Minecraft Wii U Edition launched somewhat inauspiciously out of the gate, in that the game was roundly criticized as being “too late” to matter—too late for Nintendo, too late for Wii U, too late to rack up huge sales. That’s all nonsense, and didn’t really mean anything in the first place. The game is certainly late, but guess what: It’s already a huge hit anyway, at least in Japan, as Nintendo Everything figured out. After all, it’s only been out for a week and it’s already in the Nintendo eShop’s top ten titles—for lifetime sales.

Minecraft Wii U Sales Leap Up The Charts

So far, Nintendo of America hasn’t said anything about Minecraft Wii U Edition sales, but Nintendo proper has a list of the top-selling eShop titles in Japan, and Minecraft has cozily won its way onto the list after just a week. Unsurprisingly, it is also number one on the list of recent sales, ahead of the three games in the Mother series. We don’t have any numbers for Minecraft on Wii U yet, but I bet we will sooner or later: If the game really is tearing up the charts, especially in North America, Nintendo will trumpet it sooner or later. After all, getting Minecraft in the first place was a big coup, considering that Mojang is now owned by Microsoft and never bothered to bring Minecraft to Wii U when the company was still independent.

Still, it’s no surprise that Minecraft Wii U Edition is doing really well. Minecraft has an incredibly large audience, but it has even larger mindshare. Lots of people, even now, know about the game but don’t have it. Lots of families still embrace Nintendo consoles as the best option for younger kids… and for them, the Wii U could very well be their first introduction to Minecraft. Even people who already own Minecraft on other consoles or on PC have reason to buy the game because of off-TV play, a truly killer feature despite the game’s world size, which is smaller than on PS4. And sure, the lack of inventory management on the GamePad stings a little. But it’s Minecraft on Wii U. There was no way the game wasn’t going to be a big hit, late or not.

Besides, it’s all gravy. Minecraft NX Edition—that’s the real juicy stuff, and now that Nintendo and Mojang have a relationship, it’s a lot more likely to happen.