Dear Reader:
Super Mario Sunshine Vs. Super Mario Galaxy - NA launch sales
These are some absolutely incredible figures. I can’t believe how poorly Super Mario Sunshine did when it launched in North America. Super Mario Galaxy launched halfway through November, but we all saw that it did amazingly well in sales. In just over two weeks, the game managed to move 1.12 million units. Curious to see what Sunshine did?
August 2002: 350,768
How insane is that number!? Sunshine sold just about what Galaxy sold in Japan for its first week! We were complaining about Galaxy sales in Japan…we should have complained about Sunshine back in 2002! Let’s look at some more monthly sales data. Once again, this is NA only.
September 2002: 266,592
October 2002: 66,436
November 2002: 131,498
December 2002: 177,409
Now factor in the sales of the Cube/Sunshine bundle, and that will put you at about 1.5 million units of Sunshine sold in 5 months. Once again, Galaxy has managed to move 1.12 units in less than a full month. I guess this goes to show that great software really will sell on Wii…in NA at least.