Top 10 in Sales - The Legend of Zelda - News

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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. If there is a particular top 10 you want to see leave a comment and it may be featured in a future top 10.

After spending the first part of the year looking at the sales in 2012 and the first quarter sales in 2013, it is time to look at sales of specific franchises. This week we will be looking at the top 10 selling The Legend of Zelda games. Last week we looked at the top 10 selling games in the first quarter 2013 and the week before that the top 10 selling games in 2012.

Looking at the top 10 bestselling The Legend of Zelda games, two of the titles were released in the 1980’s, three were released in the 1990’s, four were released in the 2000’s, and one was released in the 2010’s.

The two titles, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in the 1980’s sold a combined 10.89 million units or 21.7 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The three games released in the 1990’s sold a combined 16.04 million units or 31.9 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The four games released in the 2000’s sold a combined 19.69 million units or 39.2 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

The top 10 bestselling The Legend of Zelda games sold a combined 50.26 million units. The top three titles sold more than five million units. The top seven titles sold more than four million units and the entire top 10 sold more than three million units.

In the past months we also looked at the sales by publisher, however all the top The Legend of Zelda titles were first party, published by Nintendo.

The top 10 bestselling The Legend of Zelda games as a graph shows how three titles sold above the rest. The three titles include the first in the franchise, The Legend of Zelda, the title that is considered one of the best games of all time, Ocarina of Time, and a launch title for Nintendo’s bestselling home console, Twilight Princess.

Looking at the top 10 by platform two titles are for the NES, one for the SNES, two for the Nintendo 64, one for the GameCube and two for the Wii. There was also one for the Gameboy and one for the DS. The two titles for the NES sold a combined 10.89 million units or 21.7 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two Nintendo 64 titles sold a combined 10.96 million units or 21.8 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. The two Wii titles sold a combined 10.41 million units or 20.7 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

Just over half of all the sales for the top 10 titles were in North America. 26.37 million of the games sold were in North America or 52.5 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. 11.63 million of the games sold were in Europe or 23.1 percent of the total games sold in the top 10. 9.97 million of the games sold were in Japan or 19.8 percent of the total games sold in the top 10.

Here are sales figures outside the top 10: The entire The Legend of Zelda franchise sold more than 70 million units worldwide. More than half, 37.23 million, of those total sales came in North America. 16.53 million of the sales total sales were in Europe. Also 13.82 million of the sales were In Japan.

The top 12 titles sold more than three million units and the top 14 sold more than two million units. The top 18 sold more than one million units and top 21 sold more than 500,000 units.

Contact VGChartz at wdangelo@vgchartz.com

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Arfen (on 15 April 2013)

Sad to see that this great great franchise has never top de 10 million mark. Will reach it the WiiU Zelda?...

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Bman54 Arfen (on 15 April 2013)

As much as I would love for that to happen, it won't. If even Twilight Princess, the best launch title for a highly successful console couldn't, I cant see a Zelda game that comes out 1.5-2 years into the Wii U's lifespan doing that.

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thewastedyouth Arfen (on 17 April 2013)

never

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AshKetchum1992 (on 16 April 2013)

Great
Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are my favorites

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NoirSon (on 15 April 2013)

Had no idea Phantom Hourglass sold that well.

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IsawYoshi (on 15 April 2013)

Hasn't twilight princess (gc and wii combined) been the best selling in the series? In that case I think you should've mentioned it.

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Th3PANO IsawYoshi (on 15 April 2013)

if you count gamecube + wii yes.

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Olivernintentoal (on 15 April 2013)

I can't wait for the next Zelda for Wii U!

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Kresnik (on 15 April 2013)

Haha. It's like you made this article after reading the latter few pages of this thread: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=158630&page=21.

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Bajablo (on 15 April 2013)

O_o where the hell is spirit tracks on that list!?
that game was GREAT and it isn't even in the top10?

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S.Peelman Bajablo (on 15 April 2013)

From the top of my head, it's sold just a little less than Majora's Mask, so it's at 11.

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Bman54 Bajablo (on 15 April 2013)

lol, great. That's funny. Honestly, that's probably my least favourite in the series.

• +1

DanneSandin (on 15 April 2013)

I still think that SS is undertracked here... AND OoT 3D should pass MM sooner or later...

• -1