I would not be surprised if that is being worked on

The Original post from a year ago.

 The Numbers have now been corrected, and there have been other changes too. I apologise for having the wrong best selling list. For some reason I was using Wikipedia. If you find any mistakes, post them.  

How much will the Wii franchise sell? The series of Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit is currently the 13th best selling franchise ever. Having sold 26,35 million that is. How far will it go by 2008, 2009 and through the whole lifetime? Will the series beat 56 million and become one of the top 5 best selling franchises ever? Or will it not sell as good, and be unable to beat 43M and break into the top 10?

My predictions are as following:

Wii sports sold about 14,6M last year. Wii Play did 7,8M and Wii fit did 750K. The total numbers are 17.5, 8.7 and 1M.

Wii sports will keep up the pace, and sell 18M through 08. Wii play will also keep selling, since it is a pack in with Wii-mote, and everybody needs a Wiimote. It will not sell as much as last year though and end up at 6M. Wii fit will sell a lot, 10, or at least 9M. So after 08, it will be about 59M sold, being the 4th best selling franchise ever. Beating The Legend of Zelda.

It will drop off later, but for lifetime sales, I predict 120M, being the 3rd best selling franchise ever.

Of course, there will come other "wii games" like Wii chess and Wii music, but I don't know whether they will sell much or anything, so I don't include them. You can of course.

At request, I added the best selling franchises.

1. Mario - 302M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Mario&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

2. Pokemon - 152M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Pokemon&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

3. Grand Theft Auto - 61,5M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?
name=Grand+theft+auto&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

4. Final Fantasy - 57M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Final+Fantasy&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

5. The legend of Zelda - 55,8M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=The+legend+of+Zelda&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

6. The Sims - 55,5 M http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=The+sims&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

7. Gran Turismo - 46,9M http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Gran+turismo&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

8. Tetris - 46,5M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Tetris&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

9. Donkey Kong - 45M - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Donkey+Kong&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

10. Dragon quest 42,4 - http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Dragon+Quest&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

That's all the ones I care to link. For the rest, you will have to search million sellers yourself.

11. Wii Series - 40.53M

12. Sonic 39,6M

13 Madden 36,5M

(Wii Series: 31.3M) as of 13th February 2008

14, Crash Bandicoot 29,3M

15. Resident evil - 27,1M

( Wii series - 26,35M) (as of 13th January 2008)

16. Pro evo soccer - 25,6M  

17. Tekken 24,4M

18. Kirby 22,9M

19. Fifa 22,5M

20. Tomb Raider - 21,8M

21. Halo 21,4M

22. Brain Training - 20,9M

23. Medal of Honour 17,4M

24. Spyro 17,4M

25. Nintendogs 16,7M.

26. Metal Gear 16,1M

27. Warcraft 16,1M

Honourable Mentions:

Mortal Kombat 14,8. Street Fighter 15,1M. NBA live 10,9M. Harry Potter 13,2M.Half Life 12M.

let's say wii sells 150m consoles

so with it being bundled in most of the world and then selling >50% attach in Japan, it should hit around 130+m copies


if wii play (or wii something) continues to be the only wiimote bundle, then roughly 50m will be sold (1/3 of wii owners)

so that's around 180m


then wii fit could easily sell 20m if wii sells 150m, especially if its balance board is used in more games

so that's to 200m


then u have wii music + wii motor sports + wii chess...not sure how those will come out, so let's keep it at 200m; those 3 can make up for any overestimates in wii sports/play/fit


so #2 franchise will be pretty easy for wii to hit

to start getting up to 300m will require a few more wii titles to be released (probable as we are only 14 months into the wii's lifespan) and they will need to sell 200m+ wiis or else the wii2(wiihd) will need to have wii titles for sale for it as well

Obviously, I shouldn't have updated, it made people stop posting :P

When I look at the current number I can easily predict that the Wii franchise will be at least in the top 3 sometime soon.

1. Mario - 302M

2. Pokemon - 152M

3. Grand Theft Auto - 61,5M

 --

15. Wii series - 26,35M
 

They are only 2 franchise that have sales over 100 millions and GTA as only 61 millions sales. At the Wii current rate of sale, they will surely pass the 61 millions of GTA even if the new GTA IV sells a lot. This will make the top 3 of best franchise all Nintendo series.

^yeah i think it will pass the GTA series

Let me throw a spanner in the works...

The "Wii series" should not be considered as a franchise. The games are just Nintendo's generic titles for the Wii platform. People will no doubt argue the point, but only because they want to see inflated numbers. Unrelated games with Sega in the title were never considered as part of a franchise, so why should they be for Wii? That is just disingenuous.

What if Sony slapped "Playstation" on all their first party titles? Playstation GT5? Playstation Wipeout? Playstation Uncharted? Would that count?

The Wii series are a franchise, because they're in a way the same thing. It's everyday titles. Playstation Uncharted and Playstation GT5 would be totally different categories.

And they didn't call it Super Mario Galaxy Wii, did they?

Nice article

I agree with Played out, but also agree about the "Wii series" being a franchise. Game being in Wii series, tells you that it's something that anyone can play, but the games itself are so much different. It's like comparing Game&Watch games, G&W is a franchise, in which basically all the games were more or less similar, mostly because of their simplicity, but still they were so much different.