Top Selling Video Games of 2008
Nintendo Takes Top Four Slots, Only One PS3 Title Makes the Cut
Jan 23, 2009
No one in the gaming industry was surprised to learn that Nintendo came out on top in hardware sales in 2008 by a very large margin. Both the Wii and the DS sold more than twice the number of consoles of any of their competitors in North America.
But Nintendo's success didn't stop there. Their games also claimed the top four slots for the year, with software sales totaling more than 18 million units. Wii Play, with the bundled-in Wii Remote was the best selling single-platform game of the year, moving more than 5 million units.
Wii Play was followed by Mario Kart, which also sold 5 million units; Wii Fit, which moved more than 4.5 million units; and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which sold just over 4 million units.
Grand Theft Auto IV Rounds Out Top Five
On the non-Nintendo front, Grand Theft Auto IV took the crown, selling more than 3 million units on the Xbox 360 and nearly 2 million units on the PS3. In fact the PS3 sku of of the game is the only PS3 title to make the top 10, adding more credibility to the argument that the PS3 is struggling to compete.
Other Titles Round Out Top 10
The other titles rounding out the top 10 were the Xbox 360 skus of Call of Duty: World at War and Madden NFL 2009, the Xbox 360-exclusive Gears of War 2, and the DS sku of Mario Kart, all of which had sales of more than a million units during the year.
Changing Gaming Landscape
The sales data illustrates a shift that's been happening in the game industry ever since the Wii was released in 2006. Nintendo's strategy with the Wii has been to expand the gaming market and introduce a whole new audience to gaming, and it's working.
Two of their top-selling titles, Wii Play and Wii Fit, can easily be classified as non-traditional games. Wii Fit definitely appeals a very different segment of players than Grand Theft Auto or Gears of War.
This tangible proof that even a gaming juggernaut like Grand Theft Auto wasn't able to dethrone a casual title in sales has some hardcore gamers lamenting a possible decline in traditional games.
AOL gaming site, GameDaily, even published an article on that fact in December, saying, "Casual games are more important than "hardcore" ones." The site pointed out the fact that Nintendo's lineup for 2008 was focused squarely on games like Wii Fit, Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk. And even third-party publishers like Electronic Arts moved in the casual direction, releasing Monopoly.
Moving into 2009, Nintendo appears to be testing the water with some of its older more harcore franchises like Pikmin, in the casual market, but still has yet to announce something to make the hardcore think the company hasn't completely forgotten about them.
Meanwhile third-party publishers are jumping on the fitness bandwagon and increasing their casual offerings as well.
The Full List
Below is the full list of the top selling games, with sales figures, as reported by NPD.
- Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 5.28 million
- Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 5 million
- Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.53 million
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) - 4.17 million
- Grand Theft Auto IV (360, Take-Two) - 3.29 million
- Call of Duty: World at War (360, Activision) - 2.75 million
- Gears of War 2 (360, Microsoft) - 2.31 million
- Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, Take-Two) - 1.89 million
- Madden NFL 09 (360, Electronic Arts) - 1.87 million
- Mario Kart DS (DS, Nintendo) - 1.65 million
Obviously, this list is not going to please all the people all of the time - but it does give an idea of where the money is going in these times of economic uncertainty.
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