f13.net

It's pretty obvious that bundles are included in this list, so I think we can safely eliminate #1, 2, 4 and 5(?) right off the bat. Nonetheless, there's some pretty impressive numbers here, particularly on the #3 spot.

1. "Super Mario Bros." for NES: 40 Million Units
2. "Tetris" for Gameboy: 33 Million Units
3. "Super Mario Bros. 3" for NES: 18 Million Units
4. "Super Mario World" for SNES: 17 Million Units
5. "Super Mario Land" for Gameboy: 14 Million Units
6. "Super Mario 64" for N64: 11 Million Units
7. "The Sims" for PC: 10 Million Units
8. "Super Mario Bros. 2" for NES: 10 Million Units
9. "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for PS2: 8.5 Million Units
10. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" for PSX: 8 Million Units
11. "GoldenEye" for N64: 8 Million Units
12. "Donkey Kong Country" for SNES: 8 Million Units
13. "Super Mario Kart" for SNES: 8 Million Units
14. "Pokemon Red/Blue" for Gameboy: 8 Million Units
15. "Half-Life" for PC: 8 Million Units
16. "Tomb Raider II" for PSX: 8 Million Units
17. "Final Fantasy VII" for PSX: 7.8 Million Units
18. "Myst" for PC: 7 Million Units
19. "Gran Turismo 3" for PS2: 7 Million Units
20. "Dragon Warrior VII" for PS2: 6 Million Units


I'm suprised to see no Blizzard games mentioned on this list. I guess having the fastest selling game(s) does not mean they will also be the best selling ones.

Source:
http://www.ownt.com/qtakes/2003/gamestats/gamestats.shtm

I could have sworn Diable 2 would be on there. I mean, they had 2 million in preorders alone. I guess every one who wanted it, preordered it.

Looking at this list, its amazing some one doesnt take note, and try to remake the old style of Mario sidescrolling platformer. I guess Viewtifull Joe was kind of in that vein.

I saw a program on TV, don't remember the name of it. Anyway, the program always  is about a top list of some sort. And this time it was about which single game which had sold the most. And on top of that chart was Tony hawk pro skating 1. It had sold 300 million copies according to them. Second was super mario bros, or pokémon.

The program seemed reliable, they even had an interview with devs from every game on the list. I was a bit shocked about Tony hawk pro skating being at the top with a sales of 300 million copies, which I guess most of us is.

Anyway, I really find it hard to belive that Pokémon Red/Blue only has sold 8 million copies, seing as every man and their dog over in Japan basicly bought it. And it's very popular over here in sweden amongst the kids as well (my 11 year old cousin has a fetish for it, and so does pretty much all of his friends, and he's not the computer wiz kid, he only plays pokémon).

I think 300 million is a bit far-fetched, Sairon. But whatever the case, Guinness can at least confirm that Mario holds the #1 spot (though it was also bundled with the system)

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/index.asp?id=52404

Yea I thought so as well, but the it was aired on one of the 2 goverment owned chanells here in Sweden, and the stuff aired on them is pretty reliable. But I agree, 300 million copies sure sounds like a bit to much.

Tuny Hevk is noomber oone-a. Bork Bork Bork!

Ugh, I repel even myself.

As far as I know Tony hawk 1 was released on the Playstation, N64 and Dreamcast. I did a little googling and combined they sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million units world wide. That means on average a N64, Playstation or Dreamcast owner owns 3 copies of the game.

ARE YOU A FUCKING IDOIT?

hey it's not my opinion mate, it's from a TV program, you know the box looking a lot like your computer screen? Anyway, it was released on the PC as well. Oh, and N-gage as well, I'm guessing we have atleast 100 million copies for that console.

How is it possible you are this fucking stupid. Find me one fucking list anywhere that says tony hawk 1 sold more than 20 millions copies. 300 million are you on fucking crack? Thats more than all the games in the top 20 list combined. That would be 15 billion dollars in revenue. THATS MORE THAN THE ENITRE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY MADE LAST YEAR. Go kill yourself.

For what it's worth, this list is a year out of date.

I'm not surprised taht we don't see any Blizzard games.  Even though they sell like hotcakes, they are available to a much smaller market niche than console games because they are for the PC alone.  My guess, however, is that the numbers go nearly horizontal below the top 20 - probably more titles between 1 and 6 million copies, than there are on the list.  Including a number of Blizzard titles, Half-life, and probably the original UT.

Also, a minor correction: Dragon Warrior 7 is a PS1 title, not a PS2 title.

Finally, Siaron, it is very possible to quote poor sources accidentally, or misquote a good source to make the info seem bad, I should know, I've been guilty of it on occassion.   But use your head - as they pointed out, the numbers just don't add up, and they are so far beyond the realm of the possible that its patentedly absurd to argue otherwise.  There is a fine line between understandable mistakes and apparent brain damage.

It's list like this one that let's the Nintendo people call everyone else n00bler. I mean hell, they beat eat EA's cashcow with a N64 title.

Nah, I think 100 million copies for N-gage sounds plausible. Then again, I think sarcasm works on the web...

Tonight at 9:00 on Fox: "When the sarcastically impared attack!"

what's your problem? where's the fucking love? did I ever state that I belived the numbers? no I fucking did not.

Hmmm, guess I was off when I said that Quake has probably made more money than Star Wars Galaxies in a thread on Waterthread a week or so ago.

It was actually Half-Life.

Note that only 2 games on that list are PC games, the rest are console.

True, but didn't the top 5 or so come bundled with the console most of the time? Much easier to crank your numbers up when EVERYONE who wants to play any games on the platform gets a copy of your game with it.

There are three PC titles on the list.  Counting is unfair to some, I guess.

The Sims
Half-Life
Myst

Goddamn new math.

Mario Land was never bundled, to the best of my knowledge - or, at least, it was not a major bundle.

That list pretty well shows why Nintendo is still in business despite not selling as many consoles as Sony, though.

Look at the numbers on Mario 64. Remember that Nintendo made a profit well beyond what Sony did on any of the PSX or PS2 games to be on that list per unit. Remember also that Nintendo sells consoles at profit.

Understand why the Gamecube does not need to be in first place to still be a tremendously successful and profitable venture for Nintendo.

In Haemish's defense, it is hard to count Myst as a game...it is more like an interactive screen saver.

Actually, I find the list odd in some ways. If we're counting bundles, wouldn't MineSweeper top the list?

And if not, what other games didn't get counted at all? Deer Hunter?

There is no love. Even if the second post was sarcasm. You still deserve all the fucking hate in the world for even thinking of posting those numbers. If you had any ounce of intelligence you could clearly see the numbers were wrong. So what was the point of including them?

I'm not sure about Mario Land. I seem to remember something about bundles with Gameboy including Tetris or Mario Land. But I'm not sure.

I think most of Blizzard's games top out around the 5 million copy mark. However I am surprised to see no Starcraft on the list. Especially considering the rabid fascination South Koreans have with the game.

And it was before my time but dear hunter was never a stand alone game was it?

EDIT my bad I was being stupid and thinking duck hunt.

Deer Hunter was mulitple stand alone games.

I don't really believe the numbers that much.  The source is pretty old as well.  They list best selling mmog games as well in the link provided and I recall at that time already reading that lineage was number 3 or so in korea and they show it number 1 in the world.  I have my doubts that lineage was number 1 at this time and even more doubts that if you include bogus sub numbers like the ones you get from lineage press release EQ woud not be number 2.  If you are taking the 2.5 mil lineage users at face value then the list of top 3 at least would all be korean mmogs.

Why is it that almost every article I read on game sales don't agree with the last one I read in some incredibly major ways?  Every article on sales just feels like numbers being pulled out of the authors ass.  Probably mainly from being stupid and misreading intentionally misleading press releases.

Possibly because a lot of them are using misleading terms like "registered accounts" to mean the exact same as "subscribers?"

A year ago, Lineage 1 was the top-selling MMOG in Korea. It isn't now.

There is no consolidated sales figures available on gaming in general because it is such a nascent industry. But let's face it, up until about 10 years ago, even Billboard's top 100 list was wildly inaccurate.

I'd like to see the numbers on Freecell and Minesweeper ;)  Come on, lets be fair when we talk about bundled games!

Also it seems that all the titles are segregated by platform.  Some of those games obviously are available on multiple platforms - I wonder how that would affect the standings if you took into account the numbers across the various platforms.

Considering the original list actually listed the platform they were sold on, I'm not seeing your point.

What he means is that they list Tomb Raider 2, PSX.  What about the PC sales?  The list is basically stating that the numbers are for the PSX version.  Not for all versions of the game.  How many more copies of GTA would have been sold if they counted the PC and the Xbox versions?  Would it affect the list much?

I personally think it would.  Now whether any game would outsell those Mario games even taking this into account is unknown.

Forgetting the bogus numbers given by a previous poster for Tony Hawk, the game did sell very well on every console and PC.  If you added up all the versions would it make the chart?

Just idle speculation.  Just like I think the original list is pulled out of some authors ass from innacurate press releases anyway.

I think the point was wondering if Tony Hawk on the PS2 and Tony Hawk on the XBox count as two games or not. ANd suspecting that they probably do.

According to the list showing actual platforms for the games sold, the answer is YES.

The mythical television show that pumped up Tony Hawk numbers aired on G4, the video game cable channel.

Their methodology added up all versions from all consoles to arrive at a ludicrously high Tony Hawk Pro Skater number.

For a brief derailment, I wanted to comment on Super Mario Brothers 3. I can't remember a bigger game than that one. I remember that Fred Savage movie, The Wizard, that hyped up SMB3 before it was even released.

Frankly, the game still survives on hype. Until its rerelease in the Mario All-Stars collection, the game was unplayably long.

Not if you knew the uber 2x warp whistle trick. then, like that japanese guy that made the big stir a few months ago with the "Mario 3 in 11 mins" (or whatever ridiculously short amount of time it was), you end up in the last world and can rush right to Bowser. I think I did it a few times as a kid, but I probably never beat the game without that trick until I played it on emulator a year or two ago with save states.

You do know that that was hoaxed, right?

Yes, and I did that.

However, worlds 2-7 sounded interesting, and I would have liked to ever have it be plausible that I was going to see them. But since the game had no passwords and no saves, that just wasn't going to happen, because, simply put, I couldn't tie up the television for that long.

You weren't a very inventive kid were you?  Leave the NES on, unplug the RF adapter from the back of the NES.   Tell parents to please leave the console on.  The bane of my existance for that method was my dad running too many power tools in a garage that was stupidly wired in with the living room.  Power fluctuations could cause the nes to reset.

I have completed smb3, using this tactic.

See, now I'm at this point where, if the game requires that much work to be able to complete, it is a problem.

I mean, don't get me wrong - SMB3 is a great game once they add the save feature.

But not including it from the start was one of the bigger design idiocies Nintendo ever committed.

Minesweeper would blow away Freecell. Minesweeper has been bundled since Win 3.1. Freecell didn't come bundled until Win 95. Basic solitaire is the overall winner having been bundled with Windows since 3.0.

Yeah, I know. But it was still beautiful.

All this reinforces to me is that Nintendo could be MS rich if they produced cross-platform games.

Idiots.

They are rich. Not cross platforming those games helped them drive sega into the ground. Nintendos first party games are the reason they sell half of their systems.