Next Gen Analyzes The Top Selling Games Of Last Year
Good news for bar graph freaks. First, Next Generation counted down the top 100 games from last year. Not content to just let that stand on its own, they've gone ahead and analyzed the data from the top games sold last year and parsed the numbers just about every which way you can imagine. Big surprises? Not so many.
As for publishers, at the top in both number of titles on the list and sales volume is EA with 23 titles selling just shy of 40 million units total. Nintendo and Activision battle for 2nd and 3rd, and the rest of the list is filled about how you might expect. Of note is Microsoft: despite only having three titles in the top 100 (Halo 3, Forza, and Mass Effect) the company made it all the way up to 4th on the sales volume list. Man, I hope Bungie leaving the fold doesn't hurt too bad.
Later on, there's some discussion of exclusivity and exactly what having an exclusive game means for the consoles. Also, the article delivers some sad news: licensed games, movie and television tie-ins, made up almost a full quarter of the titles in the top 100, for a total of 34.3 million units sold, more than any other category of game.
Also worth a peek is a graph on the last page, which charts some of the differences between the United States and Europe. Obviously Europeans just eat up soccer and racing games, but The Simpsons Game and Brain Age 2 both sold three times as many copies in Europe as in the US. On the other hand, Americans bought four times as many copies of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. What's up, Europe? Are you suddenly too good for a little pocket monster action?
BEST SELLING GAMES - THE ANALYSIS [Next-Generation]
Name: Dave