Top 10 Best-Selling Game Boy Games - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 December 2015 / 49,188 Views
Today we take a look at the top 10 best-selling games for yet another platform. Up to this point we have looked at the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation 2, the original Xbox, the GameCube, the Nintendo DS, the PSP, the Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, the SNES, and the NES. This week it's the turn of Nintendo's first handheld, the Game Boy (not including the Game & Watch series).
The Game Boy is the 3rd best-selling video game platform in history and the second best-selling handheld, behind only the Nintendo DS. It sold 118.69 million units lifetime.
The Game Boy proved most successful in North America, but also sold exceedingly well in Europe and Japan. It sold 43.18 million units in North America, 40.05 million units in Europe, and 32.47 million units in Japan. It also sold a combined 2.99 million units across the rest of the world.
55 games for the console managed to sell over one million units and 12 games sold more than five million units. Below we've compiled a list of the 10 best-selling Game Boy games:
10th. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land - 5.19 Million
9th. Pokemon Pinball - 5.31 Million
8th. Dr. Mario - 5.34 Million
7th. Pokemon Crystal - 6.39 Million
6th. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - 11.18 Million
5th. Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition - 14.64 Million
4th. Super Mario Land - 18.14 Million
3rd. Pokemon Gold / Pokemon Silver - 23.10 Million
2nd. Tetris - 30.26 Million
1st. Pokemon Red / Pokemon Blue - 31.37 Million
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A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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20 Comments
- +12
I bought a Game Boy Color just for that game. I beat it several times as a kid.
- 0
259.59 hours lost to those games, or was it 255, I just remember the clock was stopped at that amount haha.
- 0
- +1
caught all 151 twice because the first time my cartridge corrupted the same day (maybe week) i completed it. i dropped it i guess in excitement. took me a year to collect them all. the second time it only took me 3-4 months. i was in 1st grade traveling wrestling and also brought them to summer camps which is where i got most of the trades.
- +1
I never bothered to catch them all. Always stuck with the starter, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mew, and MewTwo.
- 0
When you consider the fact that Pokemon Yellow is just a slightly modified version of Red/Blue that makes Gen 1 pokemon sales around the 45 million units, insane when you consider that it wasn't a bundled game with the system like Tetris was... It literally printed Nintendo Money.
That is a good point. Though I wonder how many people owned Blue or Red and purchased Yellow. I know I did.
- 0
Aye got all 3 as well.... and 2 more copies of Pokemon Blue from friends who stopped playing so I could store more pokemons and collect more starter pokemon from the others haha :D
- 0
I bought Blue and Yellow. So while they may have sold 45 million units, a fair amount of people own more than one of them.
- 0
I would have had all three. I got Red and Blue, but neither me nor my parents could tell the difference at the time so Red went back to the store. Later on I got Yellow. I got all three versions of gen 2 though.
- +1
Red and Blue are basically the same game. I believe a handful of Pokemon are exclusive to each game.
- +1
Well in Pokemon Red you also start the game with 3 options from Prof Oak, one of which is Red, and in the other game you get the option of being Blue! and yeah some pokemon were not in one version of the game in place of the other to encourage trading between the versions and some pokemon were far more common in the other version, Red had tons of Caterpies and very few Weedles in the first forest, Blue was the other way around, Since cartoon Ash more closely follows Red than Blue that's why in the cartoons Ash catchs a Caterpie.
Also Red is the choosen protagonist of the games since in Gold a silent Trainer called Red is found in a cave after the game ends with each Gen1 started fully evolved and a high lvl Pikachu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9acbPU4wYJw
Damn... I miss the gold old days of burning through AAA batteries in my Gameboy Pocket with these games.
- +1
I never knew about Red being in the later generations. Thanks for the info. I only ever played gen 1. Though I did start a game of X on my girlfriend's 3DS.
- +1
So Damn close to the perfect 10 of this list http://i.imgur.com/PCJJdA6.jpg Tried to fill in the gap of the missing Dr. Mario with a huge pile of other sexy sexy GB games, such a ton of time and AA/AAA batteries spent on this bad boy over the years. My damn Pokemon Pinball is missing it's sticker as well... vibrated off over the years.
Figures are taken off of the GameDB on VGChartz, however, older games like these are from official figures.
- +1
OH THE MEMORIES!! I had 8 of those games, loved my Game Boy! Glad to see Wario Land in the top! Didn't expected it, great game!
damn, 45 mil all together for OG pokemon is insane. Anyone who thinks Yo-kai watch is bigger then pokemon is crazy.
So a game that released 7-9 years (depending on the territory) after the system launched managed to sell more than a game that was bundled heavily from the very beginning? That's ridiculously impressive.
"Below we've compiled a list of the 10 best-selling NES games:"
- +1
- 0
"It sold 43.18 million units in North America, 40.05 million units in Europe, and 32.47 million units in Japan. It also sold a combined 2.99 million units across the rest of the world." Has any console or handheld been as evenly distributed as that while still being a huge success? Very impressive.
Pokemon, Mario and Tetris carried the system. Monster sales, all of them.
Pokémon=Handheld King :D but still DAMN, Tetris was an extremely close second, I didn't know it sold that well on the GB <.<
Tetris was bundled with a very large percentage of Gameboy systems. I believe it sold well on its own as well, given the Tetris craze of the 80s/90s, but it being bundled regularly is why its this high
- +2
Goodness, Pokemon dominates the list. Then again, Pokemon back then was so great! It still is now, but nothing beats the wonders of playing the series for the first time... Oh, and the other games on here are great as well! x )
Kids nowadays struggle for which phone they want. I used to struggle for what color gameboy I wanted :3
I know that feeling. I've still got my purple and clear Game Boy Color.
- +1
The Game Boy was successful, but sales slowly died over the years until the Game Boy Color and Pokemon released. I bought one for Pokemon Red / Blue.
- 0
Not a single FPS or yearly soccer game on the list.... feels goodman
- -1
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so like any top 10 list so far not that much diversity with pokemon dominating the list. I remember some comments how the ps3 didn't had any diversity because shooters dominated the top 10 list.
- -9
Well, there are 3 platformers, 4 rpgs, 2 puzzle games and a Pinball. That is already more genre variety.
- +2
This is the top ten. There are games that follow the top 10 which are diverse.
- 0
