The criteria is if the pack-in game is a game that can be sold at retail separately, it counts. Hexic, Freecell, Minesweeper, etc. thus don't make the cut. Debate all you want but that's how it is and it isn't going to change. :p

 StarCraft has sold over 9.5 million units, The Sims 16 millions and The Sims 2 13 millions (tracked by Wikipedia) while VGChartz announced that StarCraft doesn't even have sold 1 million! The reason is probably that this isn't a PC Games Chart site; IT'S A VIDEO GAME CHART SITE!!!

Interesting. Well played, sir.

Still... I can see the value in partially discounting pack-ins... It will end up being a difficult task, but it makes for a more valid look of what are truly the most popular games ever.

Thing is, Nintendo will still own the top 10. Super Mario Bros. and Tetris would both have outsold the Sims anyways, and the same will soon apply to Wii Sports. You can't discount Pokemon R/B/G, G/S, R/S or Nintendogs for having multiple SKUs unless you seriously believe that millions upon millions of people buy multiple content-similar SKUs. You can't discount Duck Hunt or Wii Play for being inexpensive, which is really what those particular pack-in deals come down to.

So it may be in a few years that Wii Sports, Super Mario Bros., Pokemon R/B/G, Tetris, Duck Hunt, Wii Play, Pokemon G/S, SMB3, Nintendogs and Pokemon R/S will be the ten most popular games that we have on record. I mean, if you want to be honest about it. Simply pretending that all these games don't exist due to the way that Nintendo marketed and/or packaged them seems even stupider than pretending they would have sold every copy they did if they weren't pack-ins.

Picko, your logic is so flawed.


1) most of home users use a pirated copy of windows. So technically they didn't buy the games that come packed in with it. They just buy hardware only.

2) People use Linux instead.

3) Most office places buy computers with windows for sole purpose of work not to play solitaire etc... Thus these can't be counted since the primary objective is to work not play games.



The point being even though console games have been pack ins. People still played them since they were there, since thats what the primary purpose of the console was for.

Just like some video cards these days come packed in with a couple games. I still played those games therefore they are sales.

Couldn't one argue that sice some people who bought the Wii that didn't play Wii Sports, like Tetris, shouldn't be accounted for in software sales.

If we go by #3, then pack-ins shouldn't be counted because some people didn't buy it for that game.

There is no right way to track pack-ins, so I for one think they should not be counted.

#3 is office related, All the offices, hospitals etc that bought the wii was purely for wii sports to help people get fit and active. ie that is the wii's only purpose. why else would the office/hospital buy a wii unless they wanted people to get fit and have fun.


Offices that buy a pc buy it for work

You really like things tied up in neat tidy packages.

Pack ins can stimulate console sales so yes they should count, a lot of people bought Wii because of Wii sports

where is grand theft auto SA? I thought that did over 10 million.

Might as well go down to the top 20, so we can see all of the potential challengers to the top ten:

12  Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas  Rockstar Games 6.98 14.88m
13  Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec  Sony 8.22 14.87m
14  Pokemon Yellow  Nintendo 8.13 14.64m
15  Grand Theft Auto: Vice City  Rockstar 8.08 14.20m
16  Super Mario 64  Nintendo 8.65 11.89m
17  Grand Theft Auto 3  Take 2 8.25 11.60m
18  Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins  Nintendo 8.23 11.18m
19  Wii Sports  Nintendo 8.13 11.08m
20  Pokemon Diamond / Pearl  Nintendo 8.04 10.93m

The two in bold, of course, are still selling large numbers and are certain to sell 6-7 figures over the holidays.  I'd actually be a bit shocked if D/P didn't sell a million between now and the end of the year.  The question is whether or not D/P is going to overtake VC anytime soon.