Despite its mixed reception and selling less than Mortal Kombat 11 and Mortal Kombat X, the latest entry in the long-running fighting series from NetherRealm is still beating the competition into the ground.
Ed Boon of NetherRealm confirmed on X a few days ago that Mortal Kombat 1 has sold 6.2 million copies. That’s a reasonable jump up from the 5 million Boon previously reported in January. This probably comes down to the Definitive Edition that was released and how frequently Mortal Kombat 1 has been discounted.
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Lot of Mortal Kombat related news recently:Let’s start with MK1. With over 6.2 million games sold, we’re still committed to refining MK1 to be our most balanced game. Check out this video for details on the balance patch we released today.https://t.co/LQhWBLWCgy
— Ed Boon (@noobde) August 8, 2025
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Compared to the previous Mortal Kombat games, these sales numbers aren’t great. In just under 2 years, Mortal Kombat 1 has achieved 6.2 million, whereas in just over 2 years (27 months, to be exact), Mortal Kombat 11 had already sold 12 million copies. Even if we took away a generous few million sales from MK11 for those extra 3 months, Mortal Kombat 1 is still far, far behind its predecessor.
But despite this shortfall in sales, Mortal Kombat 11 is still the best-selling fighting game of the last few years.
| Title | Release Date | Sales (Aug 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Mortal Kombat 1 | Sep 19, 2023 | 6.2 million |
| Street Fighter 6 | Jun 2, 2023 | 5 million |
| Tekken 8 | Jan 26, 2024 | 3 million |
| Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero | Oct 11, 2024 | 5 million |
There is a chance Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is top of the chart, though, because it sold 5 million in just three months. Capcom has not provided any updated sales numbers since then.
While Boon was sharing the news that Mortal Kombat 1 wasn’t selling too well, he also decided to poll the community on a few things. Most notably, he wanted feedback on how NetherRealm handled the DLC, asking if people preferred having the 12 extra fighters divvied up in two big packs of 6, or Mortal Kombat 11‘s method of doing 6, then 3 and then another 3.