Mario Party 8 is a party video game, the eighth installment in the Mario Party series, and is the first title in the series to be released for the Wii. It is also the first Mario Party title to have the ability to use Mii characters. It was released in North America on May 29, 2007, in Europe on June 22, 2007, in Australia on July 19, 2007, and in Japan on July 26, 2007. It was originally released in the United Kingdom on July 26, 2007. However, some retailers were reporting that it was supposedly withdrawn from shelves because some copies included the word "spastic"; it was eventually re-released in the United Kingdom on August 3, 2007. Mario Party 8 is followed by Mario Party DS in late 2007, and Mario Party 9 in March/April 2012. Like previous Mario Party Titles, Mario Party 8 features Mario series characters in which four human- or computer-controlled characters compete in a board game interspersed with minigames, and was developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. Mario Party 8 received mixed reviews, receiving a GameRankings Score of 63%. Despite some of the mixed reviews, after its release, the game sold 314,000 units in the United States in three days, making it the best-selling home console game in the country that month.[3] As of May 2010, the game has sold 7.6 million copies worldwide and ranks #10 on the best-selling Wii games list.