Sometimes, a single killer piece of software can move thousands, even millions of consoles in its own right.

What do you consider the biggest system sellers in gaming to date, and what's your reasoning for your pick?

Probably Super Mario Bros. for the NES. It helped revive the console market in the US. Its just THE game I think of when it comes to important pack-in games.

Ignoring the obvious Mario & Pokemon:

• Space Invaders (Atari 2600) - Was the best-selling game of all time in the early 80's, and is the main reason the 2600 sold more than a few million units.
• Donkey Kong (ColecoVision) - Was the main factor that made the ColecoVision outsell the Atari 5200, by simply being the best port of DK available.
• Xevious (Famicom) - Was actually the biggest seller on the Famicom before Super Mario Bros, and arguably helped sell the idea of third parties selling healthy numbers on others' console hardware in Japan.
• Tetris (Game Boy) - Outsold Super Mario Land and topped charts for months even in regions where it wasn't bundled.
• Street Fighter II (SNES) - This was what arguably made the SNES controller the template for most consoles' controllers going forward, by virtue of having 6 buttons.
• Doom (PC) - Is the reason why PC gaming is a big market.
• Myst (PC) - Sold the CD-ROM format on home computers.
• Ridge Racer (PlayStation) - A weird example, since it didn't sell THAT well. What it DID do was being a technically impressive launch title that convinced early adopters that the PS1 was a superior 3D machine compared to the Saturn (sorry Daytona USA).
• Virtua Fighter 2 (Saturn) - The game had 1.5 million pre-orders in Japan. The Saturn ended that year with only 2.2 million Saturns sold.
• Grand Theft Auto III Trilogy (PS2) - They're GTA. One of the biggest victories of the Xbox 360 was getting GTA4 as a same day multiplat, not even an exclusive.
• Halo 1/2/3 (XB/X360)
• Brain Age 1 & 2 (DS) - Although the DS had some other big hits, these games released around the same time as the DS Lite when the platform really took off.
• Monster Hunter Freedom series (PSP)
• Wii Sports (Wii) - Note that this game had a 40% attach rate even in regions where it wasn't bundled with the Wii.

I would think FFVII pushed ps1 sales quick hard. And I'm curious what ps5 sales do with GTA6.

But for my answer I'm going with Wii Sports.

GTA 3 on PS2. Everyone wanted to have that game and it was an exclusive when it first came out.

Metal Gear Solid 4 on PS3. I know three people who bought the console just for that game.

Goldeneye 64 on N64. That game wiped the floor even with shooters on PC.

Those are the ones from the top of my head.

Wii sports. It was such a system seller that some people did not know that the Wii could play other games.

Will list the games that got me to buy/wish for each console I have had significant access to..
NES - Super Mario Bros 3
SNES - Zelda a Link to the Past
Gameboy - Tetris
Game boy advance - Warioland 4 (Mostly played Pokémon Crystal instead since I found out that I did not like Warioland very much)
PS1 - Crash Bandicoot
Gamecube - Mario Kart Double Dash!! ... and Zelda collectors edition that came packed in. Oh that deal will probably never be beaten.
PC - Warcraft 3. Upgraded the old famiily PC that I had taken over to be able to play this
PS2 - Resident Evil 4 (played it on Gamecube first, but when I moved out the Cube was left with the rest of the family and I simply needed to play this more)
DS - Warioware Touched
Wii - Zelda Twilight princess
PS3 - The last of us
3DS - Nothing, just got into some money the same week it got released and bought it.
New 3DS - Majoras Mask 3D
WiiU - Super Mario Maker
Switch - Zelda breath of the wild (Even bought the game before the console)
PS5 - Massive list of PS4 games and 4K blu-ray player

Collage football moving the Series S is the only one that comes to mind.

For Nintendo its without a doubt Mario Platformers. Stuff like Zelda Main line games (ei. breath of the wild). Pokemon deserves a mention too.
For myself personally the 3D mario games.

For Xbox its the "big three" (halo,gears,forza).  (all 3 IP seem to be down, compared to past glory, and so is Xbox sales)

For PlayStation,... it varies. Currently its probably Last of Us, God of War, Spider man,...
GTA6 will be a big one as well (even if its not exclusive) (this game is gigantic in europe, were there are lots of PS5 owners).


Basically anything that's exclusive (mostly 1st/2nd party, but also 3rd party), that sells well.
Stuff like BG3, that was a year exclusive on PS because of Series S, Wukong, ect.

Okay, MGS2 on PS2. That definitely sold systems as did MGS4 on PS3. Gta 4, I remember a lotta people rushing to get one for that. Bloodborne, The Witcher 3 and MGS5 in 2015 around that period for the ps4 it started to become nessesary for people to upgrade, can't really tell if it sold system though but Uncharted 4 the following year definitely did.

Breath of the Wild for switch. Twilight Princess and Wii sports or wii. 

Halo CE for Xbox plus every Halo in the future up until like ODST. FORZA games too. 

The 4x genre for PC or games like Civ and the like. 

Mario Kart and Smash. Nintendo's consoles wouldn't be selling nearly as well as they do without those two IPs.

Mario Kart 8 was by far and wide the best-selling Wii U game with over 8M copies sold on a console that sold 13M total.

For the Switch, we can safely add Breath of the Wild. I don't think the console would have taken off nearly as well as it did without this game.

Mario in general has that appeal, especially 2D Mario titles. just look how New Super Mario Bros boosted the DS and the Wii.