The Top 20 Games of 2010 in the USA, UK, France, Germany & Spain - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 28 January 2011 / 14,675 Views
As part of Nintendo's quarterly / semi-quarterly data dump for investors, the company revealed top-twenty single platform titles for major video game markets, the USA, UK, France, Germany and Spain. Japan was revealed too, but we have it as its own region on VGC, so just head on over to the annual page to see it. Nintendo is citing data for NPD in the USA and GFK and its partner companies in Europe. NPD had previously only revealed a multiplatform top ten of 2010, so Nintendo's data goes deeper, eliminates PC, and focuses on single platforms.
USA
Epic Mickey, which sold 1.3m units in the USA in December, did not chart amongst the top 20 games of 2010. Therefore it is reasonabe to conclude that well over 20 games topped 1m units in the USA for the year. Just Dance 2, at number five, is also known to have sold only about 2.5m units in the USA. So a lot of games, at least 16, are packed between Epic Mickey and Just Dance 2 by NPD data. Moreover, Black Ops sold 12m in the USA by NPD figures, the X360 version in first place is at 8m units or so with the PS3 version over 3m units.
Represented publishers in the USA are Nintendo (9), Sony (1), Microsoft (1), Ubisoft (3), EA (2), Activision-Blizzard (3) and Take Two (1). No Japanese third parties produced a top-20 hit.
UK
The UK chart isn't dramatically different from the USA. DS and Wii are a bit weaker, PS3 a bit stronger, and X360 has comparable strength. Gran Turismo 5 was probably in the top 30 for the USA, but in the UK, and in other European countries it cracked the top ten with about six weeks on the market for 2010.
Represented publishers in the UK are Nintendo (8), Sony (1), Microsoft (1), Ubisoft (3), Activision (3), EA (2), and Take Two (2). These are the same companies represented in the USA so no Japanese third parties produced a top-20 hit.
France
France was the strongest market for Nintendo platform software in 2010 - 13 of the top 20 games were for Wii or DS. Unlike the USA and UK, X360 is rather weak in France, which is why X360 has only one title in the top twenty. Sony is also well represented in France, with six of the top 20 games of 2010 charting for PS3.
Represented publishers in the top 20 are Nintendo (11), Sony (1), Activision (3), Ubisoft (2), EA (1), Take Two (1), and Konami (1). With Microsoft's issues in the French market, Konami replaces Microsoft as one of the seven publishers with a big hit the market. Still, six of the seven publishers to release hits are the same in Britain, France and America.
Germany
Germany is similar to France, but a bit weaker for Nintendo and a bit stronger for Sony. Twelve of the top 20 games are on Nintendo platforms. Ubisoft's Just Dance series is not among them though. Microsoft once again only has one game in the top twenty.
Represented publishers are Nintendo (11), Sony (1), EA (3), Ubisoft (1), Square-Enix (1), Sega (1), Take Two (1), and Activision-Blizzard (1). Germany has eight publishers in the top 20, rather than seven as we've seen in America, the UK and France. Sega and Square-Enix join the ranks of the big Western publishers, but unlike the UK or USA Microsoft is not among the publishers that produced a big hit in 2010, and unlike France Konami is also not included.
Spain
Spain is a very different market from the others - there are ten PS3 (!) games among the top 20 even with Wii performing well in the country. X360 has no top 20 games at all. Wii has seven games in the top 20, which is pretty normal, as is the DS with three games. Move starter pack (a game with a controller) also charted in 20th place - this is likely the only major market in the world where it cracked the top 20 for the year. Nintendo's Art Academy for DS also did very well in Spain, beating all other portable software for the year a feature unique to Spain.
Represented publishers in the Spanish top 20 are Nintendo (10), Sony (3), Activision-Blizzard (2), EA (1), Ubisoft (1), Konami (1), WB Interactive (1), and Take Two (1). As with Germany, eight publishers cracked the top 20, rather than seven.
The only games to chart across all five Western countries are Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3), New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Fit Plus. Nintendo, Sony, EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Take Two were the only publishers to produce hits in all markets. PSP notably had no games crack the top 20 in any of the five markets.
We can summarize the performances of console software in major Western market like so:
USA UK France Germany Spain AVG
Wii 8 8 9 7 7 7.8
PS3 3 4 6 7 10 6.0
X360 6 6 1 1 0 2.8
DS 3 2 4 5 3 3.4
PSP 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Tot 20 20 20 20 20 20
Using the averages, the USA and UK are much stronger than all other Western markets for the X360. PS3 is stronger in Spain and Germany than in average markets. For 2010, Wii was stronger in France than in other markets but the range in performance is far smaller compared to other systems. DS was stronger in France and Germany than you'd expect for an average Western market. For PS3, the USA was actually the weakest market, while for Wii Germany and Spain were a little weaker than average. X360 software was weakest in Spain, DS software was weakest in the UK and PSP was consistently a no-show.
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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sxyxs: Kinect adventures sold around 7-8 million year ending 2010. Fact. Get over it, I am just wondering why it isn't there
Seeing how VGChartz has halo reach at 4.6 million units in the US for 2010 and that you estimate PS3 BlackOps at 3 millions and BlackOps is above Halo Reach, something does not compute............................
My guess is that PS3 Blackops is way higher than 3 millions ( probably 4-4.5) and Halo Reach slightly lower...
@ pukem0n
Do you know the difference between multiplatform titles chart and single platform titles charts?
http://www.computerbase.de/news/allgemein/studien/2011/januar/fifa-11-fuehrt-jahrescharts-2010-an/
it says something completely different for germany here
Black Ops (PS3) > Halo: Reach in the united states?
Seems like Halo is hugely overtracked
Confirmed, Spain is different.
USA>Japan>UK>France>Germany>Italy>Spain
Why Gfk doesn't include Italy? I don't understand.
I didn't expect Nintendo that strong in France & Germany. Are we Europeans that much in casual gaming? pretty sad imo...
No move and kinect titles?-thought they are so succesfull.Or do people just buy the hardware and use them to catch some dust?
-seems more hype than success.
Where is kinect or kinect not included. May have missed it as on my phone
poor psp... :(
No Black Ops released on Wii and PC too in the USA and did well on both.
so ps3 black ops hugely undertracked in USA considering just USA for 2010 it sold 4mil. What was the typical % USA is in Americas.
