Click here to check out the best selling games in list form. Similar information from the previous year is also available.
Among the questions we'll answer:
- Which publisher generated the greatest unit sales in the top 100?
- Systems can live and die by exclusives – which systems got the lion's share of these jewels?
- Buying a system? We'll tell you which one can play more of the top 100 software titles than any other.
- Are people still buying licensed games by the truckload? Did music games beat out sports games? The genre rankings reveal all.
- And are European tastes different from American? You bet, and we'll show you just how different they can be.
On to the charts!
EA Leads In Titles & Sales
Electronic Arts took the top publisher spot in our list of the top 100 selling games, despite strong competition from both Nintendo and Activision. EA claimed 23 titles in our rankings, far ahead of Nintendo at 12 titles and Activision at 10. In a third tier of publishers, THQ, Ubisoft, and Sony each published six titles.
Of course, just looking at the number of titles doesn't reveal the whole story. If, instead, we look at unit sales by each publisher's games in the top 100, then the order shuffles a bit.
By this measure EA remains the leading publisher, with sales of nearly 40 million units. Both Nintendo and Activision gain ground on EA, but more importantly Activision's leap ahead of Nintendo into second place at nearly 30 million units.
The real success story here is Microsoft. With only three published titles in the top 100 – Forza Motorsport 2, Mass Effect, and Halo 3 – Microsoft still claimed 4th place in unit sales. Certainly most of Microsoft's 11.5 million in unit sales can be attributed to Halo 3, but the other two titles have great rankings too: Forza 2 at #20 and Mass Effect at #34.
Meanwhile the move to unit sales pushes Capcom off the bottom and raises Sega, whose Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has sold tremendously since its launch.
Exclusive Rules
Not too long ago, platform exclusives seemed to go the way of the dodo. Metal Gear Solid 2 on the Xbox? Resident Evil on the GameCube? Splinter Cell on the PlayStation 2? The age of crossplatform availability seemed within our grasp.
Now platform exclusives are back with a vengeance, and stoking the fiery pits of fanboy message boards the world over. Fortunately, we're not above tossing a can of petrol in amongst the combatants.
So who is winning the war for exclusivity? Answer: Nintendo, and how.
In its first year on the market, the Wii claimed a whopping 12 exclusive games. Several of these, of course, are Nintendo franchises that won't ever appear on another system: Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Party 8, and Mario Strikers. The same is true on the Nintendo DS, which comes in second with 11 exclusives.
Each of the other platforms received fewer than half the exclusives found on either the Wii or NDS. On the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (with three and five exclusives each), first- and second-party sales again lead the way. Sony enriched its PlayStation 3 software library with Heavenly Sword, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Motorstorm, and Ratchet & Clank Future. Microsoft's three exclusives were Mass Effect, Forza Motorsport 2, and Halo 3. With only one Sony-published exclusive (God of War II), the PlayStation 2 is unique for having the majority of its exclusives from third-party publishers. It is worth noting, of course, that many PlayStation 3 systems are capable of playing both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 software – so those 60Gb system owners have access to both systems' exclusives.
While all the games in the top 100 sold well, some sold better than others. So, how did those exclusive titles sell? The answer shows the power of the huge installed base of Nintendo DS customers and the buying power of the dedicated Xbox 360 crowd.
Microsoft has clearly maximized the effectiveness of its three exclusive titles. To put it in perspective, the three games exclusive to the Xbox 360 earned more than the nine combined games exclusive to Sony's PlayStation consoles. (For the record, Sony's PSP had no exclusives which sold well enough to rank in the top 100 this year.)
One more look before we move on: which of the big three hardware companies is attracting the most exclusive software? For this purpose we consider Nintendo's Wii and DS together and Sony's PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 together. Amazingly, Nintendo manages to extend its lead even further:
Here's what's going on: Nintendo not only lays claim to the 12 Wii exclusives and the 11 Nintendo DS exclusives, but also four additional games like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games – which appears on both platforms (and therefore is not a platform exclusive) but not on any competitor's system!
Take a Deep Breadth
While exclusive titles may figure heavily into a consumer's console purchase, that same consumer will probably also want to play a wide variety of popular games. When looking at these top 100 selling games of the past year, which console provides access to the lion's share of games?
The answer should be no surprise:
The Xbox 360 can play more than a majority of the games listed in our top 100 software rankings. Right behind it, with 52 games and its own majority, is the Wii. The PlayStation 2 is further behind at 46 and the PlayStation 3 even further back with 44.
To return briefly to the subject of exclusives, the Wii's 52 games include 12 games which are exclusive to the platform. On the other hand, Microsoft's 54 games include only 3 games which are exclusives.
We can look at this two ways. On the one hand, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has attracted a broad spectrum of cross-platform software (and the Xbox 360 version is often superior to the other platforms) but has few top-selling exclusive titles. Nintendo's Wii has fewer cross-platform games (and the Wii version is sometimes considered “just a port of the PS2 version”) but has a larger selection of system exclusives to spice up its library.
For sheer value, however, it's hard to pass up the PlayStation 2. Provided you can live with low-def graphics, the $130 price is right and not only does it play many of the top-selling games from the last year but in fact most of the top-selling games from the past seven years.
Licensed to Sell
Fact: Games with TV and movie licenses still sell embarrassingly well. Nearly one-quarter of the 100 top selling games of the past year were based on characters from movies (like Pirates of the Caribbean) or television characters (like Spongebob Squarepants). The next most common genres – Action and Sports – covered 15 games each.
Even though neither Wii Sports nor Wii Play are represented in the top 100, their effect is clearly visible with minigame collections outnumbering role-playing games, simulations, and strategy games. Moreover, the number of music games represented in the top selling software from the last year is significant: 7 titles out of 100.
More telling are the unit sales per genre, shown below.
Licensed games still lead with over 34 million units (or 20% of the top 100 total), but the sports category catches up substantially. Moreover, the genre of shooters – driven primarily by Halo 3 – leaps from fourth place (in terms of number of titles) to third place in unit sales. The music game category, led by the phenomenal sales of Guitar Hero III, pushed it to the fifth spot on this sales chart.
America versus Europe
For our final slice of the data, let's look at the 20 top-selling titles and break their sales down by region: either U.S. sales or UK/European sales.
Immediately one notices the obvious popularity differentials in “football” – American football and then the real football (or soccer, to the Yanks). Madden NFL sales are nonexistent outside of the U.S. while sales of FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer are strong with Europeans and Brits.
However, there are other things to notice, like the European base of fans for racing games like Forza Motorsport 2 and NFS: Pro Street. The success of The Simpsons Game is another interesting find, suggesting that non-Americans enjoy playing American games poking fun at American foibles.
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