to the Japanese market, as there were fewer N64 games available in that market at the time. It was released in the United Kingdom on June 24, 1997. Mario Kart 64 was released as a downloadable Virtual Console game on the Wii in January 2007 and on the Wii U in December 2016. In October 2021, Nintendo also ported the game to Nintendo Switch Online. During the first three months of 1997, Mario Kart 64 was the best-selling console game in the United States, with sales of 849,000 units for the period. By 2007, approximately 5.5 million copies of Mario Kart 64 had been sold in the United States and 2.24 million in Japan. Reception Mario Kart 64 received generally positive reviews from critics and proved to be a commercial success. Review aggregator Metacritic ranks it as the sixth-highest ranked Nintendo 64 title based on fifteen reviews. It has sold 9.87 million copies worldwide, making it the second-best-selling game on N64. Critics debated the game's presentation and visuals. Supporters felt the game adequately used the power of the N64 (critics from GamePro and Electronic Gaming Monthly), made the game stand out from others in the racing genre and in the Mario series (GameSpot's Trent Ward), and was an improvement over its 16-bit predecessor (NintendoLife's Corbie Dillard and a reviewer from GameRevolution). Carine Barrel from the French Officiel Nintendo Magazine enjoyed the game's colourful and fluid visuals, adding that its overall presentation likened a "magical" experience. Detractors of the graphics felt they lacked detail (Tom Gulse from Computer and Video Games and Peer Schneider from IGN), weren't better enough than the previous 16-bit entry (AllGame's Scott McCall and Neil West from Next Generation), and failed to fully benefit from the N64's power (Francois Caron of Jeuxvideo.com). The use of 2D sprites was a common critique, West arguing that it made the game look 16-bit. Mario Kart 64s track design and gameplay polarised critics. The game was panned for being un-innovative (Schneider), too easy (Caron), and simple and monotonous (Ward and Nick Ferguson from Edge). Computer and Video Gamess Ed Lomas and N64 Magazines Jonathan Nash felt that success was too dependent on getting the right power-ups. Morley disliked Mario Kart 64s wide, motorway-like track design by saying that it did not provide an "adrenaline filled" experience which players might have hoped for. Critics also found fault in the game's use of