VGChartz did some number crunching and found WiiSports to be the “Best selling game of all time,” surpassing Super Mario Bros. for the NES in total sales. A common complaint applies to both of these titles – in most cases they were packaged with the console. WiiSports was bundled with the Wii in every country except North Korea and Japan, worldwide console sales have reached 45 million. Super Mario Bros, packaged with most NES bundles, holds at 40.24 million.
Of course, console owners don’t have a choice when it comes to bundled games – so if you don’t think Of course, console owners don’t have a choice when it comes to bundled games – so if you don’t think Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports are eligible “best selling game,” your champion is Pokemon Red/Green/Blue, at 31.38 million.
Secret jackpot hit by the geniuses from Nintendo, who ever says that he saw this coming is a liar.
Red, Green, and Blue? They made a Pokemon Green?
Also, kudos to Nintendo. I guess it’s further proof that the Wii is still selling like crazy.
And Pokemon needed three versions to make that record stick; like Nintendogs did. Other than that; we have yet to see a 20 million unit seller that isn’t a pack-in title; nor requires multiple versions of the same game to sell. Although Wii Play is the single non-pack in record holder right now at 19.24 million. And if New Super Mario Brothers can surpass Super Mario Land; than they will be #2 on that list (although I think they are already since I think SML is a pack-in title too.)
Also to be mentioned is that on the top 50 software sales charts, 34 of the games are Nintendo-made.
“WiiSports resort was bundled with the Wii in every country except North Korea and Japan, ”
Well Wii sports was, not Wii sports resort…. =)
I wonder how wii sports resort will sell on its own? Well, not really on its own, I guess with the new motion plus tech. I would like to see more info on Wii sports resort soon.
Wii Sports Resort? Really? Weird, my launch Wii came with Wii Sports…
Still, it is sold at retail in South Korea and Japan, selling in the last one over 3 million copies.
Wow, I missed that typo.
Whoops. I guess I have Wii Motion Plus on the mind. Fixed it!
i think it counts; i feel like many if not most people who bought a wii did that just for wii sports. it’s like it’s the console that’s benefiting from being bundled!
If anything, the game sells the console so I say it counts.
@HyperSonic Pokemon Green was a version that came out only in Japan. I’m not sure why America didn’t get a Pokemon Green, they’d have a game for each of the starting Pokemon choices.
@doughboy74 looked at that list and wow! If I were a gaming company I’d start copying Nintendo. Create a successful cartoon character and market the heck out of it. Looking at the chart the only “hardcore” game that has made the list is the GTA series. You’ll make more money making a family game if those numbers mean anything.
Hmm I see Halo, Goldeneye and Half Life on there too. Neeevermind.
its well deserved. the controls are simple, yet the gameplay deep. my only 3 gripes with the game were that tennis didn’t come with a singles option (doubles only), wii boxing controls needed more polish, and it didn’t have an online mode. if it did have an online mode, the replay value of that game would have went through the roof. obviously the replay value is already very good since many people still are playing it; so few games out there can match the replay value of wii sports. i still play it every now and then when i can get human opponent. i just hope wii sports resort addresses some of the issues i had with the original wii sports. i’m really looking forward to wii motion plus and the games that will use it.
@ Gregory – where was SML packed-in? I thought Game Boys all came with Tetris.
Sean, you are being a little confusing here. You don’t actually state the number of Wii Sports games sold (40.52 million), just the number of Wii consoles sold (45 million). Maybe add that in?
DocOctorok, if I remember correctly (and there is a strong chance that I don’t), both games were sold with the Gameboy at different points in time. My sister got Tetris, and I got SML. I think Tetris was first.
Robert, this is unfortunately a consequence of the numbers VGChartz provided. While they stated in an article that numbers from the end of December indicated that Wii Sports surpassed 40.52 million, they did not post the actual sales number of Wii Sports for the end of January. Browsing the total sales chart, I found the latest tally for Wii Sports to be several months old, so at the time I posted the article, the new data was not yet available. The next best thing I had was the number of Wii Consoles sold. For reference, Famitsu (and Joystiq) reported in January of 2008 that Japanese Wii sales had surpassed 7 million. With a current total of 45 million, that means to have passed Super Mario, Korean and Japanese consumers would have had to purchase at least 3-4 million individual (non bundled) copies of Wii Sports.
Sounds complicated? Without solid numbers, it is. I decided to leave this guess work out of the article. Hopefully VGchartz will update their data soon.
I do count Wii Sports as a platinum title since it sold separate in Japan and in some countries. Sales aside; like Super Mario Brothers, Wii Sports impact on video game culture on the whole is the real reason why Wii Sports should be talked about. More people have played Wii Sports than any other game in history and that number is only going to increase as time goes on.
I think the most important game in terms of sales is Wii Play (or whomever takes the non-pack in #1 spot) because if Wii Play surpasses Super Mario Brothers in sales; then that would be the biggest indication of how video games have progressed in terms of mainstreaming themselves. Far more than GTA ever did.
lol That’s weird, but makes sense. Thanks Sean, maybe next time I won’t be too tired to do the math. (aka Robert, I finally registered).
Sports no, Super Mario Bros maybe, Red/Green/Blue yes.
Yeah; Super Mario Land wasn’t packed in after all. Moot point since New Super Mario Brother will likely surpass it anyway when the Others from last week gets posted.