A few weeks ago there was a thread asking what the 9th Wii million-seller would be.
Not long after, quarterly reports from Nintendo and Capcom revealed that Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, Super Mario Strikers and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition had all passed the mark. They joined Wii Sports, Wii Play, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Mario Party 8, Super Paper Mario, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel at the mark.
And in the last few days, Super Mario Galaxy completed it's worldwide launch, no doubt making it the 12th million-selling Wii game.
So... What will be the 13th? 14th? 15th? How many Wii million-sellers will there be by year-end? How many eventual Wii million-sellers will have been released by year-end?
I believe the list of eventual million-sellers released somewhere in the world by the end of 2007 will be over 20.
Here's 10 to watch...
Sonic and the Secret Rings
LTD sales: 740K
Sonic games, even in these dark ages, seem to maintain solid long-term sales, especially on Nintendo platforms. This game could sneak by 1M shipped yet, but probably not in calender 2007.
Pokemon Battle Revolution
LTD sales: 610K
One of Wii's most disappointing performers, given that Pokemon Stadium games used to sell 5 million copies. But with steep discounts and continuing Pokemon DS sales, Nintendo has a good shot to move 1M copies of the game.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
LTD sales: 520K
While this game's American sales have been somewhat disappointing, good sales over Christmas plus European sales will no doubt push it over 1M by year end.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
LTD sales: 370K
As hoped, it looks like this game will cruise by 1M sold, even on the third biggest platform for the game. It may reach the number with Christmas sales.
MySims
LTD sales: 190K not including Europe (over 500K shipped?)
While some claimed this was a disappointing performer, EA soon announced that the Wii and DS versions combined shipped 1M WW, with the larger portion appearing to belong to the Wii version. If EA is aggressive with price cuts as their recent history suggests, they may move the Wii version alone past 1M shipped.
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
LTD sales: 70K first day in Japan
A strong Japanese launch makes 1M look more likely for this game. It appears to be a "B" game, but is still the biggest Zapper game this year other than maybe...
Link's Crossbow Training
Being the pack-in game for the Wii Zapper in most of the world, and at a cheap price, may make this one of the most popular Zelda games ever. At worst, it should still pass 1M sold.
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
LTD sales: 81K first week in America
It may not move 4M copies on just the Wii as Sega hopes, but the decent opening and the good long tail sales of so many of Wii's party games bodes well for it moving well past 1M.
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Yet another just-released game, RRR2 has a strong chance to match the performance of the first RRR. The establishment of the Rabbids during Wii's launch has given the franchise a leg-up on any party games not featuring other old, re-purposed platforming stars.
Wii Fit
Whether this game can move 1M in Japan by year end is a serious question. If not, there still seems to be little doubt in Nintendo's ability to recreate at least a fraction of the success of Brain Age, Nintendogs, and Wii Sports with their latest potential disrupter.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.