The most popular:

1. Mario
2. Final Fantasy
3. Halo
4. GTA
5. Pokemon
6. Gran Turismo
7. Wii Games
8. Sims
9. Zelda
10. Dragon Quest

A good list, but SM sales consistently beat out MK. Zelda and SSB definately deserve to be there, too.

If you lump all the Marios together, it might deserve the top slot.

Also need Madden, FIFA, Guitar Hero, maybe Metal Gear. Not God of War, not unit one of them hits over 3 million.

Oh and if you're just doing first week, how could you ignore WiiFit?

you're missin' MGS I think it's a good franchise no ! of course I am still for

1 _ ZELDA lol

Too many lists without Guitar Hero.

I'm not sure why you would measure things by first week sales, either.

I'd put Mario at #1 in overall popularity. There could be FIVE 10-million selling Mario games this gen alone by this time next year. (NSMB, MK DS, MK Wii, SMG, M&S@O.) Already 65M games sold this gen.

Then Wii-brand, Pokemon, the Sims, GTA, Brain Training and Guitar Hero round out the top. Halo, CoD and Animal Crossing could be up there, but they both only have 1 recent mega-hit. Madden, FIFA, Need for Speed, Final Fantasy and Zelda are probably still in the top 20. Warcraft has to be put up there. A potential top 20 franchise people might not think of is LEGO Star Wars, which has sold 18M units in just over 3 years.

1. Pokemon

2. GTA

3. Wii

4. Mario (all brands)

5. Final Fantasy

6. Gran Turismo

7. Halo

8. Dragon Quest

9. The Sims

10. WOW

I'm using that criteria because I'm more interest in franchises that can sell over one million first week than franchises  that are known with long legs. This is why I need an edit button.

This is why Animal Crossing, or any of the EA stuff wouldn't count because I really doubt they could hit a million. 

1. Mario (200 million)
2. Pokémon (175 million)
3. The Sims (100 million)
4. Final Fantasy (80 million)
5. Grand Theft Auto (70 million)
6. Madden NFL (70 million)
7. Tetris (70 million)
8. FIFA (65 million)
9. The Legend of Zelda (52 million)
10. Tom Clancy (52 million)

^{The Numbers say it all....}

^{Amazing how people put Halo on their list and none of their games have sold over 9M copies.}

Currently Most Important IMO

1. Final Fantasy
2. GTA
3. Mario
4. Resident Evil
5. Halo
6. Pokemon
7. Zelda
8. Guitar Hero
9. Madden
10. GT

Honorable mention: Sonic (relevant in the past... sadly not now)

Way too many of you are missing the "Wii" series. We're looking at the biggest games of our generation. Wii Sports (likely to become the highest selling game of all time), Wii Play, which could end up as the second best selling, Wii Fit, which is getting ten times more hype than GTA4 and a tenth of the bitching about the hype, and several other games such as Wii Music and Wii Chess.

This is easily the most relevant series today and might end up becoming one of the biggest series in the course of a generation.

My top 10 - obviously biased against wii, since i don't own it

Not really in order:

1. Gran Turismo
2. Grand Theft Auto
3. Call of Duty
4. Halo
5. Killzone
6. Resistance
7. SOCOM
8. Splinter Cell
9. Metal Gear Solid
10. Gears of War

If it wasn't nintendo bias, i'd probably have Smash Bros., and/or Mario in there.