The Top Selling Video Games of the 2000s (Single & Multiplatform)
by Jacob Mazel, posted on 05 February 2010 / 43,735 ViewsHave you ever wondered what the best selling video games of the 2000s were? If you have, then I have some good news for you – I’ve assembled two lists of the best selling software worldwide in the 2000s. One list looks at game sales on a single platform. The second list totals game sales across all videogame platforms. All bundled software is included in determining the list - whether it is packaged with Wii, X360, PS3, DS, PSP or any other system. Both lists cover the ten years ending 2009, that’s 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 for the lazy. Since we track data on a weekly-time scale, our years are 364 days usually. Years are 365 days. To compensate, we’ve thrown in an extra week. So this data is for the 521 weeks ending January 2, 2010.
Before you read any further, let me warn you. If you dislike Nintendo, Wii, or DS, this list will terrify you. It was an excellent decade for Nintendo software overall. Of the 50 best selling games on a single video game platform (no PC or Cellphone content is included), 31 games were for Nintendo systems. I did a preliminary version of this decadal software overview in April – and Nintendo systems had 31 of the top 50 games back then too. In second place, 11 of the top selling games of the decade were on Sony systems. That is down from April – back then Sony systems had 13 of the top 50 games of the decade. Microsoft systems had eight of the top 50 games for the decade – up from six in April. The top fifty accounts for 1 out of every 8 games purchased in the 2000s.
| Best Selling Games of 2000-2009 | Publisher | Platform | Debut | Sales (Millions) | |
| 1 | Wii Sports | Nintendo | Wii | Nov-06 | 58.40 |
| 2 | Wii Play | Nintendo | Wii | Dec-06 | 26.53 |
| 3 | Nintendogs | Nintendo | DS | Apr-05 | 23.43 |
| 4 | Wii Fit | Nintendo | Wii | Dec-07 | 22.50 |
| 5 |
New Super Mario Bros DS |
Nintendo | DS | May-06 | 20.92 |
| 6 | Mario Kart Wii | Nintendo | Wii | Apr-08 | 20.71 |
| 7 | Brain Age | Nintendo | DS | May-05 | 18.73 |
| 8 | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | Take Two | PS2 | Oct-04 | 18.15 |
| 9 | Pokemon Gold/Silver | Nintendo | GB | Nov-99 | 18.02 |
| 10 | Pokemon Diamond/Pearl | Nintendo | DS | Sep-06 | 17.35 |
| 11 | Mario Kart DS | Nintendo | DS | Nov-05 | 17.29 |
| 12 | Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire | Nintendo | GBA | Nov-02 | 15.38 |
| 13 | Gran Turismo 3: A Spec | Sony | PS2 | Apr-01 | 14.89 |
| 14 | Brain Age 2 | Nintendo | DS | Dec-05 | 14.57 |
| 15 | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City | Take Two | PS2 | Oct-02 | 14.20 |
| 16 | Wii Sports Resort | Nintendo | Wii | Jun-09 | 12.49 |
| 17 | Grand Theft Auto III | Take Two | PS2 | Oct-01 | 11.60 |
| 18 | Animal Crossing: Wild World | Nintendo | DS | Nov-05 | 11.23 |
| 19 | Halo 3 | Microsoft | X360 | Sep-07 | 10.70 |
| 20 | Pokemon Yellow | Nintendo | GB | Sep-98 | 10.60 |
| 21 | Gran Turismo 4 | Sony | PS2 | Dec-04 | 10.50 |
| 22 | Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green | Nintendo | GBA | Jan-04 | 10.49 |
| 23 | New Super Mario Bros Wii | Nintendo | Wii | Nov-09 | 10.03 |
| 24 | Super Smash Brothers Brawl | Nintendo | Wii | Jan-08 | 9.17 |
| 25 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Activision | X360 | Nov-09 | 8.88 |
| 26 | Wii Fit Plus | Nintendo | Wii | Oct-09 | 8.61 |
| 27 | Halo 2 | Microsoft | Xbox | Nov-04 | 8.43 |
| 28 | Super Mario Galaxy | Nintendo | Wii | Nov-07 | 8.43 |
| 29 | Super Mario 64 DS | Nintendo | DS | Nov-04 | 8.13 |
| 30 | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare | Activision | X360 | Nov-07 | 8.11 |
| 31 | Final Fantasy X | Square-Enix | PS2 | Jul-01 | 7.95 |
| 32 | Grand Theft Auto IV | Take Two | X360 | Apr-08 | 7.58 |
| 33 | Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games | Sega | Wii | Nov-07 | 7.49 |
| 34 | Super Smash Brothers Melee | Nintendo | GC | Dec-01 | 7.08 |
| 35 | Mario Kart: Double Dash | Nintendo | GC | Nov-03 | 6.96 |
| 36 | Mario Party 8 | Nintendo | Wii | May-07 | 6.95 |
| 37 | Pokemon Platinum | Nintendo | DS | Sep-08 | 6.68 |
| 38 | Need for Speed: Underground | EA | PS2 | Nov-03 | 6.49 |
| 39 | Halo: Combat Evolved | Microsoft | Xbox | Nov-01 | 6.43 |
| 40 | Big Brain Academy | Nintendo | DS | Jun-05 | 6.41 |
| 41 | Mario Party DS | Nintendo | DS | Nov-07 | 6.40 |
| 42 | Pokemon Crystal | Nintendo | GB | Dec-00 | 6.39 |
| 43 | Need for Speed: Underground 2 | EA | PS2 | Nov-04 | 6.38 |
| 44 | Pokemon Emerald | Nintendo | GBA | Sep-04 | 6.34 |
| 45 | Metal of Honor: Frontline | EA | PS2 | May-02 | 6.29 |
| 46 | Super Mario Sunshine | Nintendo | GC | Jul-02 | 6.28 |
| 47 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Activision | PS3 | Nov-09 | 6.19 |
| 48 | Grand Theft Auto IV | Take Two | PS3 | Apr-08 | 6.17 |
| 49 | Call of Duty: World at War | Activision | X360 | Nov-08 | 6.14 |
| 50 | Gears of War | Microsoft | X360 | Nov-06 | 6.00 |
For the decade, top software was split in the following manner.
| System | Top Games |
| Wii | 11 |
| DS | 11 |
| PS2 | 9 |
| X360 | 6 |
| GBA | 3 |
| GC | 3 |
| GB | 3 |
| Xbox | 2 |
| PS3* | 2 |
* The 51st game on the list of best sellers for the decade is a PSP game - but Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PS3 kicked it out of the top 50 during the last week of the decade.
These figures should appear at least a little bit surprising as Wii and DS both have more top hit software than PS2 even though the PS2 hardware base was bigger than either platform in 2000-2009. Software shipments for the decade were also marginally in Sony’s favor even though more top hits were on Nintendo systems. Between PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP roughly 2.4b Playstation branded games were shipped in the 2000s. Nonetheless, only 11 titles for those four systems topped 6m units in the decade. At CES 2010, Microsoft announced that Xbox + X360 software had topped 500m units through December 2009. Thus, even with only 20% of the software shipments Sony attained in the decade, there were eight Xbox branded games to top 6m units in the decade. Nintendo is a different beast entirely. Between the remnants of GB, SNES, N64 software through 2002, GC, GBA through mid decade, and Wii and DS late in the decade roughly 2.0b Nintendo branded games were shipped in the 2000s. Even with only 5/6 the volume software shipped as the Sony total, there were 31 Nintendo-branded games to top 6m units in the decade.
It is also important to recognize just how few companies produce hits of this caliber. For the entire decade, only Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, Activision-Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Take Two and Sqaure-Enix actually produced 6m level hits on a single platform. Nintendo and Microsoft were actually remarkably successful at producing 6m+ single platform hits for GC and Xbox. Those systems never topped 25m units, but Xbox had two 6m+ caliber hits and GC had three.
Of the 50 games to top 6m in the decade on a single platform, 34 were still selling past 7m – 68%. Thirty of the 34 games to reach 6m then continued past 8m units. Twenty four of those thirty titles, or 80%, topped 9m units. A total of 23 games topped 10m units on a single platform for the decade. It is only once you get into the stratosphere – the 15m+ level that the drop offs really accelerate. Twelve games topped 15m units for the decade out of the thousands released. Only six topped 20m units. Peeling back to a more general view of the industry, Nintendo is the only video game publisher in the world to release games which top 10m units on a single platform with any regularity.
The question you should be asking is: What about for multiplatform titles? Surely there were 10m+ hits coming from companies not named Nintendo. See for yourself – there were 30 games to top 10m units on a single or multiple videogame platforms in the 2000s.
| 2000s Multiplatform Hits/Exclusives | Publisher | System(s) | Debut | Sales (Millions) | |
| 1 | Wii Sports | Nintendo | Wii | Nov-06 | 58.40 |
| 2 | Wii Play | Nintendo | Wii | Dec-06 | 26.53 |
| 3 | Nintendogs | Nintendo | DS | Apr-05 | 23.43 |
| 4 | Wii Fit | Nintendo | Wii | Dec-07 | 22.50 |
| 5 | New Super Mario Bros DS | Nintendo | DS | May-06 | 20.92 |
| 6 | Mario Kart Wii | Nintendo | Wii | Apr-08 | 20.71 |
| 7 | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | Take Two | PS2/Xbox | Oct-04 | 20.15 |
| 8 | Brain Age | Nintendo | DS | May-05 | 18.73 |
| 9 | Pokemon Gold/Silver | Nintendo | GB | Nov-99 | 18.02 |
| 10 | Pokemon Diamond/Pearl | Nintendo | DS | Sep-06 | 17.35 |
| 11 | Mario Kart DS | Nintendo | DS | Nov-05 | 17.29 |
| 12 | Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire | Nintendo | GBA | Nov-02 | 15.38 |
| 13 | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock | Activision | Multi | Oct-07 | 15.30 |
| 14 | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Activision | PS3/360 | Nov-09 | 15.07 |
| 15 | Gran Turismo 3: A Spec | Sony | PS2 | Apr-01 | 14.89 |
| 16 | Brain Age 2 | Nintendo | DS | Dec-05 | 14.57 |
| 17 | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City | Take Two | PS2 | Oct-02 | 14.20 |
| 18 | Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare | Activision | Multi | Nov-07 | 13.82 |
| 19 | Grand Theft Auto IV | Take Two | PS3/360 | Apr-08 | 13.75 |
| 20 | Call of Duty: World at War | Activision | Multi | Nov-08 | 12.85 |
| 21 | Wii Sports Resort | Nintendo | Wii | Jun-09 | 12.49 |
| 22 | Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games | Sega | Wii/DS | Nov-07 | 12.19 |
| 23 | Grand Theft Auto III | Take Two | PS2 | Oct-01 | 11.60 |
| 24 | Animal Crossing: Wild World | Nintendo | DS | Nov-05 | 11.23 |
| 25 | Need for Speed: Underground 2 | EA | Multi | Nov-04 | 11.03 |
| 26 | Halo 3 | Microsoft | X360 | Sep-07 | 10.70 |
| 27 | Pokemon Yellow | Nintendo | GB | Sep-98 | 10.60 |
| 28 | Gran Turismo 4 | Sony | PS2 | Dec-04 | 10.50 |
| 29 | Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green | Nintendo | GBA | Jan-04 | 10.49 |
| 30 | New Super Mario Bros Wii | Nintendo | Wii | Nov-09 | 10.03 |
This list shows once again how difficult it is to make super-hit software. Even with multiple platforms to work with – entries labeled “multi” were on at least three platforms – only Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Activision, Take Two, and Sega released games to top 10m units in the decade. Even with only single platform releases, Nintendo has 17 of the top 30 games on the list above. Sony and Microsoft have another three of the slots. Take Two and Activision each have four games that have topped 10m units. Thus we can say that of the seven companies to produce at least one 10m unit level hit for the 2000s, only five companies were able to produce multiple 10m+ caliber hits. Activision and Take Two are the only two companies of those five not pushing their own hardware platform. To be fair, EA does have several games that just missed the 10m cut off.
Cracking the top multiplatform list for the 2000s should be the goal of every company in the industry if future decades end up with distributions anything like this decade – the top thirty multiplatform titles accounted for 1 out of 10 videogames purchased over the entire decade. The elite thirty totals nearly 510m units. As a final note, the fact that New Super Mario Bros. Wii entered a top thirty multiplatform decadal list with only a month and a half of availability is pretty damn scary. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the top twenty of the 2010s. It should easily get to 25m or 30m as it will remain the defining 2D platforming experience on the Wii. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 also sold a staggering 15m in about six weeks worldwide – but the title is in a far more competitive genre and is probably not even a lock to chart in the top games of the 2010s.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com


