"Mario Kart 8" might be the Wii U's saving grace.

In just three days, with the game being released in Japan a day early than in the US, the new game has already sold 1.2M copies worldwide. That's an attach rate of 20 per cent, given there are only 6.2 million Wii U consoles in homes around the world.

Although "Mario Kart 8" came out the same week as "Watch Dogs," it only managed to get the top 2 spot in the UK charts. But, there's no point in denying it has significantly boosted sales for the Wii U console by a staggering 666%.

"Such positive early feedback for Mario Kart 8 reinforces the great gameplay experiences that Wii U currently offers," said Nintendo of Europe president Satoru Shibata. "With Nintendo set to showcase its future releases at E3 next week, this is a great milestone going into the summer season."

Although no exact comparisons can be made, the numbers still imply a better debut than fellow next gen exclusive "Titanfall", which has only sold 2 million for the Xbox One version and around 1 million for the Xbox 360.

Nintendo also released the list of the lifetime global sales each "Mario Kart" game has generated through the years.

In total, "Mario Kart" not yet including "Mario Kart 8" has already made 100M:

Super Mario Kart (SNES - 1992): 8.76 million
Mario Kart 64 (N64 - 1996): 9.87 million
Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA - 2001): 5.91 million
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube - 2003): 6.88 million
Mario Kart DS (DS - 2005): 23.56 million
Mario Kart Wii (Wii - 2008): 35.53 million
Mario Kart 7 (3DS - 2011): 9.62 million