Everybody knew that Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U would be a success. Even before players got their hands on the 3DS version (which is essentially the same game), anticipation for Nintendo's brawler was through the roof - it was almost guaranteed that the game would help pull the Wii U out of its rut.
It's only been three days since Super Smash Bros. was released, and it seems like all the hype really paid off for Nintendo. The game has already broken numerous sales and critical reception records for the company in just one weekend on store shelves. It's still too early to tell, but Super Smash Bros. may be the game to get Nintendo back in the race.
First, the sales numbers: in just three days, Super Smash Bros. has managed to sell over 490,000 units in the United States alone. There are no worldwide figures just yet, but for a Wii U game to sell like that is huge for Nintendo. It's still a long ways off from breaking any overall sales numbers (it's also still a long ways off from hitting Brawl's 8 million sales), but it's definitely a great start for Super Smash Bros. Wii U.
Critically, the game is doing amazingly well. The game is sitting at a Metacritic score of 92, but what's insane is that the fan rating is just as high. Typically, gamers are unfairly harsh on a game and will bog reviews down with ridiculously low scores, but that clearly wasn't the case here - Super Smash Bros.' user rating is a 9.2. For a game's review and user scores to match up is something of a miracle in this day and age.
Frankly, this is the kind of success Nintendo needed. The Wii U has been in a distant third place since Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles came out last year, and Nintendo's console has been struggling to build both a library of games and find a core user-base. Hopefully, Super Smash Bros.' fantastic start will help stabilize Nintendo's future.
Super Smash Bros. is available now for both the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.
