To be honest, we’re still not sure. The NPD Group released data for the “Top Selling Games Annual 2008” with Wii Play coming in at number one, boasting 5.28 million copies sold.
Wii Play‘s sales for the year beat out Grand Theft Auto IV with a combined total of 5.18 million copies sold on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. But that doesn’t take into account GTA IV‘s PC sales. Not trying to take anything away from Wii Play here or NPD’s ranking methodology, but we’re missing some important data to determine the sales king of 2008’s retail mountain.
Especially since World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King doesn’t appear on the list. It’s limited to video game consoles only.
While Madden NFL 09 appears on the top ten list with 1.87 million copies sold, we don’t have figures for all platforms. And Madden ships on many, many platforms. Same for Call of Duty World: at War. Yes, those disparate platforms provide a wider range of experiences, so the argument that each SKU should be stand on its own is sound.
Regardless of the confusion, here are NPD’s best selling titles of 2008. That’s the best-selling, console-specific best selling video games of 2008 that does not include Windows or Mac titles.
01. Wii Play (Wii) – 5,280,000
02. Mario Kart Wii (Wii) – 5,000,000
03. Wii Fit (Wii) – 4,530,000
04. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 4,170,000
05. Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) – 3,290,000
06. Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360) – 2,750,000
07. Gears of War 2 (Xbox 360) – 2,310,000
08. Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3) – 1,890,000
09. Madden NFL 09 (XBox 360) – 1,870,000
10. Mario Kart DS (DS) – 1,650,000
