well this list can be debatable because is a wiki list and not a encarta list, you can be a member of wiki and debate this things, i think that tetris have to stay in that list too.

Check this for the Lineage number The Best-Selling Videogame Franchises. Forbes.

As far the rest I don't know it's wikipedia after all but I will look for those numbers and post them.

I have Kirby at 8.17 million can you give me a link

Need for Speed has topped 36 million just counting million-sellers, and may be much higher in total--possibly enough to reach the top 10.

Medal of Honour has sold 17 million.

Duck Hunt sold 28 million by itself.

Tekken has sold at least 24 million.

Namco Museum has topped 10 million.

Animal Crossing has topped 10 million.

Tony Hawk has sold a minimum 14 million.

Spiderman has sold 17 million.

Harry Potter has sold 13 million.

The Simpsons has crossed 10 million.

FIFA has sold 15 million.



For a list of 10-million-selling franchises, it sure missed a lot of them.

Alacrist, I'm just searching on the million-selling software page on this site.

Might as well use the features of the site you're posting on.

Counting million-sellers only, Kirby has sold 23.5 million.

Granted, this is only "shipments," but there is no worldwide sell-through tracking, and it can be assumed that the bulk of shipped games were eventually bought by consumers as bargain titles or parts of bundle deals, if nothing else.

Lineage topped 3 million subscriptions at one point, and Lineage II topped 1 million. So its probably a 10-million selling franchise at a minimum.

But no way it sold 43 million unique games. Even if both games came out in 1998, and Lineage sold 3 million copies and Lineage II 1 million copies every single year, they'd only reach 40 million this year. Clearly they are inflating the number through total subscriptions somehow (bulk subscriptions from internet cafes, renewed subscriptions from existing players, etc).

Star Wars has to be pretty high on that list. Good luck compiling the numbers, though. Games date back all the way to 2600.

Fine. Fine. My bad. I forgot about the billions of Madden games. I just did a quick skim and found it odd, wasn't thinking it all the way through. No need to continue quoting me.

TEN half-life games?
Uh, I can count five of them
HL, HL: Opposing Force, HL: Blue Shift, HL2, HL2:Ep.1

edit: 43 millions Lineage? I think this is wrong. 

Here's a more accurate top 30. I used Alacrist's Wikipedia numbers when they were higher than VGC's count of million-sellers-only, and vice versa, and added a bunch of franchises with numbers derived from VGC's list. I also added pack-in titles with an asterisk, and consolidated the various Tom Clancy brands from the original list. I also rounded numbers and left franchises with similar sales on the same spot on the list, since there's a ton of guesswork anyways. I cut Lineage from the list, since we know 43 million is too high. Lastly, I threw in numbers for some non-million seller games where I thought of it; for example, the sales of Diddy Kong Racing DS ought to push the DK franchise above 50 million, and sales of Spiderman 3 push that franchise to at least the 17 million mark.

1. Mario 282 million *including pack-ins (~200 w/o pack-ins; >300 w/ pack-ins and spin-offs like Yoshi and Wario.)
2. Pokemon 155 million
3. Sim 85 million
4. Final Fantasy 75 million
5. Grand Theft Auto 59 million
6. Madden NFL 56 million
7. Donkey Kong 50 million
7. Zelda 50 million
9. Tetris 46 million *including pack-in
9. Gran Turismo 46 million

11. Tom Clancy 44 million
11. Sonic 44 million
13. Dragon Quest 41 million
14. Star Wars 39 million
15. Need For Speed 36 million
16. Crash Bandicoot 34 million
17. Resident Evil 31 million
18. James Bond 007 30 million
18. Tomb Raider 30 million
20. Duck Hunt 28 million *including pack-in

21. Mega Man 27 million
22. Command and Conquer 25 million
22. Street Fighter 25 million
24. Tekken 24 million
24. Kirby 24 million
26. Mortal Kombat 20 million
27. Warcraft 19 million
27. Rayman 19 million
29. Metal Gear 18 million
30. 5 series with at least 17 million: Spyro, Winning Eleven, Diablo, Medal of Honor, Spiderman

Franchises including Tony Hawk, Harry Potter, FIFA and others would likely make the list with more complete numbers.

Erik, if your estimations are that Lineage topped 3 million / 1 million users, and therefore sold ten million games, how can Warcraft be stuck at 19 million when WoW alone had 8.5 million base game / 4 million expansion pack?

Warcraft III sold well over 5.5 million units. Just adding this up, we get:

8.5 + 4 + 5.5 = 18 million. This doesn't include Warcraft II, it doesn't include Warcraft I, it doesn't include the expansion for Warcraft III, and most importantly, it doesn't assume there are additional sales of WoW than the total max subscriber base (a la what you have calculated with Lineage). Even with all these major omissions, the total I've calculated is already close to your total.

I suspect 30 million is much closer than 20 million.

/end Warcraft nerd rant