Wii Sports officially the best-selling game ever

I agree, but technically this is the case. This is also why Super Mario Bros. has been on top for so long.

and solitaire is bundled in with PC's, I think solitaire wins.

brb, buying 45 million copies of Psychonauts.

Lol, Nintendo does it again.

What this means to me is, 40 million people own Wii Sports, which means that 40 million people see Wii Sports as the new face of videogames.

For years I've been irritated with the fact that the non-gaming media has such an ill informed idea of what videogames are. Sa what you will about Wii Sports, but it's definitely not guilty of furthering all the negative stereotypes about videogames that have been around since the Atari days.

Wii Sports is not a game that's just for kids, it's not a game that's about isolating from the outside world, and it's not a game that uses mindless violence to sell itself. I’m not saying that there is anything wrongwith games that do all those things, but I am sick and tired of the maintstream thinking that that's all that videogames can do.

Nintendo's the only company that packed in the best available game for their system from day one. Microsoft and Sony stand to learn from this - Halo party or God of War beach volleyball would make a killing as a pack-in for the next console generation.

I have to agree with Silvain and Jonathan: there's nothing to get upset about here. Those of us old enough to remember the original Mario games and their own "insane popularity" will be familiar with this situation: a game comes out which somehow captures the imagination of people with only a cursory interest in games while AT THE SAME TIME, the same game impresses the hell out of supposed "hardcore" gamers, for its fundamental simplicity, superb control scheme and expertly balanced gameplay.

I for one have probably put more hours into Wii Sports than almost every other game over the last two years. Why? Because I played the hell out of it when I bought my launchday Wii - and it has subesquently been played on hundreds of occasions when I have guests coming over to visit and there is nothing decent on TV. My brother-in-law has a record score of -9 on Wii Golf. MINUS NINE. I very much doubt that his record will ever be beaten on my console, and this is a record made by a guy who hasn't played games with any regularity since the Master System II. No amount of online COD or building LBP levels can compete with that kind of universal appeal.

So....congrats to the Wii Sports team, I'm looking forward to the sequel!

Wasn't Super Mario packaged with the original Nintendo? And Tetris came with original Game Boy. So Nintendo is just cheating to get it's games to the top!! Fair Play, what ever works.
Everyone I know, other than myself and well Niero, that has a Wii only has Wii Sports and they all think it is the greatest game ever made. Kind of sad.

Lot's of 'BAWWWWWWW'ing going on in this comment thread. Wii Sports is awesome. Live with it!

I'm about to bust it out RIGHT NOW.

@ Jonathan

I think that you've just stated an out-of-the-frying pan, into-the-fire scenario; now instead of people viewing video games as ultra-violent, antisocial amusements of the criminally insane, they will view them as facile, stick waggling trifles, to be used 15 minutes at a time or in a drunken stupor (the only time I've enjoyed Wii Sports). I think I would prefer the former, at least it kept a lot of the riff-raff out.

I'm sensing some hostility. Does anyone else feel like the air around them is bubbling like boiling water?

Played about 6 hours of Wii bowling over the past weekend, and I have had it since launch. Chicks dig it and it is a lot of fun. Deal with it, haters.

No big deal all three of those other top three don't belong there either

SMB-pack-in
tetris-pack-in
pokemon- combining three games into one especially considering alot of people re bought yellow after owning red and blue

This all seems fair enough to me. Ultimately this list is about the number of games owned by people, regardless of whether it is bundled, and as an extention of this these games are the most widely played (outside of PC freeware etc).

It would be foolish to expect the top games to be fully hardcore games. There simply are not enough hardcore gamers for this to happen. Also you have to factor in the fact that many gamers are still young and can't necessarily go out any get games on a whim, whilst older people are more viable to be affected by zeitgeist and delve into the latest popular trends.

It doesn't hurt that these games are all of a very high quality. And they provide good experiences that can be shared by people who aren't familar with FPSs or MMOs. And if you think that's a bad thing you're an idiot.

@ChaosSeven

Actually, the Playstation, much like the Wii, was full of terrible games quickly developed to cash-in. But just like the Wii there was a selection of great games.

The NES, Playstation, PS2 and the Wii all introduced the average Joe to games. People just forget that every so often there needs to be a re-introduction. Of course then the current "hardcore" moan because their club isn't private any more.

@Novakaine
@DanGale

I agree with you both wholeheartedly.

@Kaironn

I was merely pointing out the futility of all this hostility towards the system publisher and developers. The "hardcore" do moan. That's not being childish, that's calling it. There's one or two comments in here moaning about the Wii and it was even suggested that it was "killing" the industry. This is actually the least moaning I've seen.

If you're Wii is collecting dust then that means you're not using it, so why have it? The reason I don't own a PS3 is because I know there is little incentive for me to play it. I wouldn't then go out and buy it then moan it collects dust, so I don't see why that's such a common complaint. There are plenty of games for it. If you see nothing there then there's two reasons. Either a) you're not looking or b) you just can't find anything you, personally, are interested in playing. In which case, sell the thing and buy games you do like.

There have been a few good third party original games on the Wii so far. Zack & Wiki, Boom Blox and de Blob are just a few. Of course I'm not going to go down the route of listing them all because it be futile.

You know the reason that I make sure I always get a Nintendo console at least? Because of those "obligatory" games you speak of. Yes, that's right. Those are called franchises and lots of people play them. I'm just waiting for a new Starfox that'll hopefully hold up to Lylat Wars. And Ocarina of Time has already been surpassed. three times. Majora's Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. These are just some of the good games I speak of. Because say what you want, but these are quality titles. Quality titles that I'm still playing.

You mention s ome of the shitty stuff SEGA is doing but you miss out three of the most anticipated titles for the Wii next year. What about Madworld, The Conduit and House of the Dead: Overkill? Personally I'm only really interested in The Conduit but I know many people are following the development of the other two.

And Capcom are actually one of the better companies on the Wii so far. They've actually made an effort. Sure, if you don't like the look of Dead Rising don't buy it. I'm sure somebody will enjoy it.

The Virtual Console is one of the major selling points, it's just a shame they don't advertise it more. They could make a killing of most of these "soccer moms" that played Super Mario Bros. back in the day, alienated by the mid 90's. The original games come from Wiiware, and there's a couple of gems on there. Have you looked?

Maybe that's not your attitude, but I know it's the attitude that many have taken. They feel threatened that everybody thinks they're a "gamer" now.

And if you've never seen this amount of shovelware then did you really have an NES? How about a Gameboy? :P

@Lightthrower

Fair enough.

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ DanGale

I think the issue here is the ratio of bloatware to quality titles. Any gaming platform will have crap by the truckload, but the trick is to create enough decent software so that the discerning gamer won't really notice the crap. Also, the discerning gamer and the hardcore gamer are NOT the same thing. Plenty of my middle school friends were not and are not gamers but they could all instantly realize that Goldeneye was a good game. I think my issue with the Wii is that it lacks a decent stable of games with any depth. They're all fun for a little bit, but they get old kind of fast, and why should I spend my money on something like that.

I will give you the Virtual Console though, which is almost enough to buy the whole thing itself. There's a reason I play the Virtual Console more than any new release, and it's not nostalgia. Nostalgia will keep you playing a game for 20 minutes or so, but when you play through all 8 levels of Mario 3, even though it takes hours, you're doing it because it's a fun game. Which, coincidentally, this whole business of gaming is about. Enjoying yourself. And I guess the long-winded point I'm trying to make is that Wii (virtual console excluded) is not fun for me and I have a difficult time seeing how it could be fun for others. And, I would be pretty depressed if Wii was the direction gaming was headed in. Sorry for sounding like a pompous ass, sometimes I can't help it.

Kaironn obviously doesn't enjoy his Wii, and DanGale obviously does, but the fact is Shigeru Miyamoto himself apologized for twilight princess not matching up to ocarina of time, not surpassing it.

Also, @JohnJohnson. I agree with the Goldeneye analogy. Lumping all gamers into a "hardcore (bad)" and "casual (always good)" category is not good.

Wii Sports is a game? I could have sworn it was a tech demo.

So did Wii Sports really outsell Minesweeper?

@ DanGale

Beacause they bought the Wii early, bought all the games that interested them, and when they beat those games, had nothing else to use it for. It's a pretty simple concept, and I'm sure it doesn't just apply to the Wii. There has to be people who feel that way about the 360/PS3.

On topic, bundled games just shouldn't count. Super Mario Bros. is still the best-selling game of all time to me, not matter what any chart tries to tell me otherwise.

And I wish that Psychonauts had topped sales charts. It is certainly more deserving than Wii fucking Sports.

barf