The top selling games of 2009

[Dave]

All-Formats Top 20 Of 2009 (According to Chart Track figures)

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
2. FIFA 10
3. Wii Sports Resort
4. Wii Fit
5. Wii Fit Plus
6. Assassin's Creed II
7. Mario Kart Wii
8. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
9. Call Of Duty: World At War
10. FIFA 09
11. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
12. Wii Play
13. Professor Layton And The Curious Village
14. Forza Motorsport 3
15. Lego Batman: The Videogame
16. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
17. Need For Speed: Shift
18. Resident Evil 5
19. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training
20. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

I am not really surprised about thes figures to be honest. However, I do have a couple of questions that have come to my mind when I look at them. The first question is whether the Nintendo is now dominating the console market? I mean, when you look at the chart, 10 of the games are exclusive to a Nintendo console. Half of the best selling games were only available on one console and still outsold a lot of other games that were available across many. Although this looks very good for Nintendo, it is looking very bleak for the affiliates that it seems to be making redundant for their console. With Nintendo making all of their own games for the Wii and the DS, are they making certain that no outside company will develop games for them?

We all knew that Call Of Duty was going to come out on top but what surprised me more was how high up the list FIFA 10 was when the sport is not so big in the United States and beyond. Do you think that this spells a new era for the franchise? Do you think that with football taking off in America, the FIFA franchise is also going to get better and bigger?

 

[Blade]

Yeah, pretty much what I was expecting. The biggest game of 2009 is at number 1, to no one's surprise. Then the other huge names like Mario and Sonic, Fifa and Wii Sports/Fit games. And at the end, the lesser known but still big games like Resi, Forza and the Lego games. No real surprises.

As for Nintendo's dominance, well it's a mixed bag. Anything that means Nintendo make a profit and keep producing games is only ever a good thing for the games industry. But like you said, pretty much all the big selling Nintendo games are first party games. Third parties are trying they're best to make great, original games for the Wii (Zak and Wiki, No More Heroes) but unfortunately, these games aren't selling well enough despite being better than half the games on the above list. This means that third parties might end up giving up on making good games and just take Ubisoft's shovelware route. In the end, games are a business and making a profit is always going to be more important than making great games. Whether it affects the future of gaming is yet to be seen, but I'm still hoping that the likes of Capcom will continue to support Nintendo in the next generation, because Capcom and a few other developers are just too good to lose.

Now, as for FIFA, well firstly it's been getting great reviews, best reviewed FIFA game probably ever. That always helps a game shift a few copies. But with the American thing, Americans always tend to embrace football more around the time of World Cup qualification because they're such supports fans in that country that any excuse for them to cheer for their country is looked for, regardless of the sport. So yeah, I think that'll definitely help. Until, of course, USA get eliminated from the world cup and go back to pretending that football doesn't exist...