14 DAY TRIAL // One cannot write about a sales chart, be it in Japan or in the United States, be it about hardware or software, without mentioning the Japanese company Nintendo, which produces the Wii and the DS, plus the videogames for these systems. In fact, most of the charts we have reported on lately here at Softpedia have seen Nintendo made products stand in the top spot.
[Now, Mario Kart Wii is holding the limelight, as it is named the best selling game of 2008 among consumers who live in the United States, Japan and Great Britain. The Top Global Markets reports, which delivered the news, has been created using data offered by the NPD Group, Enterbrain and GfK Chart Track. Overall, the title has sold 8.94 million units, with the bulk of those being bought by United States-based gamers, with 5 million sold, followed by Japanese players, with 2 million, while those in Britain bought the rest.
Another Nintendo game, Wii Fit, is in second spot, with overall sales of 8.310 million units, while the first non Wii game, Grand Theft Auto IV, is in third place. The Rockstar created and Take Two published open world adventure sold 7,290,000 units. Most of the game copies were sold in the United States, while players in Japan seem to have mostly ignored the adventures of Niko Bellic.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the fourth best selling title of 2008 on the three biggest videogame markets, selling mostly in Japan and the United States, while Call of Duty: World at War is at number five in the chart, with 5,890,000 million units sold. Bear in mind that the latest Treyarch developed World War II game has not yet been released in Japan.
The United States videogame market grew by 15% and the United Kingdom gamers also bought 26% more games in 2008. Meanwhile, because of the falling sales of the PlayStation 2, the Japanese game market shrank by 13%.