Crunching numbers from financial reports isn't just for accountants and financial consultants: when a company like Nintendo releases its figures, even the humble gamer sits up to take notice. A list of the top-selling Nintendo games for the past financial year, then, is like sweet nectar to numeric nerds.
The top-selling DS game from Nintendo last year, to nobody's great surprise, was Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver, selling 8.4m copies worldwide. Follow-ups on the DS chart, however, were older titles: New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS and Pokémon Platinum.
Wii software sales, despite generally recognition as slowly fading out, eclipsed the top fifteen DS sellers easily. The evergreen Wii Sports came out on top with 17.7m copies around the globe, with its sequel not far behind on 16.1m and manic multiplayer romp New Super Mario Bros. managing 14.7m worldwide.
One view for the gulf between software sales has to be the DS's piracy problem, which surely accounts for millions of lost sales around the globe due to the sheer prevalence of pirate devices. The console's age may also account for its dwindling sales, with some titles on the list as old as the machine itself and the law of diminishing returns well and truly kicking in.
You can check out the complete list of million-selling games on page five of the linked report. It's interesting, promise.
[source nintendo.co.jp]
Comments 18
Shouldn't HeartGold and SoulSilver have separate sale amounts? Some people buy both.
I hate pirates... that's why I cheer ninjas, lol.
I'd say Nintendogs deserved to sell more than NSMB Wii.
Arrrrrr, mateys. pirates be robbing from these corporations
Jack Sparrow is stealing games now?
Why??? Why Mario Kart??? It sucks!!!!!
turn off your cruise control next time, plz -- TBD
Why was my comment removed?Surely every body knows about R4 cards???
I know in our household that we have more DS systems then Wii Systems.
However we have own a lot more Wii games then DS games.
I know there is a huge library of DS games but most of them are not worth a purchase in my mind.
We do however like the portability of the DS/DSi compared to the Wii.
However, like most people we don't spend that much time away from home so that would also probably account for why people own more Wii games than DS games.
Not only that but the quality and content in a Wii game is much better than the DS counterpart.
**groan**
**Prepares to brutally kill the next person comparing real pirates to software pirates** >: (
Those sales numbers are incredible! Does anyone recall Reggie's statement that New Super Mario Bros. Wii would sell more than single console sales of Moder Warfare 2? Well it seems that has come true by a land slide. I think in about another year we will see Mario's sales eclipse the sales of COD on Xbox and Playstation combined!!
I doubt the DS's piracy problem is that much larger than the Wii problem. There are just more good games competing on DS. Hardware sales numbers are also inflated by people upgrading. There are fewer DS owners than the sales numbers would reflect by far I'd imagine.
Its good to see Wii games doing well,though it would be nice if some 3rd party efforts were doing as well! I'm afraid to say that the issue with piracy is definetly effecting DS sales.Nearly everyone I know has an R4.I'm always trying to get them to see the error of their ways but alas it seems as though free stuff with seemingly no retribution is too good a combination to turn down,even for ,normally, law abiding people. I'm sure it has effect on Wii software sales to to a lesser extent too. Its a shame but it is nothing new. Hands up anyone who didn't pay for Commodore Amiga and 64 games back in the day . I'm a totally reformed character now though ,as a kid it didn't occur to me I was doing anything wrong
Isn't it always the console which is easy to mod/pirate games for, the best selling of the generation. I don't know a single person who didn't have their ps1 mod chipped, same goes for ps2 & Xbox and now Wii & DS, I think I’m the only one out of my friends that sill pay for full retail games.
I hear that Luigidude, I still have a Amiga 600 and a box full of copied games and although I still download some music (different argument for another day) I too am a reformed character who recognises if we don't pay for the games we play, there will be no games to play in the future. I mean look where Commodore is now thanks to me and you Luigidude
I understand why so many prefer pirating their DS games, and I know a lot of people who do. It's way more convenient, never having to swap game card and being able to back up the save files on a computer. Once you get used to it, it's very hard to go back. I myself still buy my DS games but I've got ane Acekard2 which I use for emulation, and it's an incredible little device.
@Token Girl I'm not sure I agree with you. It's way harder getting pirated games to run on your Wii than on your DS. Nowdays the only thing you have to do to play pirated DS games is to buy a game card and transfer some games from your computer, and you're ready to go.
__Stevie wrote:
Exactly .Let that be a lesson to you all.
psssst....its not really our fault is it Stevie?
Well I would like to see more Wii games on the list as I think there has been really good ones on that system lately.
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