That's right. Before they also had Crash Bandicoot.

Right next in rank to Gran Turismo (barring GT3 14.8mil, on average ~10mils) is Uncharted (on average 5 mils), which is a largely below Halo levels (barring Halo 3's 11.46, on average 8 mils).

Then again, in the context of this discussion, Mario and Halo cannot be put together, since the thread is about Kart games, and we know Mario Kart now sells in the 20s of millions. So putting Mario and Halo together is a tad misleading.

At the moment, Nintendo's biggest franchise is not "Mario" (i.e. 3D mario, the equiv. of Halo in Sales' post), but rather...

For Wii: Positions 1 to 7 all above 20 million

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mario Kart

NSMB (aka 2D mario)

Wii Series (Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, ...)

Huge dropoff from 20mil to 10mil as of position 8.

For DS: Positions 1 to 6, all above 15 million

---------------------------------------------------------------

NSMB

Nintendogs

Mario Kart

Brain Age

Pokemon

Huge dropoff from 15mil to 11mil on jump from position 6 to 8. I skipped 7 since it's another Pokemon, which is also in position 5.

Anything prior to Wii/DS above 15 Mil was one of:

Pokemon, Tetris, Duck Hunt (Bundled) or 2D Mario (SMW, SMB3). Super Mario 64 sold 11 point some million.

Oh please. The significance is there nonetheless, regardless if it helps my argument. Flagships are symbols of the console itself so they inherently need multiple games per gen. And they must be top rated in quality. Halo 3/Reach and Mario Galaxies got over 90 on metacritic where as GT5 is an 84, and took 5.5 years. That sir is no flagship. Uncharted is cause its quality is 90+ and it releases more frequently, keeping the fans happy and not waiting long. 

Apples to apples guys. LBP versus NSMB, not versus Mario Kart... You'll compare LBP Kart to SMK once it releases. For now, it's LBP versus NSMB.

Sales + Frequency + Quality = Flagship. Thats my formula. 

I think your better off comparing Mario kart to Modnation Racers, since LBP isnt a kart game. It will be interesting to compare LBP kart sales + metacritic to Mario Kart for a direct comparison. 

And I never said Mario Kart was a flagship. I said dedicated Mario games are flagship (aka platformers). But damn it comes pretty close. 

oooh

Ya I said that this games sales won't be the flagship that Sony is looking for. Someone countered that Sony allready has GT5. Thats when I said that Mario and Halo "generation sales" way surpass Gt's "Generation sales".

Thats how it went down. Funny where convos can take us. 

But seriously, I would like to compare LBP kart sales + its metacritic to Mario Kart 3ds. Cause like you said, LBP is consistently 90+. Right now Sony had modnation racers to compete, and that didn't make a dent as we all saw. 

Time isn't a factor at all. 

2D Mario and 3D Mario are totally different, don't try to mix them up. Nintendo's "flagship" title is 2D Mario. Always has been, always will be. 3D Mario, as much as Nintendo want it to be, isn't as big or important as 2D Mario.

It looks to me like you're adding up the sales of the games. So let's do a "sales on average" thing, shall we? I also assume we're only using home consoles here, as you neglected DS/PSP from your lists. We'll do Mario Platformers (just to be fair to you) on Wii, Halo FPS on 360 and Gran Turismo 5 (I assume you don't want to count a "demo" in with those GT5 sales) on PS3.

Mario Platformers on Wii have sold 47.25 Million units over the space of 5 games. A current average of 9,450,000 units per game.

Halo FPS on the 360 have sold 27.9 Million units over the space of 4 games. A current average of 6,975,000 per game.

Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 has sold 7.13 Million units alone. An average of 7,130,000 per game. If you want to add in the Demo, which has sold 5 Million btw not the 4 we have here... Gran Turismo currently averages 6.1 Million units per "game".

If we're talking sales per release, Sony have a Halo. They don't have a Mario, but then again... Only Activision have one of them.

Fun fact - New Super Mario Bros. Wii has almost sold as much as those 4 Halo games combined.

as stupid as "generation sales" is Gran turismo is still in the lead:

GT5 7.45m + GT5p 5.35m + GT 3.6m = 16.4 million+

Forza 2 4.0 + Forza 3 5.0 + Forza 3 2.0 = 11.0 million+

thats 5.5 million difference in Gran Turismo's favor, while Forza has 3 mainline entries, and Gran Turismo has just 1 (with 2 side entries).

you have no consistancy, no standards. you always set up arbitrary rules, guidelines and timeframes to try to win arguments, and when one of your previous sets of "standards" fail to win you your argument, you move on to another arbitrarly set of rules. rinse and repeat.

Easy boys.

truer words

Yes it's true that other karting games have "borrowed" from Mario kart but how many have also "borrowed" its control scheme too?