What I mean by the title is that a game series achieves significant sales in one gaming generation compared to its installments in the previous generation (even if not the series's first game that generation). I figure this is a good place to discuss when this happens and why.

Now some series hit it big right off the bat (Super Mario, Gran Turismo, and Halo, just to name one from each first party*), and some even break through in the same generation the series starts (Dragon Quest). But some just have low to good sales until a generation or so later when the sales take off.

Also, there wouldn't be a hard sales line to count, but 2-3 million more at least would be a good baseline.

Anyway, let's look at some of the cross-generation breakthroughs and why they did so well. In parentheses will be the breakthrough game's sales (in millions), followed by the highest selling game before that.

Perhaps the three most iconic of this phenomenon are Street Fighter II (can't really count the quarters, but it's safe to say it was a hell of a lot more than I, even from the first version alone), Final Fantasy VII (9.72 - Final Fantasy VI: 3.42), and Grand Theft Auto III (11.60 - GTA 2: 3.42). Okay, the first is a little gray, since arcades were 16-bit long before home consoles, but the first game came out in 1987, and II was in 1991.

Of course there are plenty of others (which I encourage you to bring up in the replies), but one odd one is Mario Kart. The series had actually broken through already, with MK 64 selling just under ten million copies, but then MK DS has nearly doubled that, and MK Wii had gone well over double that. One could argue userbase growth, but that only goes so far, since breakthroughs have happened on other systems with smaller userbases. There has to be something more.

* Then Pokemon, Zelda, Super Smash Bros, Resident Evil, Doom, Half-Life, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed, God of War, Crash Bandicoot (while still under Naughty Dog), Spyro the Dragon (while still under Insomniac), Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Double Dragon, Final Fight, Starcraft, Diablo...

the metal gear II to metal gear solid 1.

Though that's kinda unfair because of metal gear 2 non-release in america. I couldn't find numbers though... but That would be what I'd guess.

I seem to remember with old games on vgchartz. if they were significant it was tracked... but I could be wrong... or my searching abilities sucked.

Metroid!

Metroid Prime sold 2.83 million, and the original NES Metroid sold 2.73 million. Every other mainstream Metroid game sold 0.7-1.7 million.

Halo.

Halo 1 sold 6.43 million, and now Halo 3 sold 11.14 million, with Reach expected to better it.

Forza Motorsport

Forza Motorsport 1 sold 1.07 million, Forza Motorsport 2 sold 4.02 million, and Forza Motorsport 3 is looking to do about the same.

Super Smash Bros.

the N64 version sold 5.55 million, GCN sold 7.08 million, and Wii version is at 9.61 million and growing.

Thats all that comes to mind except for Call Of Duty.

LOTN, I had a thread here sometime last year that compared all the million selling franchises (this gen) with their previous generation counterparts for all 3 home consoles.  I'll try to make an update to it soon and add it to this thread.  I tried to look it up but can't find it.

You're missing the point. Only Forza really fits.

Metroid never broke through, and since the first game sold so closely, that means Prime doesn't have significant sales over a previous iteration.

Halo and Smash Bros broke through in the first game. Did you not read the whole OP?

Well the search function sucks, since it only searches users, not threads.

How about Mario Kart, there was a big jump from SC and DD to DS and Wii

I doubt the first two Call of Duty made 10M. Of course they were hits but still not exactly huge. Now the series is a huge hit.

Call of Duty has probably had the largest popularity increase between generations ever.

Finest Hour was the frachises peak last gen with around 4 million sold according to VGC, compared to 20 million for Modern Warfare 2.

Hopefully we can add The Last Guardian to that list...tehehe

Otherwise

Does NSMB wii from Super Mario Sunshine count?

I mentioned that. Did you read the whole OP?

Mario hit ig big first game. Did you read the whole OP?