Forgot about that. I'll ammend it to "(GTA IV gave a bump, but a short one)".

What this is actually about is you and many others trying to discount that 2d Mario exists even though THIS YEAR IT HAS SOLD MORE THAN CALL OF DUTY. 

http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly.php?date=2009&reg=World&date=2010&console=&maker=

Hey look it's the Yearly chart! Take a look at that, 2d Mario is outselling both versions of Modern Warfare 2 combined this year. And it's in the lead by nearly a million units! Wow!

But wait, no... I'm wrong. Because you are going to say something like "when Black Ops gets released, we will combine those sales" or "it's quickly gaining on 2d Mario by 20,000 units every week!" or "Call of Duty is outselling 2d Mario end-of-story! Actual numbers and evidence don't matter because I said it, and usually when I say things, I'm pretty sure I'm right."

You are being potently disengenuous.

I'm not trying to discount that 2-D Mario exists. Why would I do that? What do you mean?

And yes, Black Ops will be combined when it's released. This is a question of the franchise, not a single game. This is the fourth or fifth time I've said this so far - and Call of Duty has been beating the Hell out of 2D Mario every year for five years. It will continue to do so this year, and the next year as well unless a new 2D Mario lands on the 3DS - and even that probably will not be enough.

Reducing this year to seven or eight months when Call of Duty sells about 60% of its total sales in the spac of about three weeks in November-December is dishonest.

Ok, agreed!

You're moving the goal post to suit your opinion.

No, raw numbers are incorrect. You're comparing the sales of two games to the sales of 4 or more games. This is not comparable. You have to take the average because it removes the variable of the number of games. Using raw numbers tells you nothing as sales will go up with the number of games produced. Not to mention most of the people buying the Call of Duty games are the same people. So it's not like new people are coming in. This is why the average works because you can tell what they average number of buyers is for a game.

You haven't given a reason why you're method is better beyond the fact that it supports your argument. I would also like to point out the NSMBWii has sold 15 million on one systems where the Call of Duty games have sold ~11 million and ~8 million. Not to mention Mario moved systems and Call of Duty didn't. People wanted Wiis just for this game.

And this gen seemed to have a lot of that, on all the systems. Some game would come out, and there would be a one week spike for its system(s) sales. Especially in Japan.

In point of fact, averages don't work for indicating number of buyers - the game iwth the highest number of sales indicates a floor for the number of buyers in a franchise. The floor for Call of Duty buyers is at 19.5 million as of right now, not including PC sales.

And again, the only question is which is the biggest franchise, not the biggest mean game. Call of Duty sells more games than 2-D Mario. Addinng qualifiers like "single SKU" and "fewer games" only serves to illustrate the point that 2-D Mario cannot and has not moved the same kinds of numbers as Call of Duty since 2005.

In point of fact, averages don't work for indicating number of buyers - the game iwth the highest number of sales indicates a floor for the number of buyers in a franchise. The floor for Call of Duty buyers is at 19.5 million as of right now, not including PC sales.

Then New Super Mario bros Wii has a ceiling of ~22 million. (A floor is the minimum. A ceiling is the max.) However, you fail to explain why we can use averages. Averages are better because it removes the variable of number of games produced, which is positivily correlated with total sales of a series. It throws off the data, and it's how you can to a poor conclusion.

And again, the only question is which is the biggest franchise, not the biggest mean game. Call of Duty sells more games than 2-D Mario. Addinng qualifiers like "single SKU" and "fewer games" only serves to illustrate the point that 2-D Mario cannot and has not moved the same kinds of numbers as Call of Duty since 2005.

Again, you don't understand what the numbers mean. Posting totals means nothing. You may claim "That's how much revenue they made," but they had to make more games to make more sales, which means they spent more to make more where Nintendo spent less to make more.

The bold is where you keep going into fantasy land. They made better numbers by making more games. If that is the case, then who is doing better. 2D Mario obviously because it makes those numbers by making fewer games. And those fewer games moved Wiis. This means these are new customers where Call of Duty sells to old ones. The latter did not grow the market but sold to an existing one. If the number of games produced was the same, 2D Marios would blow Call of Duty out of the water, and that, my friend, is fact.

You have failed to explain why we should ignore the variable of number of games produced. Why is that irrelivant to this discussion?

You are trying to discount 2d Mario exists as many people are. It's amazing that as gigantic as 2d Mario is, it doesn't matter to people. They try to bean-count ways around it or find reasoning against it's success. They do this with all Nintendo games. Wii Play, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, etc. For each of these games I've heard a reason against it's success and why their sales are not legitimate. Yet, when I say Modern Warfare's sales are not legitimate because of hype and marketing,  these same people go nuts.

In any case, if you want to compare franchises, why leave out SMB 1, 2, 3, and 4? What about the Gameboy Mario games? What about the Donkey Kong Country series? Do they get excluded because they don't fit within the timeframe you constructed?

In fact, if you are going to "combine" Black Ops, then I'm going to "combine" Donkey Kong Country Returns.

In reality, you can't compare a franchise that has seen yearly releases to one that has only had two in the last decade. It doesn't show that Call of Duty is larger than 2d Mario, it just shows that Activision is giving Call of Duty the attention it deserves while Nintendo is ignoring the potential 2d Mario has.

I sliced out the parts where you copy/pasted my text for whatever reason.

And no, that's not the theoretical ceiling for 2D Mario - it's the floor. For it to be the ceiling, you have to assume that everyone who owns NSMBWii also owns NSMB, but that is not the case. The theoretical ceiling would be the combined sales of both games, but we know that's not the case either, because there are gamers who own both games - we can't make an educated guess about tthe ceiling for the installbase of 2-D Mario, except to say that it is somewhere between 22 and 38 million.

Similarly, the theoretical ceiling for Call of Duty is anywhere between 20 million (assuming only 500k sales on PC for MW2) and well over 50 million.

Your tone is neither appreciated nor appropriate for this conversation, especially given that you don't seem to be familiar with the difference between a floor and a ceiling for installbases. You can assume that I know perfectly well what the numbers mean; if I continue to disagree with you, it must be because we stand on different points as to what qualifies a franchise as being "bigger".

Profit margins have nothing to do with which franchise is bigger - which is to say, which fanchise holds a greater share of the market (defined as dollars spent by individuals) within any given timeframe.

Subsequent Call of Duty games continue to sell more and more, so they cannot be selling only to old customers. Modern Warfare 2 looks ready to finish out at something like 23-25 million by the time it's done, and that's assuming that Black Ops very seriously cannibalizes its sales - which will only put Call of Duty, as a franchise, even further ahead. That 23-25 million will be the new floor for the Call of Duty installbase, which will match up comfortably against the floor of 2D Mario, while continuing to produce more revenue year over year.

The question is not about what moves systems. I am not talking abotu systems. I am talking about gamees. There is no reasonable way to draw absolute correlation between the sales of a game annd the sales of its system - but if you want to go by this route then 2-D Mario is overshadowed by Wii Fit and Mario Kart, which sustained Wii sales at a much higher level for a much greater length of time than NSMBWii has done.

As to this line, which I will take the time to quote:

"If the number of games produced was the same, 2D Marios would blow Call of Duty out of the water, and that, my friend, is fact."

1. That is not what "fact" means. That is conjecture with no statistical basis on which to stand. Again: you are misusing the word "fact".

2. Call of Duty at its best outsells 2-D Mario at its best within comparable timeframes. That is a fact.

3. Point three will refer to this final line, which I will quote:

"You have failed to explain why we should ignore the variable of number of games produced. Why is that irrelivant to this discussion?"

The simple point of it is that number of games contributes to the size of a franchise, and if sales are sustained over a greater number of games then that franchise is larger than it would be otherwise. Woudl Call of Duty be bigger if it had released only two games that sold the mean average of all games since Call of Duty 3? Probably not! But it doesn't matter. The point is that those games did release, they were bought, they did generate revenue, and they have outsold 2-D Mario year in and year out since Mario's revival. Maybe Mario not being bigger is Nintendo's fault for not releasing more Mario games, but the poit remains that it is not as big and conjecture concerning man averages of game sold extrapolated into game-versus-game comparisons is absolutely meaningless. Call of Duty sells more games, makes more revenue, and does this year after year after year. Period.