Advance orders for Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. video game have set a Wii U record and may boost sales for the struggling Wii U console during the holiday season, reports Bloomberg.

Presales of the Wii U fighting game, which arrives in stores on Nov. 21, surpassed "Mario Kart 8," which has been selling like hotcakes. Popular game titles draw gamers to Nintendo consoles, so the company is experiencing renewed optimism.

"The launch of "Mario Kart 8" has essentially doubled our Wii U sales year-on-year," Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, told Bloomberg News. "Our expectation is that the sell-through for Smash is going to be very strong, certainly on par with what we saw with Mario Kart 8. We think the impact on hardware will be similarly dramatic."

Wii U and Mario Kart 8 Sales Increase

Wii U sales are lagging behind Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One. One reason may be that the Nintendo console doesn't play top-selling shooter games like Activision's "Call of Duty" franchise and "Destiny." Currently, the outside game publishers don't make versions that will work with the Nintendo console. If Nintendo can get more consoles in consumer homes, the publishers will take notice and make the titles for Wii U, Fils-Aime said.

Nintendo differs from its competitors because it makes top-selling titles, like Zelda and Mario, for its console. Third-party game publishers have not made game titles for the Nintendo hardware, but may see it as lucrative now that the Wii U earnings release shows sales gains in the June and September periods.

Two important gains:

1.       Mario Kart 8 has sold 3.49 million units, including 2.74 million units outside Japan.

2.       Wii U sales have doubled from a year ago to 1.12 million devices in the six months that ended in September.

Nintendo's New Online Strategy

Another important move by the Japanese video game hardware and software-modernizing its online strategy, reports TechCrunch. The company has made the following online strides:

  • The company has given consumers the ability to pre-order Super Smash Bros. and download it before the official release so gamers don't have to wait for 8 GBs to arrive over the Internet connection on launch day
  • Established a system for automatically downloading games purchased through Nintendo of America's site to a gamer's console
  • Soon, gamers can automatically download games purchased through Amazon.com