It goes without saying that Nintendo is preparing for a big year in 2012. With the release of the Wii U, and the aftermath of a 3DS price drop, looming over the horizon, the house that Mario built thought they would take a look back at some of their sales numbers to reflect on what has worked and what, surprisingly didn’t.
Revealed as part of some yearly reports are which first-party Wii titles, so far, have been the best sellers, and which of the mega-popular Pokémon series’ iterations have moved the most units. While Pokémon selling well isn’t a surprise, which Wii titles failed to beat the more casual fare is a bit surprising.
It’s no surprise that the Wii, with its casual inclinations, would move more copies of titles like Wii Play, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit, but the fact that hardcore, very much Nintendo, titles like Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess fail to hold a torch to those casual games is pretty shocking.
Unfortunately it was only Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii that even represented the traditional Nintendo properties on the sales report and challenged these juggernaut casual games.. Titles like Wii Sports and Wii Play nearly doubled the numbers of Super Mario Galaxy and Mario Party 8, approachable games in their own right. It’s somewhat disheartening that the more iconic Nintendo titles couldn’t top the charts, but perhaps the Wii U will correct that.
Here’s your Nintendo first-party sales list:
1. Wii Sports (2006) 76.76 Million Units Sold
2. Wii Play (2007) 28.02 Million Units Sold
3. Wii Sports Resort (2009) 27.68 Million Units Sold
4. Mario Kart Wii (2008) 27 Million Units Sold
5. Wii Fit (2008) 22.67 Million Units Sold
6. Super Mario Bros. Wii (2009) 21.94 Million Units Sold
7. Wii Fit Plus (2009) 18.49 Million Units Sold
8. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008) 10.27 Million Units Sold
9. Super Mario Galaxy (2007) 9.31 Million Units Sold
10. Mario Party 8 (2007) 8.22 Million Units Sold
11. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010) 6.36 Million Units Sold
12. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006) 5.82 Million Units Sold
On the Pokémon side of things, taking the top spot for all of the pocket monster titles are the Diamond/Pearl iterations – which, to date, have best captured the magic of those first Red/Blue Gameboy titles. Most surprising is the fact that the recently released Black and White iterations have already out grossed the sales (during their release year) of the Platinum and HeartGold/SoulSilver versions.
We knew that Black and White were extremely popular – even record-breaking in fact – but clearly the overhaul of collectible Pokémon did well to reinvigorate that popularity.
Here’s how the sales broke down:
Pokémon Diamond/Pearl (2007) 17.57 Million
Pokémon Platinum (2009) 7.43 Million
Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver (2010) 11.90 Million
Pokémon Black/White (2011) 11.51 Million
Yes, Nintendo might not have hit big with their iconic franchises, but nonetheless they made a killing with their more casual fare. Sales of titles like Wii Fit and Wii Sports helped increase the appeal of video games, but they also might have stifled the focus placed on titles placed on titles like Mario or Zelda. Still, it’s hard to argue against some really tremendous sales numbers.
Are you surprised to see Wii titles like Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess didn’t sell nearly as well as the more casual fare? Do you think after the Wii U releases that Nintendo will put more focus on these franchises?
Source: Siliconera
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I think it’s more than a bit misleading to say “Nintendo might not have hit big with their iconic franchises,” especially without context. Compared to the bestsellers on PS3 and Xbox 360, even their hardcore franchises lap the field, with the exception of the massive Call of Duty franchise. Even then, i don’t think either of those systems has more than 2 or 3 combined that have broken 10 million.
I think it’s really a testament to how Nintendo managed to capture a much larger, less traditional market this generation, and not a poor reflection on Nintendo’s core franchises.
I agree. It’s more “the games with the lowest barrier of entry” sell the best rather than underperforming “core Nintendo games”. A lot of people bought Wiis for WiiFit, as a flippant device rather than play the best gaming experiences available. That and pack-in games are always going to sell better than the ones that aren’t.
Agreed, I was thinking the same thing, Sports came with every console, Wii Play came with a free Wiimote, Wii Resort came with a Motion Plus attachment, Wii Fit with the Wii Board. I think had all those titles not had some “need to have” attachment, they probbaly wouldn’t have sold as well.
Wait. Wii Fit and other casual games sold more copies than Brawl? I can see Wii Sports, since it came with the Wii. I’d of really figured that Brawl’s copies would be the highest. However durring the Wii U era I hope and expect more Hardcore games than casual,
That’s because the “True-Hardcore” hated Brawl for what it was. The whole game was about making the “chance” ratio go way up. You saw this with Super smash attacks, Trips. Combat was also MUCH slower.
If I could use Fox from Melee, I could crush any other toon in Brawl.
i only ever liked metroid and starfox. starfox bc krystal is sexy and its addictive, metroid for the atmosphere it USED to posses.
Those sales are absolutely staggering. Wii Fit/+ have 40million sales between them, that’s incredible. I’d wager that Nintendo has the lowest console:game adoption ratio though; their first party stuff blows everyone else out of the water but unfortunately the list of great games doesn’t stretch too far beyond what we see here.
The bigger downfall is that Ninty refused to reinvest all this cash into more AAA 1st party and exclusive 3rd party games, and keep the good times rolling. They’ve no-one to blame but themselves for slow sales recently. 1-2 great games per year just isn’t enough.
I also wonder if the Wii is a once off; like it got non-gamers to buy a games console. Can Ninty do it again 6 years later? Or will the new casual audience be already satiated with their SD white box?
That’s the big question, isn’t it? If recent rumors are correct that Sony and Microsoft’s next machines won’t hit til 2014, then Nintendo has a huge opportunity with the Wii U, provided they do it right. There are really too many question marks at this point to tell whether or not they’re heading down the right track, but…
If they can offer a significant, but not amazing bump in graphical prowess over PS3 & 360, an online network on par with say xbox live, serious 3rd party development, and an attractive price point, they could very well end up king of the hill once more. Couple this with the fact that they’re already signaling a lower barrier of entry (fully backwards compatible with wii controllers, peripherals and games, of course), and you can see that Nintendo is making a serious play to capture hearts and minds of casual and hardcore gamers everywhere.
For now though, that’s nothing more than a wish list. And their confusing unveil at this year’s E3 does not inspire confidence.
Really? on Online Network ON PAR with Xbox live is asking a little much, i would like a better online network, maybe even with PSN but not xbox live, that’s lightyears ahead of what nintendo has, and i’m not even sa microsoft fan, that’s just the truth.
I feel like Nintendo’s Wii U will be “On Par” with the systems out now, (besides the Wii ofcourse.) because at Nintendo’s e3 they didn’t mention the system’s power, or show anything on the system at all besides the stupid remote i could care less about.
Yeah, Live is great. <also not a Microsoft fan.
They actually did have a showcase of the Wii U’s graphical capabilities called Bird in Flight and they claimed that it had better graphics than the XBox 360 and even the PS3, but just a little. Nonetheless, a little can go a long way. They certainly showed enough on the system to get me interested in more.
if the money is in the garbage, theyll make more garbage, at least whit nintendo im pretty sure well be getting our Marios and Zeldas on a steady basis (even if they didnt sell that much) the way i see it the garbage pays the rent and with the surplus money they make the good stuff (pretty much like the movie industry works, crappy movies like transformers 3, Fast 5, pirates 4, pay the bill for amazing movies like scott pilgrim, true grit, and black swan, the music industry also has been doing this for quite some time, crappy pop artist pay the bills for REAL musicians)
I could fix Nintendo’s woes really easy.
I would Focus on Developers and Online primarily.
I would cut out anything that will make this next console extremely expensive.
I would attempt to add DVD/BR support.
I would advertise as much as I could.
If they followed this game plan, I would see no reason they wouldn’t be Number 1.
1st and 3rd party developers is massively important alright!
I definitely agree with online; Wii is sorely lagging behind it’s competition. I suppose their “couch-co-op” is in line with their casual Wii approach but surely this needs to be addressed in the Wii U.
I think everyone has a DVD player at this stage; and if Ninty and others hold out long enough the market will go towards digital distribution as a means to watch films; they should just push streaming/downloading services rather than Blu-Ray, which would be costly (maybe $50? I don’t know) and they’d line Sony’s pockets with royalties so I can’t see it happening at all.
Their advertising is pretty rock solid lol. I think their advertising campaign was the root of the Wii’s success!
What do you think the main selling point of the Wii U will be? Like why should casual people whose wiis are collecting dust, or who only play WiiFit buy another console?