New super mario bros is one, I'd say.


No one expected it to be *small*, per say, but looking at those first weeks, it's definitely hard to imagine that it would end up selling 30 million.

In the US, in particular, it started off with 150k, and then went on to sell 10 million.

Demons Souls

PUBG
It has sold over 20 million units so far.
That game, sort of just, happened.
Sales, growing exponentially.

yeh i have to disagree with that. its the opposite of a sleeper.

Of course? I think you mean Of course not, it had a very large launch, number one is Japan, number 2 in the UK etc

My pick , DS Brain Age, small launch but went on to sell over 20 million

The first Uncharted. Fits ur definition of a sleeper hit to a T.

Splatoon on Wii U. Went from "will sell like The Wonderful 101" to THE bestselling game on the platform in Japan, a coiuntry which until then was generally averse of first- and third person shooters of any kind.

Undertale also counts. It just barely made it's very modest goal on Kickstarter when the platform was still pretty unknown and ha a very silent release, but went on to become a juggernaut of the internet and in terms of sales.

As unbelievable as it may sound nowadays, Mortal Kombat and Super Smash Bros count in a way. Mortal Kombat was just developed to fill up a gap in Midway's arcade lineup for that year and with minimal funds, but did so well in arcades that when it came to consoles, it was a big hit already. Smash bros was developed in the spare time of Sakurai and his team at HAL and wasn't intended to become something big (fighting games where really not selling well at the time), heck it wasn't even supposed to get a western release. But it finally did so well it got a western release, where it did very well too. It's also the reason why the cast is so limited in both games, 7(+1) and 8(+4) was very limited already at their respective release dates

The original Tomb Raider perhaps? Read an article recently saying the sales target was 100,000 copies, and it ended up selling over 7 million copies and spawning a franchise that's still popular today.

I'm not sure Minecraft counts, because it started out as what we might call an early access game today. That is, it was very, very incomplete when the first purchasable version was released, and pretty much exploded very quickly after it matured. The numbers were certainly impressive for an indie game released only on PC at a time when PC gaming was, in a way, at a low point. All things considered, I think it grew really quickly.

I also don't think the remark about Pokémon Go is appropriate in this context, as Pokémon was already huge before it. The way the paragraph about Pokémon is worded makes it sound like Pokémon Go is the main reason to the brand's popularity.

I can't think of any sleeper hits. I'm pretty sure I've though of one years ago, but I just can't remember it, and no others come to mind right now. Sorry!

Minecraft by its official launch was still about 1/100th its total sales with over two years worth of pre-release sales behind it. I think it’s a very good example of a sleeper hit.