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Top 10 in Sales - Mario Franchise, 500M Games Sold - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 24 December 2012 / 36,831 Views

Welcome to the ‘Top 10’ weekly feature. Each week we will be taking a look at the top 10 selling games in a particular genre, platform, most recent month, even sprinkling in the top 10 selling games from a past year. All sales specified will be worldwide, unless stated otherwise.

This week we will be looking at the top 10 bestselling Mario games in order to celebrate the franchise selling its 500th million game. These are all the games that feature Mario in the title. Last week we looked at the top 10 bestselling Sega Genesis games and the week before that the top 10 bestselling games in November 2012. If there is a particular top 10 you want to see leave a comment and it may be featured in a future top 10.

Top 10 Selling Mario Games

Looking at the top 10 bestselling Mario games, there release dates span three decades, the 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s. Three of the games were released in the 1980’s, three were released in the 1990’s, and four were released in the 2000’s.

The top 10 bestselling Mario games sold a combined 230.02 million games. Which makes it easily one of the biggest top 10 list. Super Mario Bros. which was bundled with the NES sold more than 40 million units and is the second bestselling game of all time, behind Wii Sports which is another bundled game. The top six games sold 20 million or more units and all the games in the top 10 sold 10 million or more units.

There are six different platforms in the top 10. Four home console platforms: The NES, SNES, N64, and Wii. The GameCube and Wii U is Nintendo’s only home console to not have a Mario game in the top 10. The Wii U was just released a month ago and it will more than likely have at least one Mario game, New Super Mario Bros. U, enter the top 10 in the future. There are also two handhelds in the top 10: The Gameboy and DS. The Gameboy Advance and 3DS are the two Nintendo platforms to not have a game in the top 10. However the 3DS will more than likely have at least one game, New Super Mario Bros. 2, enter the top 10.

The two NES titles sold a combined 57.52 million units or 25.0 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two Wii titles sold a combined 59.44 million units or 25.8 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two DS titles sold a combined 51.24 million units or 22.3 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two Gameboy games sold a combined 29.32 million units 12.7 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

Top 10 Selling Mario Games

Taking a look at the top 10 bestselling Mario games as a graph really shows how popular the franchise is. If we looked at other top 10 a lot of them wouldn’t even have one game that sold as much as the 10th bestselling Mario game.

Here are other Mario sales: 12 games sold 10 million or more units and 32 sold five million or more units. 57 games sold two million or more units and 77 sold one million or more units. Also more than 500 million games have been sold for the franchise. This is more than the total number of games sold on a majority of gaming platforms.

Here is the breakdown in Mario sales by platform. 78.43 million Mario games were sold on the NES and 49.83 million were sold on the SNES. 34.46 million Mario games were sold on the Nintendo 64 and 30.08 million were sold on the GameCube. 116.40 million Mario games have been sold on the Wii to date, more than any other platform.

For the handhelds, 47.76 million Mario games were sold on the Gameboy and 33.34 million were sold on the Gameboy Advance. 89.09 million Mario games have sold on the DS to date and 21.33 million have been sold on 3DS to date.

Here is the breakdown by regions. Just over half of the total Mario games have been sold in North America, 253.24 million units or 50.5 percent of the total games sold in Mario franchise. 112.75 million Mario games have been sold in Europe which is 22.5 percent of the total games sold in Mario franchise. 109.11 million Mario games have been sold in Japan which is 21.7 percent of the total games sold in Mario franchise. The remaining sales, 26.65 million units, were sold in the remaining regions around the world.

There have been seven games released for the Mario Kart series. One has been released for every Nintendo platform, except for the NES and Gameboy. While there is none on the Wii U yet, there will be one in the future. The seven Mario Kart games have sold 93.56 million units to date or 18.6 percent of the total games sold in Mario franchise.

 There have been 12 Super Mario Bros. games (including the New series) released to date. Four of them have sold 10 million or more units and seven have sold five million or more units. They have sold a combined 140.42 million units to date or 28.0 percent of the total games sold in Mario franchise.

Contact VGChartz at wdangelo@vgchartz.com


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23 Comments
Qubie (on 24 December 2012)

The King of videogames

  • +22
S.Peelman (on 24 December 2012)

If Mario is not considered legendary I don't know what is.

  • +13
007BondAgent S.Peelman (on 25 December 2012)

Pokemon

  • +4
DanneSandin (on 24 December 2012)

The definition of legendary!!

  • +12
sethnintendo (on 24 December 2012)

It's a nice.

  • +11
Kenology (on 24 December 2012)

He told y'all he was SUPER Mario.

  • +11
NightDragon83 (on 24 December 2012)

Are these numbers including the the sales of the many re-issues of several of these games like on the Virtual Console or on the GBA (the Super Mario Advance series) or the DS (Super Mario 64 DS)? If not, then just think that some of these games have sold millions more than during their original runs. Most impressive.

  • +7
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the_dengle NightDragon83 (on 24 December 2012)

These numbers are not including sales of ports and remakes. The remakes are tracked separately, and digital sales like the Virtual Console games aren't tracked at all.

  • +4
the_dengle NightDragon83 (on 24 December 2012)

Ninja'd!

  • +2
S.Peelman NightDragon83 (on 24 December 2012)

That would make it even more awesome though. Then, Mario 64 has sold 21m units (12+9 approx.)! The original Super Mario Bros. would've been even more mind-blowing; NES version + All Stars SNES + All Stars Wii + Mario Deluxe + GBA Classics release + Virtual Console... 0.0

  • +3
S.Peelman NightDragon83 (on 24 December 2012)

That would make it even more awesome though. Then, Mario 64 has sold 21m units (12+9 approx.)! The original Super Mario Bros. would've been even more mind-blowing; NES version + All Stars SNES + All Stars Wii + Mario Deluxe + GBA Classics release + Virtual Console... 0.0

  • +1
GuyDuke (on 26 December 2012)

It's been almost 30 years and yet, he still kicks ass. Hats off for a treasured franchise in the video game industry.

  • +5
sepoer (on 24 December 2012)

Its gonna be legen... Wait for it... Its already a legendary!!

  • +5
piggychan (on 25 December 2012)

amazing

  • +4
NoirSon (on 25 December 2012)

Didn't think that the Super Mario Land games were THAT popular. Props to Big Pimpin Mario, King of the Console world.

  • +3
itsJabby (on 28 December 2012)

Played all of these! Maybe that's why I love Nintendo!

  • +1
Dechizen92 (on 24 December 2012)
  • -14
Dechizen92 (on 24 December 2012)
  • -17
Dechizen92 (on 24 December 2012)
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Dechizen92 (on 24 December 2012)
  • -21
Dechizen92 (on 24 December 2012)
  • -23