Trying to catch up with FIFA

If you read our earlier news about Mario & Sonic coming 3rd in today's UK charts, then you may have spotted the little fact about the Pokémon franchise being the 10th biggest seller in the UK over the last 15 years. Eurogamer.net has now been provided with the full top ten by GfK Chart-Track (copyright UKIE), which shows the most successful franchises in the UK since 1996, and the result isn't particularly surprising.

This is one competition that Mario can't win, as EA's FIFA franchise is the biggest selling and most financially successful in the UK charts since 1996, reaffirming the common knowledge that a lot of Brits are football mad. Mario comes in second place in sales (third in revenue), though it should be acknowledged that quite a few of the plumber's biggest and most famous titles came on NES and SNES, outside of the recorded statistics. If you want to know the biggest seller, it's the plastic-wheeled fun of Mario Kart Wii, which also holds the honour of the highest selling single platform game in the whole period.

Other notable franchises include Sonic in 6th place, though the best selling title from the main franchise in this period is Sonic Heroes: games featuring Sonic, such as the Olympics titles, have been a big success. There are also the LEGO titles in ninth place, with the franchise truly gaining steam with LEGO Star Wars in 2005.

For you stat-fans, Eurogamer has the following statistics for video games sales in the UK since 1996: £18.6 billion has been spent, and 796 million games have been sold.

[source eurogamer.net]