Network now...NEWS
Wii Sports The Best Selling Game Ever?
Nintendo has revealed global lifetime sales figures for first party Wii and DS titles that shifted over a million copies during the fiscal year ended March 31.
Topping the list is Wii Sports with 45.7 million copies sold, including those bundled with hardware. That total likely puts the game’s sales ahead of those of Super Mario Bros, which has long been considered the bestselling game in history with over 40 million sales. The 1985 NES classic was also bundled with hardware. When approached, however, Nintendo UK said that it couldn’t confirm that sales of Wii Sports had overtaken those of Super Mario Bros.
Elsewhere in the data, Nintendo said that Wii Play sales are just 200,000 copies shy of 23 million units, followed by Wii Fit on 18.2 million and Mario Kart Wii on 15.4 million.
On the DS front, the near identical editions of Nintendogs have sold 22.27 million copies, followed by New Super Mario Bros on 18.4 million, Brain Training on 17.4 million and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl on 16.8 million.
Nintendo Wii
Wii Sports - 45.7 million (includes sales bundled with hardware)
Wii Play - 23 million
Wii Fit - 18.2 million
Mario Kart Wii - 15.4 million
Smash Bros. Brawl - 8.43 million
Super Mario Galaxy - 8 million
Mario Party 8 - 6.7 million
Link's Crossbow Training - 3.76 million (includes sales from Wii Zapper bundle)
Animal Crossing: City Folk - 3.38 million
Wii Music - 2.65 million
Mario Super Sluggers - 1.26 million
Nintendo DS
Nintendogs - 22.27 million
New Super Mario Bros. - 18.45 million
Brain Training - 17.4 million
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - 16.8 million
Mario Kart DS - 14.6 million
Brain Training 2 - 13.7 million
Animal Crossing: Wild World – 10.8 million
Super Mario 64 DS - 7.5 million
Mario Party DS - 5.85 million
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - 4.5 million
Pokemon Platinum - 3.75 million
Kirby Super Star Ultra - 2.36 million
Pokemon Ranger - 2 million
Rhythm Heaven - 1.9 million
Personal Trainer: Cooking - 1.84 million
Professor Layton - 1.65 million (does not include Japanese sales)
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Wii Sports is one of the best games I've ever played. I have three good friends and the four of us used to play it all the time. I think that's where it shines - the social play. I wouldn't want to play the bowling or the golf on my own, much in the same way that I wouldn't want to go bowling or play golf on my own. But with three mates, the experience is as fresh today as it was when I opened my (pre-ordered) Wii way back in December 2006. Faultless.
Keep your panties on, folks. High sales do not represent 'artistic' quality, and never have.
That said, I think Wii Sports is great fun. My daughter loves the bowling and boxing, and I actually prefer the golf to the Tiger Woods title last year. What's not to like?
I'm neutral in this debate...
Long live shallow gameplay!
Did some one say it was nothing more than a mere demo?!!!!
LMAO!!!!
I know the value of a wiki backed post is up for debate, but the figures here do give a total of 4.52 million for the Wii version of Twilight princess, another 1.32 million for the cube version, for a total of nearly six million overall, a figure that would make most publishers very happy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games
I know a lot of people think a "pack-in" title shouldn't count, but then one of the higest selling games ever was itself a pack-in - Super Mario Brothers for the original NES. And I doubt anyone believes those sells shouldn't count, because we all know that game was frickin awesome. I know I played it to death -- and feel I have sufficiently "purchased" it.
The only reason I can imagine that we feel differently about Wii Sports is because it is not an equially awesome title as SMB. But can aesthetic taste properly gauge whether pack-in sales count or not, or is simply the fact that it's been sold that matters?
The big problem here is that the packed-in SMB has been for years counted as the best selling game of all time instead of the real best seller - Super Mario Bros. 3. Forty million units sold is very solid PR but I wonder how Nintendo feel as this tech-demo junk Wii Sports is outselling their beloved Mario. As for "I doubt anyone believes those sells shouldn't count, because we all know that game was frickin awesome" - you can't be really serious right? I too have played this game for years as a kid and I too think that it's "frickin awesome" but this is pretty much irrelevant. As Nickgamertag01 pointed out Hexic HD should be the best selling 360 game, because maybe that's somebody's favorite game. Also the source from which it is acquired or price point at which the game is sold are irrelevant. If tomorrow Fat Princess becomes the best selling game it will be the best selling game. What should be separated is pack-in vs standalone games.
Tomorrow's headline, "HEXIC HD The Best Selling Xbox Game Ever?"
Worldwide sales:
1. Hexic HD, 360: 20 million
2. Halo 3, 360: 8.1 million
3. Halo 2, Xbox: 8 million
4. Halo: Combat Evolved, Xbox: 5 million
5. Gears of War, 360: 5 million
6. Gears of War 2, 360: 5 million
7. GTAIV, 360: 4 million
8. Call of Duty: MW, 360: 3.8 million
9. Call of Duty: WaW, 360: 3.4 million
10. Fable, Xbox: 3 million
To me, that looks rather silly. But who gets to make the rules what counts as "sold"? Those numbers are accurate too, with exception to Hexic HD since that's just an educated guess. I figured the 28 million systems sold worldwide, at least half of them were HDD versions. And any HDD purchased seperately, you guessed it, you also "purchased" Hexic HD. So I would say 20 million is a fair guess. That game sold more copies than any Wii game ever has with the exception of Wii-Play and Wii-sports. Very impressive indeed.
To put Hexic HD's performance into perspective it has sold more copies than any game on any system ever with the exception of the NES (SMB 1 only), SNES (SMW only) and Wii (Wii-sports, Wii-Play) with Wii-Play being the only non-pack-in game selling more copies. It's sold more copies than any Final Fantasy game, Grand Theft Auto, Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy, Gran Turismo, Smash Bros, Metal Gear, any Mario Kart game, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc...). That is exactly why I don't think pack-ins should count. But that's just me. It looks like people "bought" more copies of Hexic HD than all those games I mentioned. Not counting handhelds, Hexic HD is in the top 5 of best selling games ever. But did anyone really "buy" it? If they "bought" Wii-Sports, then they "bought" Hexic HD, too.
I think the inherent problem counting pack-in titles is that you don't choose to purchase the game. You may hate the pack-in game but you had no choice in purchasing it because it came with what you bought. I'm sure not very many people disliked SMB or even Wii-Sports (the only game I could find myself enjoy playing on my Wii) but that's beside the point. Do you purchase toys that come in happy meals or are they just a free here-you-go? The toy might have been garbage, but the argument could be made that you still bought it none-the-less. I don't think from a fundamental standpoint that should count as a purchase as a non-pack-in game would where you have a conscience decision weather to purchase the game or not.
Bottom line is, the difference between a pack-in total sales vs a non-pack in is that ALL the non-pack-in games were intentionally purchased by consumers out of a desire to own the game and nothing else as opposed to getting a copy of a game you may have otherwise been fine without because you had no choice. In that case, you can make the argument that the PS2 controller sold the most of any controller ever because it came with every PS2. Or that composite cables are the most popular because they sold more than s-video or component last gen. It is a moot point. In other words...duh! ^^
Actually, when I was a kid, I'd frequently get the happy meal just to get that one awesome toy of the month.
The problem still remains that, if we remove pack-in sales for SMB, its total sales will seem incredibly diminutive compared to how beloved and remembered the title actually is, because peoeel who intended to buy it got it anyway, so it would be equally invalid to discount purchases of people who actually intended to acquire the game as it is to count sales that are from people who didn't care one way or the other. I feel compelled to say SMB really is one of the best selling games ever, even if it was packed into the NES...because anyone who didn't buy the game, should it of been sold separately, would've been a fool. The game still holds up spectacularly well today.
Nonetheless you bring up a valid point about HexicHD -- namely that, since we do not enjoy this game as much as we did SMB, it seems weid to call it a hot selling title (though console software sales are usually always delineated from console DLC sales, of which the latter HexicHD would fall under, since the only way to acquire it otherwise would be through XBLA). The lesson in the end then, may be that we are confusing total sales with quality. We like to see the games that are truly deserving of sales to be top of the heap, and those who are not at the bottom -- SMB deserves it, HexicHD and WiiSports, not so much. So the conclusion? Talking sales figures in an all-time context is pretty arbitrary, unless for corporate purposes.
Vader,
I forgot Hexic HD was available as a digital purchase as well as an HDD pack-in. I guess for those arcade owners who purchased memory cards instead of HDDs could have purchased Hexic HD but I can't imagine those sales being significant enough to make much of a difference.
I think you bring up a good point that games like SMB on the NES were amazing games and it's easy to consider them top-sellers because of that fact. Sales reflect that great games, I mean the non-pack-in games that were truly great lead the pack in game sales. But none of them, even SMB3 come even close to really any pack-in game's sales. And it comes down to the fact that everyone who bought the system got a copy of that game. A quick reference to Wikipedia showed the highest selling games that were not pack-ins were almost all sub-20 million. And I'm not talking about series sales, but individual game sales. No matter how great a game is, it won't match pack-in sales for a successful console. And considering a capable but forgettable puzzler for the 360 as one of the best selling games in gaming history seems naive when put up against other top sellers like SMB and SMW due to how amazing those Mario pack-ins were.
I agree that games like SMB deserve it and Hexic HD and Wii-sports don't. It's easy to be ok with a headline that SMB or SMW are the top selling games because those games a synonymous with greatness, but when I read a headline that Wii-Sports is the best "selling" game ever, well...I can't help but disagree.
I honestly don't count Wii Sports as an actual game. I look at it as a "demo" released by Nintendo to show other developers what they can do on the Wii.
Try telling that to the millions of Japanese that bought the game seperately, where is was NOT included with the Wii. I doubt they consider it a demo.
Wow, I didn't know that. So what did they get with their Wii, nothin? I wonder then, how well it sold there. Was it a full-priced game and did it come packed with a Wii-mote ala Wii-Play?
couldn't tell ya for sure,as I never really looked into it that closely, but i believe it was a stand alone game, at normal price. Anyone who knows for sure and/or has any links can feel free to correct me.
I guess, to find it's sales in Japan you could take the total # of Wiis sold and subtract the # of Wiis sold in Japan. The result would give you the # of "pak-in" Wii sports sold. Subtract that from the total above and that would leave you the total sold in Japan..............................if you really cared to do all that.
Process of elimination, got it. Thanks,
Well, because my work is boring me right now, i did some looking at Amazon Japan (no sure where else I could "buy" things from Japan) and got the following prices from it:
Wii Music - 3,844
Wii Sports - 3,880
Mario Galaxy - 4,432
Mario Kart Wii - 4,582
So, it appears to be a normal priced game, more expensive then Wii Music, but cheaper then Mario Galaxy or Mario Kart (AAA titles).
Can't read japanese, so can't tell if came with anything packed in, but the picture sure didn't make it look like it.
Since you're bored, why don't you also figure out how many non-pack-in copies of Wii Sports were sold? I'm pretty curious.
Well, since work is done, and i don't actually care that much, i'll leave that for someone more "adventurous" then me.
What's up Ozzman,
So, I did some quick research to figure out how many non-pack-in copies of Wii-Sports were sold. It stands around 3-4 million (depending on what website you believe when it comes down to console sales totals). Assuming it's 3 million that would be a significant percentage of the 8 million Wiis sold in Japan (37% to be exact). Assuming the rest of the world has similar tastes as Japan and 37% of Wii purchasers decided to buy Wii-Sports, that would be...getting the calculator out...15.5 million. So you could say it would be near 20 million copies sold worldwide if it wasn't a pack-in. Still amazingly high.
Nick, that's some fine math there. Way to not be as lazy as me. Kudos to you.
Of course, this is on the assumption that Japan game buying habits mirror those of the rest of the world, which we know if not the case. But it's still as good a ballpark guess as one could come up with.
Nick and Oz, you guys need to work smarter, not harder! Too much math!
Wii Sports is at 3.5 million:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/22/wii-passes-8-million-sold-mark-in-japa...
Oh Ken, you take all the fun out of it, what with your ACCURATE information and all, lol.
Besides, there can NEVER be too much math
Yeah, I guess you're right lol. 3-4 million was pretty close to 3.5 million. Pretty solid sales total indeed.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fully priced game.
it's more like getting a side of fries to your hamburger than a whole 'nother burger.
Should a pack-in only title be considered "sold"? I don't know if that's fair. If you're only comparing it sales-wise to other pack-ins I would think that's fine. In that case Hexic HD is the best selling 360 title at around 15-20 million (considering it comes free with every pro and elite 360 I'm guessing at least half the 30-ish million 360s sold worldwide was a HDD model). That would put humble Hexic HD above most non pack-in Wii titles. Does it not count because it isn't on a physical medium? You could argue Wii-sports is just a few quality mini-games (bowling, golf, tennis) and not much more than an XBLA title as far as quantity of content is concerned. And who is to decide what counts as a game "sold" and what doesn't. If you're going to count system pack-ins, well, Hexic HD needs to be listed (I'm well aware this is a Nintendo story, but counting a game pack-in as "sold" is a bit misleading). You don't have a choice to buy it, you could consider it "free" instead of "sold".
On this basis I would guess Minesweeper trounces Hexic (free with Windows).
I wonder what happened to Zelda on Wii and DS?
Yeah, I was wondering the same--it sold less than Wii Music and Mario Super Sluggers?