These are the real top games of 2008

by Justin McElroy on Jan 20th 2009 6:45PM

Who cares which games Joystiq lovingly selected as 2008's best? The only games that count are the ones chosen by George Washington and Ben Franklin, and we don't mean Imagine Founderz. We're talking about the top-selling titles of the year. By combining some platform-spanning SKUs, MTV came up with what it thinks is the most accurate top 5, more so than the one released by the NPD earlier this month.

The top slot is still held by Wii Play, but we think you'll be surprised by how the other four positions shake out. See the full list right after the break.
Top-Selling Games In The U.S. For 2008

(All versions combined. Units in millions)

1. Wii Play 5.28
2. Madden NFL '09 5.25
3. Grand Theft Auto IV 5.22
4. Mario Kart w/ Wheel 5.00
5. Call of Duty: World at War 4.63

Source

Tags: best-of-2008, DS, npd, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, top-5, Wii, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (58)

My exact sentiments. You have been able to eloquently convey all of my feelings with a single expression. I tip my hat to you. I am off to the haberdashery!

odd.

I concur. *adjusts monocle and top hat*

Quite perplexing, my dear sir. Come, Watson, we have a mystery to solve!

Wii Play shouldn't be on the list. It's packaged with the Wii (in the US). It's not like we had a choice to buy it.

no it's not.

It's not packaged with the Wii.

It's packaged with an extra remote. If your buying a Wii for the first time and need an extra remote, considering the package is only a few bucks more and is basically Wii Sports II...no brainer.

Which is why it's number one.

You mean Wii Sports was bundled?
Though I do agree that it shouldn't be counted cause

A. It was bundled with a Wii remote for $10 more

and B. It was a POS.

But brilliant business move on Nintendo's part. Add on a game to a Wii remote for only $10, nobody will pass that up.

Fail.

Garcon, you got Play in my Sports.

The Fatass of Kickassness is right, your thinking of Wii Play.

@Donald

You made me LOL

I would totally play "Imagine Founderz", assuming that it had at least one mini-game involving Ben Franklin and French hookers.

I think that's the extra DLC.

Which part? Ben Franklin or the French hookers?

Both! These games are getting pretty realistic now.

I felt the whole list was higly predictable other then World at War, I mean I knew it sold well, but not like that that well, I would have predicted Spore to of taken it's place.

"to OF taken it's place"??!!??!?/1

I'm sorry, as an english major, that makes me weep openly...

So you are okay with putting "??!!??!?/1" as an English Major? Our colleges are failing us.

I agree that his sentence is pretty bad, Truckob. However, in your two line comment, I saw at least five errors related to English. I'll list them if you want.

@Soulpatch: *whoosh!* That's the sound of the joke going over your head.

@Max Headroom: It's "Trickob." Not "Truckob." Also, refer to my above reply to Soulpatch. I realize that "English" should be capitalized. I'm more concerned with spelling, grammar, and pronounciation.

@Alex: I apologize for being a dick.

Awww SSBB would have made it if NFL wasn't there. How disappointing.

Yeah, I would have bet real money on Brawl making the list. Doesn't make sense to me, though I guess Mario Kart was marketed towards those who don't crawl gaming websites while Brawl wasn't - that must've had something to do with it. The rest are multiplatform so they're 'givens'.

Meh...

1.Shovelware
2.Shovelware for 'teh hardcorez'
3.Expected.
4.Semi-expected.
5.Surprise.

And yes, I went there.Even if it has the quality, Madden is still shovelware just like GH:On Tour strictly because of franchise whoring it gets.

Also, I'm a bit perplexed as Wii Sports isn't up there which IIRC NPD established to also count despite being bundled with Wii...or was it Nielsen not NPD?

come on......Madden isn't Shovelware....come one there were ELEVEN Versions of Madden last year.....

im not saying madden isnt shovelware, but to me it seems just about as casual as any Wii game.

Didn't the real Madden outsell the casual Madden?

I have to say, CoD5's sales were pretty expected. After the success of CoD4, and the fact that nobody except us has a clue about who develops the series, it was a no-brainer.

i agree with haggard. the list wasn't surprising to me at all.

1. Wii game packaged with extra controller
2. Madden which is guaranteed sales
3. GTA
4. Mario
5. Call of Duty

not exactly surprising in any way.

Quite quite!

Aww comon. Wii Play is actually the remote being sold not the game. Can we see #6 just so those of us that choose to ignore Wii Play can?

People were still willing to spend $10 on Wii Play, remote or not, so no, we can't ignoring it, so stop trying to spin the numbers. They're about to puke.

It doesn't matter what the price point is, Wii Play still sells.

I think if people were just buying it for the remote, they'd save $10 and just buy a damn remote.

But according to Ubisoft, the Wii is fueled by women and we all know what that means, spend spend spend. Huh? See, the fellas know what Im talking about

I wonder how much Call of Duty 4 Sold last year......

A couple of months ago they mentioned that it was over 10 million.

10 Total or 10 last year??

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/04/call-of-duty-4-sells-10-million-units/

That was in June, and they lowered the price (finally!) for the holidays this year so one can only assume it's above that now.

Ah, that didn't answer your question.

I think it probably took them a while to get the momentum to get to the 10 mill mark, friends telling friends to get it etc. Given that it was a late release, they probably only managed 4-6 mill in 2007.

oh ok.....even if they sold just 3 Million or so last year thats still pretty good.....hell its still people playing it hard now.....

Wii Sports, love it or hate it, is pretty awesome. Wii Play... not so much.

I can only get behind GTA IV from this list. I played Mario Kart and it was pretty lame. The rest is just depressing.

Thats terrible. I don't even live in the US or even know the rules to NFL and i'd rather play Madden all day than GTAIV for 30 minutes. I know half a dozen close friends who were obsessed with the last-gen GTA games who can't stand GTAIV. Personally, i've never enjoyed any of the 3D GTA games, tho i've quite enjoyed playing through both Saints Row games. Odd.

GTA isn't half as bad as many people claim it to be. It lacks that crazy do-anything feel that the other games had, and that's something I didn't like about the game either, but I got past that and began to like the characters, the story, and the overall epic feel of the story and the city itself. Game really impressed me.

Not to mention that GTAIV is better than its predecessors from a physics point of view. I'm sorry but I love the Euphoria engine and to me, it makes GTAIV far better than any previous GTA games. But that's just me.

For me, GTA IV has, what the French call, a certain "I don't know what". I just like it. The rest, couldn't be bothered.

I just traded in Wii Play on Sun after remembering I still had it. The game was developed by Nintendo and its an absolute turd. The controls are absolutely horrendous for the majority of the mini games which doesn't give me a lot of hope for the future of Wii software.

In short, they sucker 5 million Americans into spending an extra 10 bux on a wii-mote which equals an extra $50mil in their pocket, not bad.

I'm still playing Madden 07 for Wii - maybe I should upgrade at some point.

Huh you know, I actually don't own any of those games - THAT'S RIGHT BRAD PIT! I'M A SNOWFLAKE NOT A SPACEMONKEY!

Dont. I hadn't played a Madden game since 06, and I totally got burned by the hype of one Mark Bozon. They haven't changed a thing. Never again EA, never again.

Well, I can't speak for the Wii version, but the 360/PS3 version of Madden '09 is completely different from '08, much less '07.

Where it not for the fat guy saying "BOOM!" you wouldn't even know they're the same franchise.

Justin, please please PLEASE do not give Ubisoft any ideas.

Indeed.

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These are the real top games of 2008

Reader Comments (58)

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