Yeah I'd also lean towards those two.

With Animal Crossing in particular I feel like New Horizons cultivated a large audience who may not necessarily be interested in say Mario or Zelda, but would pounce on the next AC game, in a similar way to the way Wii Sports did back in the day.

Still Mario, Zelda, but now Animal Crossing, and if Donkey Kong Bananza keeps up it's momentum Donkey Kong will be back in the group of Nintendo IPs with the most selling power.

At this stage, I don't think it matters. Until Nintendo loses its popularity, they could launch with whatever and it'll sell.

Mario Kart is top dog.

Steel Diver
Tank Troopers
Code Name Steam
Rusty's Real Deal Baseball.

All together these can sell 10s of units! Maybe even a dozen!


Oh I misunderstood the assignment. Used to be Pokemon. Now seems to be Mario Kart.

Pokemon, and it's not even close.

Popular brands still see hardware spikes when a big new IP arrives and pushes those who were on the fence or waiting to take the leap though.

Mario Kart and Pokemon are the top dogs tbh, next it's Animal Crossing while it sells more as an individual title compared to everything else except MK I put Pokemon above it because the multiple releases of Pokemon lead to constant spikes consistently with its high sales (S/S and S/V have combined sales of 54.57m before we factor Lets Go and others which also sold 10-15m as well it's effectively still the highest selling IP on Nintendo's platforms more than even MK). Smash and Post BOTW Zelda, 3D Mario is still well in the conversation as well but probably for the first time in history outside of the top 5.

Since this thread is solely about system selling power:

1. Mario Kart: Obviously the biggest, being the best selling Nintendo game on the four most recent Nintendo systems by a comfortable margin.

2. Pokémon: Near-yearly releases and sub-par performance, but still consistent sales.

3. Animal Crossing: Obviously inflated due to the pandemic, but ACNH still would've been huge and likely still the third best selling Switch game. WW & NL were also huge.

4. Smash Bros.: Consistently near the top of the pack, and it only gets bigger with the buzz around who's joining next.

5. 3D Mario: These games usually showcase new hardware the best. Mario Odyssey was actually briefly the best selling Switch game when it first launched.

6. 3D Zelda: The open world aspect has really caused sales to explode and while I am listing it below 3D Mario despite it doing better on Switch 1, I still feel 3D Mario will more consistently outshine it going forward, at least as far as system sellers goes.

7. Mario Party: Always been a consistent seller, but those yearly releases in the N64 & GCN days definitely hurt the chances back then. We've seen now how consistent the sales are and how big it is for Nintendo.

If I was asked this question during the DS/Wii days, I would've included 2D Mario. Obviously other franchises like Splatoon, Kirby and Pikmin are big but not quite system seller caliber.

Donkey Kong has only had that distinction on hardware boosts with Donkey Kong Country. It sold 6 million copies in its first holiday season alone. Keep in mind it was released globally right around the US Thanksgiving and Black Friday so it had less than two months to reach that figure. That is insane for 1994. I can't find how many SNES consoles were sold during that time period, but I'd imagine a lot. 

I don't know if Bananza can turn DK into a system-selling IP but it is doing well.