If you'd like a quick snapshot of what the world has come to, we bring you news that Wii Sports is now officially the best-selling videogame ever made. It has overtaken Super Mario Bros., Pokémon and Tetris, according to trusted stat lover VGCharts.
Obviously, the fact that Wii Sports is packed in with the insanely popular Wii system is the reason for this, piggybacking off a console that has sold 40.52 million units since its November 2006 launch. According to the report, this puts it just slightly ahead of former bestseller Super Marios Bros.
It's worth pointing out that VGCharts is no great officiator, but it's more that this report is true. Anything packed in with the Wii is going to top charts, and the numbers are likely to keep on soaring for as long as people demand the thing.
Just when we all thought Psychonauts was going to top the chart.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
9:30 AM on 01.05.2009
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That's a cop out.
also SMB was bundled for a long time too
I love how you have to go down to #12 on the linked list to find anything not on a nintendo system. Wow, Nintendo is a juggernaut, and it was easy to forget that during the few years pre-wii.
It's the second worst list in the world.
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.
how bout a news story about what's going on with the wii's memory issues? the last i heard, there was an idea in the works to allow you to access an sd card for additional memory. haven't heard anything about it since.
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!
Where the other systems have made progress in technology, online experiences, and overall quality of games... The Wii packages cheap last-generation hardware and for the most part gives you games that really arent anything to write home about.
Plus... seriously this shouldnt count. Its bundled with the system.
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.
I'm about to bust it out RIGHT NOW.
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.
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
The PlayStation gave the full extent of what it could offer to new gamers. The Wii hasn't.
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.
so that's 5 x 40.52 million
@DanGale
I agree with you both wholeheartedly.
I do not agree with you wholeheartedly.
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.
Also, @JohnJohnson. I agree with the Goldeneye analogy. Lumping all gamers into a "hardcore (bad)" and "casual (always good)" category is not good.
So did Wii Sports really outsell Minesweeper?
Also, it shouldn't count and nor should the original Mario Bros. game. If you don't have the option NOT to buy something, then you don't really have the option to buy it, you're simply given it. Neither should count.
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.
There is not plenty of good games for the Wii, only a select handfull at best. This can be corrobated by Metacritic scores. If you want quality games, go for a 360 or PS3.