Top 10 in Sales - Racing Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 16 April 2012 / 21,588 Views
Welcome to the new ‘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.
For the first week we will be taking a look at the top 10 racing games of the current and next generation, as suggested by the site founder Brett Walton.
At first glance Nintendo dominates the top 10 having sold more than 50 million units across just two games and nearly 60 million units for just three games. All three games belong to the same franchise, Mario Kart. Which is one of the biggest in gaming today. However going by the number of games there are five for Sony platforms, three for the PlayStation 3 and two for the PSP. Three of those games like with Nintendo are for the same franchise, Gran Turismo. It is very similar with Microsoft, with their only two games for the Forza Motorsport franchise.
Another thing that jumps out is that nine of the top 10 games are first party; the lone third party game is the ninth bestselling racing game for the current and next generation of gaming. The game, Midnight Club 3, has sold 3.55 million units to date and is the bestselling racing game for the PSP.
Taking a look at the top 10 racing games as a column graph really shows the difference in sales between Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS to the other racing games. Those two Mario Kart games outsold the other eight games in the top 10 combined, 53.65 million to 35.86 million.
The racing games for a Nintendo platform in the top 10 sold a combined 58.92 million units. Sony platforms come in a distant second with combined sales of 21.57 in sales. Microsoft lags even further behind with combined sales of 9.02 million.
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I should point out that Gran Turismo PSP has actually sold 3.6m (as of December 2011)
http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html
But I assume the disparity is mostly due to downloads, not just undertracking (I definitely don't believe that there will be more copies of that than GT 5 on the shelves)
Mario Kart for the 3DS will shortly pass Gran Turismo 5.
Oh absolutely. It's kinda inevitable. Thumbs up.
Well it is Mario Kart. Gotta love Mario.
The most recent mario kart games are absolute beasts sales wise. Great games too
Surprised to see 2 PSP games in there. Midnight Club 3 was a surprise.
who would have thought mario kart would be one of nintendo's biggest series? not only is it big, it's bigger than mario's platforming games :P
Bigger than Super Smash Bros. Probably bigger it has a wider audience base, but Super Smash Bros is amazing.
Mario Kart is unbelivable sales wise. It will be always the same. Mario Kart will be the best selling fun racer and Gran Turismo the best selling racing game.
it's just good to see 2 PSP games in there .. Wow at Mario Kart sales : A BEAST !
Pretty sad to see that there is not one driving game by Codemasters in there
cant wait to see GT5 hit that big 10 mill mark
http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html
Actually, GT PSP had shipped 3.6m copies as of December, so will have sold more (I think the 3.6m figure includes downloads)
It's hard to imagine that Mario Kart Wii was at just a couple of million units sold at one point
wheres mario kart 64, mario kart dounle dash and supermario kart >,>
The chart is for only this "gen". (Though it contain both the DS and 3DS)
For the record:
1, Mario Kart Wii Wii (2008) 31.88
2 Mario Kart DS DS (2005) 21.82
3 Mario Kart 64 N64 (1996) 9.87
4 Super Mario Kart SNES (1992) 8.76
5 Mario Kart: Double Dash!! GC (2003) 6.95
6 Mario Kart: Super Circuit GBA (2001) 5.47
7 Mario Kart 7 3DS (2011) 5.36
All those sales numbers come from VGChartz!
Out of curiosity, does anybody know the effect (if any) that Gran Turismo game sales have had upon the game being turned into a "Greatest Hit"?
Mario Kart DS vs Mario Kart 3DS numbers = 0.0
No idea Forza 3 was doing as well either! Good news!
BTW I love Mario Kart! Wish MS would copy it in some shape or form!
