Mario Kart Wii is now 15 years old.
The sixth instalment in the Mario Kart series launched in Japan on April 10th, 2008, and would arrive in Europe a day later. North American players had to wait until the 27th to get their hands on it.
The title used the Wii's online features to offer multiplayer over the internet. The console's famous motion controls were leveraged by the bundled Wii Wheel, which replicated the feel of using a real steering wheel to guide your character around the track.
With over 37 million copies sold, Mario Kart Wii is the second best-selling entry in the entire franchise, only trailing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Our friends over at Nintendo Life gave it 9/10 back in 2008, saying:
It is in that sense that Mario Kart Wii has been polished, has been well thought-out and is brilliant. Nintendo really need to get their arse together and start pushing the technology like they did with Super Mario Galaxy. Poor presentation should not be an issue in this generation of gaming, particularly with the other consoles doing it so well, but, thankfully for us (as Wii owners), this game is a living, breathing example of gameplay over graphics.
Let us know your memories of playing this game by posting a comment below.
Comments 15
Happy anniversary Mario Kart Wii, had a lot of fun playing you back in the day (except for the ridiculous conditions to get even just 1 star which is required for certain unlockables)!
Plus, let's not forget there are still so many people playing it nowadays even online thanks to the modding community!
My favourite Mario Kart. Took me a while to get into but when I realised how much there was to unlock, this game became my life until it was 100% complete
I still play this, tho on my Steam Deck via emulation 😉
Love this game. It was my favorite in the series and I spent countless hours unlocking all the characters and gold Kart pieces. Happy to see tracks from this game added to MK8, but the Wii version will always have a special place in my heart and collection.
I think it's likely I sunk more hours into mariokart wii than any other, my sister and I played a ton back in the day. It's hard to say tho, the runners up would be MK64 and MK8.
Still playing it to this day on Odin Pro. 8 Deluxe is great but there's no denying this was a splendid entry.
My ‘favourite’ moment when i finally got gold stars on the cup with bowser castle. I jumped up and the cord between wiimote and nunchuk got stuck in my lamp, taking part of the lamp down…
In reading the original review, I wonder if it was being played on an HD TV or on a older CRT.
I think this game was designed with the CRT in mind — which would make a lot of its presentation look far poorer on a larger, more focused television.
This was the game that brought me back to the Mario Kart series and introduced it to my son. This game and Star Wars: The Forced Unleashed are the only 2 Wii games that I will use motion controls if allowed different control options.
I don't remember now if I unlocked everything but I played alot of it. I was really excited to see the return of Coconut Mall in MK8D.. Now if only they would bring back some of the options that Mario Kart Wii had to MK8D like selecting the item types for races I would be a happy person.
I remember playing loads of Mario Kart Wii when I was younger. Those stupid Wii wheels felt like such a cool novelty like WOW IM ACTUALLY ROSALINA LOOK AT MEEEEEEE. I honestly think Wii has my favorite tracks of the whole series
Still one of my favorite games of all time. Absolutely love the track designs, music, and broken physics.
As a Wii game, sure, I like it. But as a Mario Kart at the time, I much preferred Double Dash!!. Still, I enjoyed it when Blue Shells weren't involved
Toad Factory, Dry Dry Ruins and Moonview Highway need to make a comeback on Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, though.
This is probably my favorite version of Mario Kart, just something about it that always felt so simple and fun.
The wii was the era that I bailed and came back with thr switch...after growing up with the snes, n64 and GameCube.. with that being said I hated any motion control games with the exception of Resident Evil 4... Also this mario kart felt super casual and flashy for the non gaming friends that would play wii, along with Smash Brawl not a fan of this Mario Kart
I remember not being completely sold on the game when I first saw it (also didn't help that I wasn't the biggest fan of the previous console entry in Double Dash) but it ended up being my favorite game in the series and one of my favorites overall on Wii. It was also one of the first competitive online games I played consistently. Lots of fun. It's since been replaced as my favorite Mario Kart game by 8 Deluxe but I'll always have fond memories of this entry and that era of gaming in general.
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