

 It's like that for a lot of people, but casuals don't play it enough to get board quickly, or they haven't played better games that make them loose interest, frankly I tried each gta, and got very quickly... though they did enduce me to complete pacifist runs on contra, now that is a good time