1) Let's stick to video games for now, all right, :P? Honestly, just look at Super Mario Bros., pretty much the only other instance something like this has happened, it's phenomenonal, even now, like a quarter of a century later.

2) Honestly, if you're speaking of impact, Wii Sports pretty much turned the entire market around. It turned a console that was likely to sell 10m into a "you see, I was right, it only sold 100m LT, take that, Nintendo fanboy!" It most likely added more gamers to the market than the entire shooter genre. Also, please consider Sports Champions and Kinect Sports, high-profile attempts by competitors to try to save some market share for themselves. Move and Kinect would not have had a sports game as (one of) their killer apps had it not been for this monster right here.

3) I thought I might have on that one, xD. Could you please explain it then?

1. I actually think that it's good to diverse the discussion, because games are just another form of entertainment, and a lot of times it goes by similar trends as music.
About SMB - It isn't remembered just because it sold well (check Duck Hunt), this one, single game, created so many of the basic fundementals of today's game design that it pretty much created modern gaming, withour SMB gaming just wouldn't exist, so it is remembered not only for how it was as a game (and a damn fine one I might add, played it for the first time this year XD), but because it is a landmark in gaming history.

2. But, again, I didn't say that Wii Sports didn't have an impact, because it did, I say that:
a: We really can't tell what will be five years from now, how can we say what will happen in twenty? We don't even know if the market that the Wii created will still be around five years from now.
b: We still don't know how many units Kinect and Move will sell, so far they can be a short term trend that will end before next christmas.
c: CoDs impact was on an existing market, and had a very big impact on it, from that aspect, it had an effect on online multiplayer gaming to the extent of SM64 on 3D gaming, it got a lot of things right, and a lot of companies just strated creating ripoffs of it.

3. Okay, I just wanna say first that it's nice to have a rational conversation with someone on the internet, doesn't happen a lot :P

What I said that the things that were considered "one of a kind", and are still remembered, are either remembered for being very influencial (like SMB in gaming), involving pepole emotionally (like Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in music) or, simply because they sold a lot (like Titanic in cinema).

In relation to our discussion, if Wii Sports or CoD4 will be remembered as "one of a kind", it will be either because of influence, or simply because of selling a lot, but if you take a game like MGS4 for example, it didn't sell that much, but I know enough grown men who cried at certain points while playing this game, this is the sort of "one of a kind" emotional impact I was talking about, that pepole can be talking about years from now.

I hope I made everything clearer now :)

Probably every game that sells over 5 million copies.

Valkyria Chronicles, Lost Odyssey (if it becomes a big franchise), Braid, Portal, and Angry Birds.  FPS's, big franchises like RE5, and such tend to overshadow themselves.  It's these young upstarts that people are going to remember.

Of course, every Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc. will bw remembered as timeless classics.  It's their gameplay that make them immortal.  Games like Uncharted, Killzone, and Call of Duty will be forgotten as the next big thing pops up.  They rely too heavily on presentation.  Then aggain, 20 years isn't a very long time.  I can remember tons and tons of games from the 8-bit/16-bit era.....

Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.

final fantasy 7!!!

This gen? The ones that'll be remembered in the mainstream (in descending order of mainstream-ness):

Wii Sports

CoD4: Modern Warfare

Halo 3/Reach

Gran Turismo 5

World of Warcraft

Half-Life 2 episodes

Starcraft 2

Remembered in the greater gaming community (no order):

Uncharted 2

Mass Effect 1 & 2

Metal Gear Solid 4

Gears of War 1 & 2

Oblivion

Fallout 3

Portal

Counterstrike: Source

Left 4 Dead 1 & 2

Assassins Creed 2

Dragon Age Origins (possibly as the last great PC-style RPG made by Bioware)

Little Big Planet

Metroid Prime trilogy

Mario Galaxy

Problem with the OP is that it's not clear, does it speak about the new IP from this gen. Or just games that will be remember in 20 years (all gen from 1st to 7th).

I say new IP because MGS, FF, GT, Halo, CoD... are not from this gen. But these IP are likely to be remembered.

So for this gen i think:

-Wii sport even if it haven't been bundle it would have been phenomenal, check and the Jap sales where the game is not bundle and also the sells of it's sequel Wii Sport Resort (more than 15m before be bundle in certain regions too). The game define the entire generation as the "motion control generation"

 -Wii fit: it push the wii to more higher height and start a new genre on his own that was copy lot of time, even on other console motion control but no one of the clone has been as successful.

-Uncharted: because the number 2 was the game that defined the PS3 and show what the console of Sony is capable.

-Gears of War: Define the Xbox360 as pushing the co-op and cover mode this gen.

Personally i like also No more Heroes to be remenber because i like Travis Touchdown and the craziness of the game (even if the first is better than the second) but honestly in twenty years, i think only few nerds will remember about it

Viva Pinata- I'll still be hyping it up in forums in 20 years :P

• Uncharted
• Mass Effect