Barbie Outsells Metroid, God of War, Mario Kart, Devil May Cry, and Bomberman

[Evastio]

This is one of the few times where I make a thread title that doesn't exactly correlate to the thread topic, simply because the thread topic title is true, which is quite mind blowing.

Anyways, the topic at hand is the List of Best Selling Video Games Franchises. So what are you comments and opinions of it? (assuming that the list is true)

Personally, it makes me quite angry how high Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty are, especially considering they're above Final Fantasy (which had a 10 year lead over both of them). As long as they don't outsell Mario, Pokemon, and Tetris, I'm still good though.

I'm also kind of suprised how much FIFA and Madden sell. Sports games don't exactly strike me as one of the most popular gaming genres out there, but I'm not mad about it at all (it's kind of suprising that it outsells Sonic and Zelda though).

Regarding Naughty Dog's game series, well, I hope they've realized by now that ditching Crash Bandicoot and passing him over to different game developers wasn't the best of ideas, seeing how Crash is outselling both Jak and Daxter and Uncharted (the latter being beaten by Barbie) combined, despite the mixed reception of non-Naughty Dog developed Crash games.

As for Barbie, I can't help but chuckle at how successful it is. I'm kind of disappointed that Bomberman is so low, but at least it's still on the list.

How about the rest of you?

[Agent Proto]

How can you be surprised by how much FIFA and Madden sold? It shouldn't be a surprise at all. Madden and FIFA always, and I mean always, have a game out every single year, and each game sells a lot because it's one of the more popular brands of games.

[Mirage]

That list is a retarded piece of crap. Many of the groupings are are suspect to say the least. One example: The Warcraft entry includes lots of non-videogames, but does not include World of Warcraft. Seriously, they're counting non-videogames in a best selling video game list, but omitts a video game?

Other potentially inaccurate stuff is grouping all games made with a license from a certain copyright holder as one franchise. With a license from for example Disney, "The Little Mermaid" games count towards the same franchise as a Donald Duck game, or Ducktales game. Claiming these are games in the same franchise is questionable at best.

Unserious list is Unserious.

edit
But there's more! I'm also not convinced they count expansions in a sensible manner. If expansions count towards the total sales count for one game, then you have to include DLC that "acts like an expansion" as well. Now that this is done, where do you draw the line? Some DLC adds a ton more content than other.

[NorthernChaosGod]

I don't even take those yearly sport games into consideration for yearly sales when best selling titles are concerned. There is a core group of sports gamers that will buy them every year just because it has the name behind it, regardless of new content being with it or not. I ain't mad at the companies behind them for finding a "working formula".

I'm already comfortable with the fact that best-selling doesn't mean most worthwhile (and have been for quite some time now), so this list isn't really that shocking. I do wish that artistic merit did count for more than it currently does, but what are you going to do. The masses speak, the developers listen.

[Mirage]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention what I think about that. The yearly FIFA/Madden/whatever games, if they were any other game than those, the yearly releases would be called expansion packs/DLC, not new games.

[I Don't Need A Name]

I'm more worried about how high Sponge Bob Square Pants is on that list..

[Pike]

I'm glad to see both SimCity and Civilization on there.

[Hollycat]

I love how they say wii sports is the best selling game of all time. the only reason that is true is because it ALWAYS bundled with the wii, so really you arent buying sports, you are buying the wii.
How the sims is so high I will never know, they are the least fun games imaginable, the game actually punishes you for changing your characters schedules.
HA! look how far halo is on the list. OMG! how are kirby AND megaman that low!!!
Same for ratchet and clank
What upsets me the most is Dynasty warriors. They have released over 20 DW and 10 SW games, how can they have only sold 19 million????



Also, kingdom hearts is disheartening at 15 million, I thought they were some of the most popular games out there....

[I Don't Need A Name]

It's worrying that, on the individual games, Grand Turismo are the best selling PS games, whereas Kinect Adventures is the 2nd best for X-Box :')

[Jessweeee♪]

Barbie Race and Ride for the PS1 and that Barbie game for the PC where you make movies are super fun!

[Lionx]

I hope you aren't literally angry Lol!

Personally I am not surprised, but i am not interested in most of those games on that list outside of Pokemon, Mega Man (Legends), and Street Fighter (and even then for SF its slowly dwindling with every incompetent game Ono spits out). Most of the games I like will never make it there on that list, like Klonoa, Solatorobo and Odin Sphere. The best games are always going to be the unsung ones...

Barbie is mad HYPE! LOL! Waiting on Ken DLC!

[Iceglow]

You're surprised that commercial titles have outsold games meant for a more core market? No, I mean what? I don't understand how could that happen? Seriously? Yes I'm being sarcastic.

Commercial games franchises such as Lego, Barbie, Disney, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Call of Duty, EA Sports will always outsell more core titles and franchises such as Starcraft, Halo, Uncharted, Gears of War, Assassins Creed and so forth. It's called marketing, Wii sports is the biggest single selling title to date? As pointed out previously, sold with the Wii console, never seperately so not really buying the game. Kinect Adventures is the second best 360 game of all time? Uh, same story as Wii Sports bro, it's packaged with the Kinect sensor bar and Kinect sensor bundled 360 console. Both of which are in massive popularity right now since essentially it's easier and better than a Wii ever was.

I think the point I'm trying to make though is this; Get off your soap box about something so obvious. In fact, if these commercial franchises were not outselling the more core titles and a core title was the top selling franchise, I would be more worried. Why would that bother me? It'd mean no one is buying games anymore like they do at the moment and that would be bad because these commercial franchises are the bread and butter of the games market allowing developers to produce these core titles we enjoy because they know they can break even on the bread and butter side.

[black orb]

>>> Not surprised, in fact I`d play a Barbie game instead of overrated stuff like GoW, Mario Kart, DMC or a Metroid game anyday..