I would expect a mod to be more informed / knowledgeable about the difference between lifetime sales and a system seller. Who bought the Wii for Wii Sports??? Who bought Wii Sports for the cheap extra controller????? What games did people actually buy the Wii for really? was it mario, metroid, zeld??? or did people buy it for the controllers / innovation?

There is a big difference between being a system seller and major seller... By the same logic of Wii Sports being a system seller everyone bought an ps360 for COD...

None. Both were present in some of its better games on consoles that flopped.

wii sports is not a system seller at all

LOL. If Wii Sports is not a system seller, what is?

Any game people actually bought the system for, not the game people bought for a controller...

Millions of people bought the Wii for Wii Sports, Wii Fit and Just Dance: the whole casual audience.

Do you really think, Grandma, Grandpa and Soccer Mom bought the system for Mario or Zelda?

I'm going to be diplomatic and say both franchises have been system sellers. Likewise, both are waning franchises in my opinion. Not that aren't good, just that they have been utilized over and over again to sell the consoles on which they live.

I can remember when Donkey Kong first came out. We didn't get one immediately when they came out, but surprisingly we did end up getting one at our resort that summer. We never, ever got the latest game. The guy who supplied us with arcade machines always gave himself the latest games but that year we got Donkey Kong. The thing got played so often it kept breaking. If you could shovel quarters into it, it still wouldn't be fast enough for some people. From 8 AM until 11 PM. It was quite amazing.

Equally amazing was to see how far the franchise has gone. To me, the most compelling reason for that game is still Donkey Kong, not Mario. So, the Mario line of games never really interested me all that much.

As someone who played Quake, Doom, and Duke Nukem 3D religiously on the PC, yet HATED keyboard/mouse gaming, I loved the Halo, and really what hooked me to Halo was the Flood. That damnable Library level. A level that somehow embodied fear, frustration, and exhilaration all into one experience. Bungie did just a marvelous job with that game. The fact that you went from a swamp where you got your first taste of the Flood, then into the Library where you went from thinking "Yes, no more of that crap." to "Oh, fuck me!" I loved and hated every minute of it. It was awesome!

There hasn't been an FPS since that has given me that same feeling. It sounds like though, Titanfall may offer it.

So, yeah. I think both games are both the best system sellers on their respective systems, but also both are great system sellers. Each for their own reasons and both equally so.

Tetris or Super Mario 64 for me.

For a single game, that would be Wii Sports.

For a franchise, I'd say either Mario or Pokemon. I think they both could be credited with the resounding success of at least three Nintendo systems.

Pokemon has ruled handhelds since the late 90's. Now with the release of Pokemon X & Y, I think it'll reach a popularity that hasn't been seen since the original Red/Blue/Green days, but it'll never be that same type of phenomenon again.

Mario has ruled Nintendo consoles but many are saying that it's prowess as a system seller has waned recently, but we'll see how true that statement is once SM3DW and Mario Kart 8 are released. I think if anything, people were fatigued by the lack of innovation in the sequels to the NSMB series.

Halo sold Xbox, Xbox 360 and it'll sure enough be the seller of Xbox Ones.

Grand Theft Auto sells itself.

It'd be nice if Sony had one or 2 franchises that had the same kind of long lasting appeal, but I can't deny how amazing they're exclusives are.

EDIT: Itd be fun to see the big three collaborate on game involving all of their signiture characters.