No, FF does NOT come out on top, and never has. DQ is THE premier series in Japan, Final Fantasy is a time waster, waiting for the next DQ game. Look at the drect comparisons 3.77m for an NES game, the ONLY FF that outpaced DQ3, is FF7, and barely at that.

DQ10 COULD be on any of the next gen consoles, but WONT be. It will be on Wii, and it will outsell FF13 2 to 1 in Japan

And next time you want to look non Biased, Dont leave the low sellers off your chart, Like FF 3 and 4, and 1 and 2 when available.

I think a lot of us have similar ideas in our head what franchises sell consoles, and for many of us, those impressions are at least slightly, if not significantly, off. This thread is not about what games are actually good or which aren't: it's about which games tend to be the most important system sellers. In many cases, the "overrated" games here will games that are quite good, but don't sell that many systems anyway.

First, the most important evidence:

http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php
http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=GC&reg1=All&cons2=PS2&reg2=All&cons3=XB&reg3=All&weekly=1

What we're going ot do here is look at software sales, how many of a game was sold, and how many of a system were sold around the release of any given title.

Overatted sellers:

1) Metroid Prime

This is the most obvious offender. Remember, please, that I am NOT saying that the games are bad, by any means. They're some of the best ever in my mind -- they just don't sell many consoles. The two Metroid Prime games have sold less than 4 million copies total, and there is no visible blip of any kind on the GC sales chart to indicate that any additional consoles were sold because of the game's release on November 18, 2002.

2) Metal Gear

This one isn't quite so clear as Metroid Prime, but it's fair to say that most of us overestimate how many consoles this game sells. It's last iteration sold a little less than 4 million copies. That's not bad, by any means, but I think a lot of us associate Metal Gear Solid with "premier console seller," which it isn't. The game was outsold by Simpsons: Hit and Run, Spiderman the Movie, among other titles none of us associate with top-notch games.

3) God of War

This one is in the same boat as Metroid Prime: despite being hailed by critics, the two titles in this series have jointly sold around 3.5 million in copies (both games are still selling, but not a lot. It's unlikely the two games will tally more than 4 million total copies in the end). The sequel has barely pushed past the million mark thus far, and has been outsold by games such as Shrek II, Tetris Worlds, 50 cent: Bullet Proof, and Spy Hunter.

Underrated

1) Gran Turismo

We all know this is a big title, I'd just say a lot of us just don't know how big. Let's put it this way: Gran Turismo 3 sold more copies than Metal Gear Solid II, Metal Gear Solid III, God of War I, and God of War II combined. It sells well everywhere, and one can visibly see a significant spike in PS2 sales around the game's launch dates (April 28, 2001 for Japan, July 10th for the US, and September 20th for the EU).

2) Grand Theft Auto

Again, we know it's big. But did you know that Gran Turismo and GTA account for all five of the top five best selling games on the PS2? When you gather up the sales of the three GTA games, those sales are more than these PS2 games:

1) Final Fantasy X, X-II and XII

2) Metal Gear Solid II and III

3) God of War I and II

4) Devil May Cry I, II, and III

Combined. Combined. In short, Gran Turismo and GTA have been in a league of their own over the last 5 years. None of the other available series come close. On any platform. Well, any console platform. Which leads me too...

3) Pokemon

Over the course of my browsings in video game forums, I see a lot of people say things like "Pokemon doesn't count." I have quite seriously seen those exact words uttered (or typed). It's almost as if, because it's outside of their personal interests, they don't think Pokemon should count as a real video game or something. I can relate, as I certainly don't care about Pokemon either. But I also don't care about God of War, so I think it's a little silly to trivialize this behemoth simply because it may not be within my scope of interest. Put simply: Pokemon is the only franchise on any system that has seriously contended with GTA and GT over the last 5 years. Again, the problem with this one isn't that gamers fail to recognize how enormous the popularity is, they just (often) refuse to recognize that popularity as valid. As if, because it's aimed more at 5-10 year olds than 18-25 year olds, it's trivial. My response is: tell that to Sony and the PSP.

There are other franchises to list, but these were the first and most glaring that came to mind. Please feel free to criticize or add your own franchises in here, but don't forget to support your claims with evidence!