The US’s NPD has teamed up with GfK from the UK and Enterbrain from Japan to give us a list of the planet’s top 5 selling games in 2009. GfK also monitors sales in SA as well as other outlying regions, although, the survey does concede that not every country in the world was included. However, because the US, UK and Japan are responsible for the vast majority of global unit sales, the charts can be considered fairly accurate.
Global top 5 selling games for 2009
1. Modern Warfare 2 (Activision): 11.86 million
2. Wii Sports Resort (Nintendo) 7.57 million
3. NSMB Wii (Nintendo) 7.41 million
4. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) 5.80 million
5. Wii Fit (Nintendo) 5.44 million
Despite only being released in November, Modern Warfare 2 easily took the top spot in 2009. New Super Mario Bro.Wii was also released quite late but managed to rank highly along with the other 3 spots which were taken by first party Nintendo titles.
Of the 11.86 million units of Modern Warfare 2 sold, 8.82 million were sold in the US, 2.28 million in the UK and just 238,000 were sold in Japan.
Modern Warfare 2 is the only game on the list that appeals to the core market, and it is unusual to see such a title outsell casual market games like as Wii Sports.
The majority of Modern Warfare 2 disks were sold for Xbox 360, and the fact that it is still the most played Xbox Live game globally and locally demonstrates that the key to high sales for core games is multiplayer. This not only provides excellent longevity, but it also circumvents piracy to a large degree.
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