According to the NPD Group, the official sales tracker of U.S. video games:
- Wii Play
- Mario Kart Wii
- Wii Fit
- Smash Bros. Brawl
- GTA IV (360)
- Call of Duty World at War (360)
- Gears of War 2
- GTA IV (PS3)
- Madden 09 (360)
- Mario Kart DS
“The variety of content on the top 10 list shows just how viable non-traditional content has become,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “Not only can these games succeed, they can end up on the top 10 list for the year.”
For the record, I found Wii Play to be dreadfully boring.
I'm just amazed the DS sold 3 mill in a month!
I wouldn't even call Wii Play a full "title". It's simply a tech demo for the Wii remote.
Congrats, Nintendo, on a good year in sales! Here's to 09'!
You and me both, Blake. Wii Play is awful.
No MGS4? Aw, !@#$!!!
I'm not seeing this "casual utopia" some third parties seem to want to make the Wii out to be. I mean we have a game that's obviously being bought for a controller, Mario Kart, the Wii Fit Phenomenon, and Smash Bros. being the top 4 titles for the whole year?
Where's Carnival Games? Where's Party Babiez? I thought the Wii owners craved those titles! Where are they?
Mario Kart DS is an amazing game. I couldn't believe how well the game came out when I first received it. The very first legit first party game for the DS.
It's really too bad that Sins of a Solar Empire is not on that list. It's truly a remarkable game, try it, you will love it. It's a better game compares to MGS4, haha.
Who in the right mind puts Wii Play on the list? IT'S BORING.
No one likes Wii Play. No one.
No one person put it there, sales put it there. =o
My wife and I actually played the crap out of Wii Play! Sure, it's definitely not a $50 title, but for the $10 it costs over the Remote the games are pretty good! We played a lot of Find Mii and Tanks!
call of duty waw? it was only out for like 2 months of 2008. that's impressive.
I find people that bring out the fact that they find it boring, are dreadfully boring themselves.
WiiPlay was ten dollars honestly, and a fantastic multiplayer game in the early life of the Wii.
Its a toy game and you probably won't find yourself playing it for very long periods of time, but who cares how long you play it.
If it didnt sell as well as it did then it would be a cult classic years later.
Tanks is worth 10 bucks. Unfortunately I already had 4 remotes when it came out. And those bastards at game stop want $25 for a used copy, minus remote! I explained to the clerk that it was a $10 game but he didn't care.
I've always been a bit bemused, and amused, by the "tech demo" line (no offense intended here, Jake, you just happened to use the term). The same was said in some circles of Wii Sports, which has become, unarguably, one of the biggest, most important video games in the past 10 years, if not ever. Wii Play, a Feb 2007 title also described as such, is now the 2008 Game of the Year (in sales).
With Wii Play, there are obviously people commenting above that enjoy the game (or toy) for what it is, and wouldn't consider the title a tech demo at all. Related to that, there are today a great number of people who would never read or comment on a blog like Infendo, who think the very same thing. That it sold simply because a controller was stapled to its side is also a bit of a misnomer as well, isn't it? I seem to recall an abundance of solo Wii controller SKU's at my local Target last time I visited. Maybe they had some kind of disease about them, causing millions of people to run away, into the arms of Wii Play? Year over year, now nearly two years after its release? Perhaps.
Perhaps, as blog that caters to Nintendo and its fans, we should adjust our tone and coverage in a way that will ensure we keep up with the times and this new audience. And this audience isn't 'stupid' — they just happen to enjoy a simple product that provides, in David's case, many hours of fun. Many other Wii Play lovers, I imagine, also enjoy dismembering aliens in Dead Space, or carjacking cars. Point being, the sales numbers for this little title are far too large to say that only the simple-minded "casuals" are supporting it (and I realize I said I wasn't going to use that term this year, it was used sparingly to try and prove a point). And no, all of this commentary is not a license for anyone to bend my words and say 'Jack wants to cover more Dogz and Catz games!' Please.
And lastly, using the comments above as an unscientific observation, those who are in support of the game offered a far more detailed, thoughtful response defending their position than the detractors. This isn't to say there aren't flaws within the game, of course, it's just an observation.
P.S. – There's a great case study opportunity in Wii Play and its effect on "mainstream" games journalism, I'm sure of it. Look at the scores and written reviews, and then look at the sales. The discord is unmistakable. If the current video games industry were an image on a web site, mainstream gaming journalists would be the guys in the corner covering a single pixel.
@ jack
"And this audience isn't 'stupid' — they just happen to enjoy a simple product that provides, in David's case, many hours of fun."
totally agree- the nontraditional gamers want something easily accessible that provides variety and uses the intuition of motion sensing. that's why mnigame packs have sold so well. same with the balance board. the more complicated a game, the less they care.
mario's a great study. plumber, run, jump, save princess. it doesn't get much simpler or graspable. add bright colors and who wouldn't want to escape the office with a bit of that?
@ Bbelt
is that for blackbelt or bible belt?
@ jeff
the casual uptopia youre looking for is up around the 3 million sales mark (carny games) and following the trend of sales success of carny by within a week (babiez). (go go gadget vgchartz!!)
I'm not saying they are ONLY buying it for the controller. But it is a good deal for a new Wii owner, he sees that Wii Play is a game that comes with a controller. It's a better deal than just getting the controller itself. Sure, it's not GOTY material (by any standards) but it is a functional, demonstrative game that just so happens to come with a controller. It has a great perceived value, and thus sells year over year.
What gets me giddy is what Nintendo's gonna do with all that profit that they are getting from a two year old game that they had a very modest budget for. A Rising tide lifts all boats :D.
@ jeff
wait! wait! i've got another!
"this isn't the casual revolution you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along."
(so worth it)
3 million sales of Carnival Games? Is that it? On 46 million Wiis? After one and a half years? That's the casual utopia? Whereas full-core games like SSBB trounce it handily? And Take Two's cynical cash-grab sequel (Carnival Games mini Golf) to it own cynical Wii cash grab is not doing so great? Really? this is what the ENTIRETY of the Wii user base wants? This is what UBI-Soft calls "female- and family-driven?"
I don't see anything of the sort. I DO see a platform that is very diverse and buys a LOT of different types of games (though mainly "traditional" games like Mario Kart and SSBB), but I don't see evidence of this "casual uprising" anywhere. Maybe this is just a fable third parties and wii-detractors wish to believe is true. (Hint: it is)
just remember everything's relative jeff.
much as we root for it, no more heroes isn't catching carnival games anytime soon man. casual games simply outperform, albeit randomly (nontraditional = less informed consumers?).
oo! got another!
"casual is as casual does."
no, too easy… oh! oh!
"casuals always whine about doing their best; traditional gamers go home and save the princess."
"Zelda was the princess"
"Really?"
Hey, Jack brings up a good point, not only for Wii Play, but for most of the titles on this best-selling list: More than half of the titles on the list received an average low score from the critics.
Go figure!
More ammo:
Top december games, overall (NPD Group):
Top 20 Games of December 2008
1. WII PLAY W/ REMOTE WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
2. CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR* 360 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
3. WII FIT WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
4. MARIO KART WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
5. GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR* WII ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
6. GEARS OF WAR 2* 360 MICROSOFT
7. LEFT 4 DEAD 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS
8. MARIO KART NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA
9. CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR PS3 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
10. ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLK* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
11. WII MUSIC WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
12. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA
13. PERSONAL TRAINER: COOKING NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA
14. FALLOUT 3* 360 BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
15. CLUB PENGUIN: ELITE PENGUIN FORCE NDS DISNEY INTERACTIVE STUDIOS
16. LINK'S CROSSBOW TRAINING WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA
17. GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR* PS2 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
18. MADDEN NFL 09* 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS
19. CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR WII ACTIVISION BLIZZARD
20. SHAUN WHITE SNOWBOARDING: ROAD TRIP WII UBISOFT
That bold title is about 150k shy of one million sold to date. Guitar Hero: World Tour for the Wii is also something everyone should note, especially considering the fact that the brand, Guitar Hero, was established on other systems first.
Finally, I have to defend Jeff a bit. This list, and the one Blake posted, does some serious credibility damage to the argument that the Wii is a bastion of "casual games." There's a lot of variety in both lists, overall and Nintendo-specific.
hey jack- it's important to discriminate between the top selling games and the games that most people buy. it's about the distribution of all dollars, not the aggregation. also, the list looks pretty nontraditional to me.
also, i'm wishing nintendo would show us its projects further ahead. there's probably less of a need to do so, if youre targeting a nontraditional audience. but it makes predicting revenue streams much more difficult. ninny didn't really unveil wiimusic till e3. keeping it under wraps makes stock valuation more difficult and will keep the price depressed in the medium term. wish they would give us a hint, so i could take a guess at where it's going later in 09. nothing i've seen so far is as obvious a win as wiimusic was.
Wii play dreadfully boring? What? I think the Tanks game on Wii Play is awesome. I've spent hours on it.
deepthought, do you need meds?
Make logical and coherent sentences.
And I don't know why you brought up No More Heroes. I'm not sure what that has to do with the so-called casual Wii userbase not buying the games that are specifically aimed at them and buying Smash Brothers instead.
imagine a world with 50 games. just 50. the top ten each sold between 5 and, oh, say 10 million copies. most of the rest of the 40 are fairly termed casual. but each sells 2 million copies.
how do we want to identify the market? by the distribution across all skus, the aggregation in the top skus, or maybe something more refined? the top 10 may be a good or bad proxy for trends depending on the rest of the market.
"here endeth the lesson."
(play nice jeff.)
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Way I see it, MK Wii is the top seller; Wii Play doesn't even count since most people bought it for the extra Wii-Mote.
I traded in Wii Play yesterday. I thought the tank game was decent, but not worth the energy of getting off the couch to put the disk in.
I'm impressed World at War is as high as it is.
@ daverage
it's interesting that fallout3 is only a couple spots ahead of w@w wii for Dec, but fallout3 has much greater total sales despite having only a week on w@w. w@wwii must have had a great dec., though it's still the clear runt of it's brethren.
not only are wii owners buying fewer copies of w@w, they are MUCH less likely to buy it at all, given how many wii owners there are. really makes the wii look like a very different market than the ps60. i feel this tends to discredit the "AAA 3rd party wii games will sell like they do on other systems" mantra, especially since metacritic ranks the wii, 360, and ps3 games very closely. just look at how the nintendo branded games are dominating the dominant wii games.
grab vg chartz and check out some of these comparisons. w@w had to pick up momentum hardcore in december. this may suggest it was being given as a gift, whereas many ps60 gamers pick it up at launch for immediate consumption.
gets me thinking that one might argue that the urgency of consumption of new software is a distinguishing factor between the traditionals and the casuals.
@deepthought
Good call, never bothered to check the stats on Call of Duty WOW, its pretty scary, given that this was one of the few "hardcore" titles Nintendo promoted at E3. Here's the numbers:
Call of Duty: World at War (360) 4.38m
Call of Duty: World at War (PS3) 2.63m
Call of Duty: World at War (Wii) .47m
Given the fact that the Wii user base is so much larger than the PS3/360 these figures certainly aren't doing much to convince publishers to stop with the mini games already.