Nintendo: Mario Kart 8 sells 1.7M copies, Smash Bros. Wii U sells 1.3M

Nintendo isn’t a player in the race to have the best-selling console, but it’s games are still finding big audiences.

The company reported today that Wii U hardware sales were up 29 percent compared to 2013. Software, meanwhile, increased 75 percent year-over-year. Nintendo’s two big 2014 releases can take credit for helping both of those numbers. In the U.S., the publisher confirmed that it sold 1.7 million copies of Mario Kart 8 and 1.3 million copies of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Nintendo also noted that the 3DS had a “strong” December, but it didn’t provide any numbers for the hardware performance. The company did say that the month was the biggest ever for 3DS software with Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and the new Pokémon games leading the way. Console gaming is a $50 billion market worldwide, and Nintendo is trying to carve out its own niche to capture as much of that as possible.