This comprehensive list compiles sales data of each game across all platforms, and presents each game with full context, including publisher, developer(s), genre, enthusiast press review score aggregates, and more. This presents a unique view into how the top-selling games of the year found that success, and what publishers can do to maximize their own sales.

 

If you want to compare this data to last years US data, check out the 2007 edition of The Games People Buy. 

 

We will have the complete analysis of this data tomorrow, presenting in easily digestible form how sales were effected by each publisher decision—we will also be looking at how successful each publisher was. For now though, here are some interesting, at-a-glance takeaways:

moscallout...it still looks likes the best way to find success is to pump millions of dollars into an exclusive title of superlative quality, or snap up a license and shoot a version to every viable platform there is./moscallout

• Madden is no longer an anomalous success—in previous years, the Madden series existed as an outlier on the scatter chart, a franchise that had success far outstripping its competition. This year Madden continued to sell at historically high levels, but now several competitors from a variety of genres sold in similar or excessive numbers. This was not just a result of including European numbers, either. Even in Madden’s home territory, several blockbuster hits threatened its dominance.
• The PS2 is far from dead—contrary to popular belief, the PS2 is not limping along on life support. In fact the PS2 market is a vibrant one that continues to be successful, thanks to the huge installed base and lower price point of games for the system. This is particularly evident in sales numbers for sports and licensed games. The vast majority of multiplatform titles in these genres found the most success on the older PlayStation model. The PS2 is still the system the masses play games on.
• Consumers are looking for more Wii Sports—Most sports games were most successful on the PS2, yes, but this was not the case for sports games with genres represented on Wii Sports. Multiplatform golf and baseball games surprisingly did best on Wii.
• Exclusives still rule, and Wii rules exclusives—out of the 100 games on this list, a full 34 are exclusive to one platform. The Wii’s unique development environment ensured it the plurality of these exclusives, with eleven games on this list (twelve if you count Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition). The DS has a similar number, while the Xbox 360 only mustered a tepid three.
• The common knowledge still applies—just like last year, it still looks likes the best way to find success is to pump millions of dollars into an exclusive title of superlative quality, or snap up a license and shoot a version to every viable platform there is. This year a third route has opened up; making an inexpensive Wii and/or DS game and hoping it strikes a chord in the consciousness of the consumer. While the data does show that this plan was successful multiple times in 2007, this is a crowded field based on the rapidly depreciating novelty value of the Wii. It is likely that such strategies will not be fruitful in the future.

This is just a small sampling of conclusions it is possible to draw from this data; our full analysis will run tomorrow. If you would like to see how this year's numbers compare to last year's US numbers, check out The Games People Buy 2007.

Notes:

• Numbers are based on official records from NPD and information provided to Next-Gen by publishers. Publicly available data and analysis was also taken into account, as well as dead reckoning and sanity checking from the Next-Gen staff when exact counts (such as unified sales data for Europe) were difficult to corroborate, conflicting, or unavailable.
• Numbers take into account only titles released and sold between March 1, 2007 and March 1, 2008. Each game only had to be released in one western territory to be included.
• Numbers take into account North America and Western Europe only.
• Numbers represent retail sales only.
• Pack-in titles were not counted.
• Older games re-released in the last year were only included if they included significant changes beyond a lower price. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition is an example of the former (thanks to its new control scheme). Hitman Trilogy, a collection of three Hitman games with no content changes, would be an example of the latter.

In the case of multiplatform games, the platform the game sold best on is listed first. The Metacritic score is the score the game received for its bestselling platform version. Quotes were taken from reviews that best reflected this score. Thanks to Metacritic and all journalists and publications quoted.