Mario Kart Wii - The Best? The Worst? Doesn't Matter, Its Hours Destroy Like a Blue Turtle Shell!

Coffee Beans
Mario Kart Wii was released on April 27, 2008 in the U.S. with a MSRP of $49.99, and it was bundled with the Wii Wheel accessory. The game was developed by Nintendo's EAD studio, and of course published by Nintendo.

Mario Kart Wii received an ESRB rating of "Everyone" with "Comic Mischief" listed as content for gamers and parents to be aware of.

Just how many hours have U.S. Wii owners reported battling with blue turtle shells in Mario Kart Wii over the last 4 years, and where does it stand in the Mario Kart rankings? Let's take a look!

The Brew
Mario Kart Wii has approximately 2,596,404 U.S. Wii owners that have game-play hours reported, and the game's average play-time per day/session is 1 Hour 31 Minutes.

The game has a "professional" review score average of 82.02% based on 72 reviews on GameRankings.com. How does Mario Kart Wii rank to the other Mario Kart games according to the "professional" review score averages? Take a look at the image below:

Recorded 6-1-2012

Mario Kart Wii has a customer review score average of 92.36% based on 1,126 customer reviews from Amazon.com. How does it rank compared to the customer review score averages for the other Mario Kart games on Amazon.com? Take a look at the image below:

Recorded 6-1-2012

Caffeinated Thoughts
I know, some of you may be thinking, "Coffee, what do you mean 'its hours destroy like a blue turtle shell?'". Well, how do blue turtle shells destroy? If you have played Mario Kart Wii, you are probably very familiar with how often blue turtle shells make their appearances to frequently destroy you when in 1st during a race.

With Mario Kart Wii having over 100 million hours of game-play reported by over 2 million U.S. Wii owners, I think it shows the game is still being played quite frequently by U.S. Wii owners, even 4 years after it released.

Mrs. Coffee and I have Mario Kart Wii in our game collection, as of December 2010. Yet, neither one of us has finished the single-player mode, and I think we have only played online once. For whatever reason, Mario Kart Wii just hasn't gotten much play-time in the Coffee House! As for my experience with the blue turtle shells, early this morning I was racing and was hit by three blue turtle shells in one race, which seems to be the average I have experienced in the 50cc races.

If you have not seen any footage of Mario Kart Wii, here's the intro video from the game's main menu:

I think it is interesting that the "professional" review score average for Mario Kart Wii has it ranked as the lowest of all the Mario Kart games, while the customer review score average for it places it in 2nd behind Mario Kart DS, but ahead of every other home console version.

The Mario Kart games have an interesting release history, with the N64 to GameCube release being basically 7 years, while the handheld game releases have been spaced apart about 5 years. If we use a 5 year release average, the next home console Mario Kart game should be releasing on the Wii U (assuming one Mario Kart game per console), and would make 2013 the year for release. Will Mario Kart Wii U appear at E3 this year? If not, possibly at E3 2013 and release for the holidays next year? I guess we will find out about this year's E3 appearance (or not) in just a few more days!

Questions
Do any of you own and perhaps still play Mario Kart Wii on a regular basis? If you have played several of the Mario Kart games, including Mario Kart Wii at length, where would you rank it compared to the others?

Also, if you play online, and are looking for other Wii owners to play with online, feel free to add your friend code in the comment section below. I'll be adding our Mario Kart Wii friend code below as well, and feel free to add our code to your list.

If any of you are interested in Mario Kart Wii, you can find it on Amazon.com and GameStop.com linked below: