Mario Kart Wii tops global charts for 2008 News • News • Eurogamer.net

News PC PlayStation 2 DS Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Wii

Nintendo first-party games dominate.

Mario Kart Wii was the biggest selling game across the UK, US and Japan last year, shifting nearly 9 million copies.

That's according to a Top Global Markets report - a collaboration between GfK Chart-Track (UK), NPD (US) and Enterbrain (Japan).

Wii Fit came a close second, followed by GTAIV, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and COD: World at War.

Grand Theft Auto IV led the pack back in August, when the only other change had been Guitar Hero III in place of Call of Duty: World at War.

Sales across all regions were up 11 per cent on 2007, with the UK market in particular noting a dramatic increase of 26 per cent. Japan, however, dipped by 13 per cent.

"Because of this amazing growth and coupled with the downturn currently being experienced in Japan, the UK market has for the first time overtaken Japan as the number two world market," said GfK Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch in a statement.

Bizarrely, Wii Play doesn't feature, despite topping US multiformat sales for the year.

Title	Platform	Total sales	US sales	Japan sales	UK sales
Mario Kart Wii	Wii	8.94 million	5 million	2 million	1.94 million
Wii Fit	Wii	8.31 million	4.55 million	2.15 million	1.61 million
Grand Theft Auto IV	PC, Xbox 360, PS3	7.29 million	5.18 million	256,000	1.85 million
Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Wii	6.32 million	4.17 million	1.75 million	404,000
Call of Duty: World at War	PC, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, DS	5.89 million	4.46 million	N/A	1.43 million

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

Comments (23) Latest comment 3 years ago

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Lexx87 #1 3 years ago

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Christ GTAIV sold fuck all over here!
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PrivateFloyd #2 3 years ago

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i was thinking the same.

Surely thats wrong.
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Buztafen #3 3 years ago

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Why are the COD5 UK sales N/A?.....
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PrivateFloyd #4 3 years ago

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think they have swapped UK/Japan by accident?!?!?!
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justMe #5 3 years ago

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Global? What about Europe?
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Buztafen #6 3 years ago

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Right! This is bollocks.....

/leaves
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Max_Powers #7 3 years ago

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250.000? That can't be right. Sure it is not 2.500.000?
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Whatsfor #8 3 years ago

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Is Wii Fit honestly classed as a game? It sounds like a fad diet, Wii yourself thin!

I Wii'ed ten times last week and lost 3 pounds!

Also how does just US, UK and Japan sales make up global figures?

Edited by 1 at 02/02/09 @ 16:06
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Lexx87 #9 3 years ago

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Must have got Japan and UK mixed up
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Burkey123 #10 3 years ago

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/applauds Mario Kart and Brawl

Two of my favourite games last year. Brawl for local multiplayer and Mario Kart for the awesome online.
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BigJonno #11 3 years ago

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Yeah, it's wrong. GTA4 sold over 600k in the UK in 24 hours.
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Xerx3s #12 3 years ago

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Jesus wept. What a list of uninspiring games.
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peterfll #13 3 years ago

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The UK is a bigger market than Japan? Hmmm. Somehow I don't think we'll jump the queue still when it comes to hardward releases.....
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roz123 #14 3 years ago

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"Jesus wept. What a list of uninspiring games. "

I disagree.

Mario Kart Wii. The latest in one of the best multiplayer racing series of all time. With Motion Sensitive steering aswell. Fantastic

Wii Fit. Great new idea that pushes gaming into a completly new direction. Some love it, some hate it. Me personally i think the balance board alone is a great peice of kit.

GTA 4. Im currently playing through this at the moment (Pc version) and although it has some floors imo its one of the best games i have ever played. The story and direction is absolutly amazing and although it didnt have as many distractions as SA the amount of content in the game (in terms of conversations, radio bulletins etc.) is amazing. Great music, great graphics, great driving, just all round great. Multiplayer and the video editor are also excellent.

Super Smash Brawl. Another installment in an excellent series. Pure multiplayer fun. And with so much variety and unlockable content it puts the cheap ass achievements to shame. Quality.

COD:WAW. TBH i haven't played this cause i found 3 and 4 a bit boring. But at least its not Wii Play

I think next year it will be Wii Sports Resort taking number 1 if it gets released.
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coolbritannia #15 3 years ago

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/Adds voice to 'GTA figures must be wrong' chorus/
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dloob #16 3 years ago

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The UK GTA IV figure seems a bit odd.
Especially as according to the same people it had sold 1.5m copies in the UK up to july.
Maybe 1.25 took their copies back.
Top Global Markets Report Jan - July 08

Or more likely the Jap figure should be the UK one. Interesting to see how much momentum it lost after launch, only adding another million while the nintendo games added a few million each.
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GrandpaUlrira #17 3 years ago

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The Japan and UK charts are clearly swapped around.
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smelly #18 3 years ago

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WOW!

Interesting GTA4 sold so badly in uk...

they mustve all realised that it paled in comparision to the previous games.
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smelly #19 3 years ago

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Looking at COD as well..

I think the columns are labelled wrong.

The japanese and uk columns need swapping me thinks
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Lusterpurge #20 3 years ago

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Why do you hate Super Smash Bros, UK?
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Rizzle #21 3 years ago

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Cor, I did not expect that. I mean, I
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spitfire1945 #22 3 years ago

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Hey, the numbers from UK and Japan are switched!!! Fix them!!! It's clear as the sun that GTA4, SSBB and CoD:WaW figures are misplaced, not so for the first two game on the list!
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ChaK #23 3 years ago

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UK, US and JAPAN

what...about...the rest of........ europe eh?

Sure UK is a big market, but i'm not sure it counts more than france, germany, spain & co combined
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