The announcement that Wii Sports is the highest-selling game of all time brought a lot of controversy. It doesn't count because of bundles, it doesn't count because it's a tech demo, it just doesn't deserve it, et cetera.
I intend to demonstrate that Wii Sports is not only the highest-selling game of this generation, but also probably the most-played game of this generation. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to make one assumption: That information from the Nintendo Channel is representative of all Wii owners in the Americas. I know this is probably not the case (it's a self-selecting sample), but it's more fun than waiting for better information to show up.
Stephen Totilo has been doing most of the work for me by periodically checking on the average play time that various Wii games recieve:
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/01/05/wii-software-stats-january-update/#more-16127
I'm going to multiply his average play times by LTD sales of selected games in the Americas to get the total number of hours these games have been played on the Wii.
| Game | Average Hours Played | Units Sold (Millions) | Total Hours Played (Millions) |
| Wii Sports | 34.8 | 20.8 | 724 |
| Super Smash Bros. Brawl | 64.9 | 4.8 | 312 |
| Guitar Hero 3 Wii | 58.7 | 3.0 | 176 |
| Mario Kart Wii | 27.3 | 5.8 | 158 |
| LoZ: Twilight Princess | 46.5 | 2.7 | 126 |
| Wii Play | 9.7 | 10.0 | 97 |
As you can see, no Wii game in the Americas has seen even half the number of play hours that Wii Sports has seen. Guitar Hero 3 on all platforms might come closest, assuming all versions of the game have been played as heavily as the Wii version.
What about other console games? Sadly, I haven't seen any stats for other platforms. But I can tell you how many average hours these best-selling HD games would have to be played to rack up more total hours than Wii Sports:
Grand Theft Auto IV: 111.3 hours
Call of Duty 4: 104.9 hours
Halo 3: 113 hours
That's a heckuva lotta gaming, even for the hardest of core! It's not impossible that one of these games might have more total playtime than Wii Sports, but I consider that very unlikely.
All of this data uses American numbers, multiplatform games count both 360 and PS3 SKUs. US sales represent about 66% of these games sales, while representing only 50% of Wii Sports' sales. So worldwide play time likely skews the comparison even more in favour of Wii Sports.
In conclusion, Wii Sports is not only the highest-selling console game of all time, it is also quite likely the most-played console game of this generation, and hence the most influential game this generation has yet produced.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
