Best Selling Video Games 1979 - 2023
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2023
- In this update I added the latest 3 years of data and updated some numbers that were published by more credible sources. I also split up the Tetris numbers because all the game versions were quite different, there's no such thing as a classic version to combine.
This data visualization video shows the best selling video games since 1979. It includes all their ports for newer systems such as for Super Mario Bros for the Wii, Wii U, etc. It does not include Free-to-Play video games, I will include those in a different video.
For top selling I selected those with 1 million in sales units for the first few years, then those with 5 million in sales for the next few years, then 10 million, etc. This was to avoid crowding the chart and to avoid adding games that don't even peek out for a single year.
These stats come from Wikipedia, articles and from Google Books searches. Some of the data includes approximate numbers as the data available skipped years.
In the video I included quick clips of how the games looked.
Super Mario Bros from 1987 to 2008 first position. This is remarkable.
Almost matched by Pac Man.
I suspect Minecraft will beat the Super Mario Bros, top spot for 8 years without a sweat. Currently 5 years at number 1 I can't see anything coming close to those humungous Minecraft numbers (not to ignore it still sells as much yearly as it did 5 years ago). Will anybody ever beat Minecraft is the real question now.
yet mario looses to sonic
The king
The hype of the 3rd console generation was barely touched until the 7th. Holy heck.
Remember Ocarina? Remember FF7? Yeah, they barely happened.
And remember when Minecraft came out EVERYONE said it would be a flash in the pan because who wants to play low resolution low pixel games. Wow how wrong EVERYONE was saying that. Minecraft is the giant of all games
Most people are idiots
Ye
Top cuz they didn't put fortnite
come free whit most computer for years
it's overrated
Tetris and minecraft really show how much people like blocks
We also love your mom.
@@doc7434 Toxic kid
yet roblox removed their iconic blocky look
Terraria too
@@xcoldbloomIT IS STILL THERE BRO
It blows me away how many massively influential and well known games that took the gaming world by storm just never made it onto this list. Like I was expecting Doom, Halo, Starcraft, Final Fantasy, and any number of others to make appearances. But nope, the arcade games and Nintendo cannot be stopped.
They were massively pirated too. I don't know any single person who owns licensed Doom.
Same, was expecting Metal gear solid to be there, revolutionary game
alot of games are free so they didn't technically "sell" only got played thats why
Same with half life
Legend of Zelda too. Unless I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t see it on this list.
Tetris stopped making copies of the 1989 edition in 1994 and it stayed second for nearly 8 years
Pac - Man stll up there after 40 years incredible!
Is pro console new tetris
This is total units sold. If there are no major games it isn't that surprising.
The fact that Nintendo had a position for over half the top 10 list almost the entire time is astounding. 😳
Its mainly For all the asian peoples and they are a lot
@@bavarianwolf3806 Mario is more popular in the West than he is in Asia (except for Japan). The Mario movie did huge numbers in the West, but not so great in Asia (except for Japan).
@@bavarianwolf3806 I don't think Mario is that popular in Asia. It is nostalgic to Famcom fans mostly.
@@effingcool1780 i dont care about you, i am right and you are wrong
@@RazorEdge2006 i dont care about you, i am right and you are wrong
It's amazing how Super Mario Bros was still selling way into the 2000s.
You know this is bs right?
Yeah this video is complete bs.. CoD MW2 sold like 2 billion units in the first 15 days of launch.. Mario never did that
@@myibook141 2 billion Units? Are you saying 25% of the population on planet Earth are playing CoD. I dont know what drugs you on but i want some of that.
@@RandySnarsh after researching further it was $2 billion.. battlefield also $2 billion
pac man selling from like 1982 to today still
Thank you for keeping making these videos, absolutely no idea why but the music you use to go with it fills me with nostalgia to go with the content of the video. Love it and never stop! 👍🏻
It took Terraria 11 years to finally crack the Top 10, which is impressive for an indie game that was used to be in the shadow of Minecraft and seen as "2D Minecraft" despite getting a full release first before Minecraft actually did.
"actually"
@@tsunamidev factually
@@Stance1988 hes a nerd
It probably got inspired from Minecraft.
@@gremezahk1it came before Minecraft.
The fact that Super Mario Bros, Pacman and Pokemon are still hanging in there should tell you how big those ganes were
Super Mario Bros. really hanged in there for a long while at the Number 1 spot and still managed to be in the Top 10 best sellers to this day.
The most impressive is Pac Man who's still in the top 10 after 40 YEARS ! I almost played all those Atari games 😂
Shigeru Miyamoto (maker of mario) once said that he got inspired by pacman game back in 1980. Because the background was moving. This was a new thing back in times.
This is list can not be true, since it completely ignores the mobile market, and PUBG has over a billion downloads.
Also Fortnite is ignored.
The reason why PUBG is on the list while it is actually free is strange.
And several other things dont make sense.
I mean no sense at all.
@@budgetarmswho tf told u it was free, it became free last year only
It ignores Fortnite because it’s a subscription not a purchase
Who the fuck told you that this is for free games
Thank you for making this, it was quite exciting to watch! Great for my kid to see charts used in a relevant way to.
Minecraft is a classic.I hope it never gets forgotten
It wont be,it will last probally 1 - 3 more generations of humans
What's minecraft?
It won't.
I am very surprised Zelda was not on this list!
Soon
Same with Halo, Fire emblem, final fantasy, smash bros, kotor, starwars battlefront, world of Warcraft, etc
How did Mario Kart not crack the list in the 90s?
@wscottwalters74 I’d guess same reason Goldeneye and none of the PlayStation titles did. Console wars had consumer base divided while all the oldschool games were apparently still flying off shelves or sitting high with unknockable #s. 🤷🏻♂️ By the look of things Wii Sports probably saved Nintendo pre-Switch.
I dient See Roblox
MINECRAFT and GTA 5 defined the 2010's
True
I remember before consoles riding our bicycles to the local Pizza place or Bowling alley to play Space Invaders and Galaga and then once a year my parents would take us to the beach for a weekend and we'd spend all of our time in the arcades dropping quarters into the machines. I regret the excitement and adventure of getting to even play a video game back in the day will never be experienced by kids again.
Dang u old😮
@@JackMcCoolthats like the 80s or 70s so he prob 55
🥺 you made me emotional dude with childhood memories... We dont having tv that time.. by seeing colortv in showroom i always dream at night about a hand held box having tiny color screen and i am playing 8 bit games over it... Those thought makes me exited always while sleeping..... And wonder that how same handheld consol with color screen become reality now markets are flooded with them ... But now noone is able to get that exitement... When we have nothing
I love that you show how the game looks like too :D So cool.
I'm afraid to imagine what will happen if we sum up the incomes of all tetris clones
Ngl there would be that much of an increase as most of them are free to play.
It's insane to me the amount of development that's really happened in the past 20 or so years. We've gone from playing with dull-colored pixel people to 4k and VR. It's crazy when you really sit down to think about it.
3D games really were something when they were introduced
GTA 5 broke the internet in 2013 with best ever selling for GTA fanchise
Thanks for the update info
Feeling pretty lucky I was 10 when Pokemon Red and Blue came out. Still to this day, the best game ever to me. I really wish they'd do a physical cartridge re-release for Game Boy, since tens of millions of us still have Game Boys. I bet they'd sell 20 million copies.
haha Nintendo wants you to buy their next new console lol.
Crazy how big minecraft got, and all thanks to one guy who was just having fun making java games.
I miss Lemmings so damn much. The original games as well as the concept no matter the brand; there've been almost no attempts at clones. Same re The Lost Vikings. And at least Lemmings is still a hit by today's standards.
try Zombie Night Terror, it is Lemings with zombies and lots of humor :)
Try Humanity, the game.
I remember Lemmings from college, along with Sim City, Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, and the original Civilization. If you had told me in advance that only one of these would make this video, I would not have guessed that it would be Lemmings.
I like how Mario has been consistantly relevant
Thx for showing the entire final list right at the start
Lo del GTA V es realmente notable, salió hace bastante tiempo y ahí está con cada vez más ventas !
El gta 6 lo va superar
That's why it's taken so damn long for a GTA VI. GTA V became a cash cow that they milked for a decade.
Nintendo absolutely dominating the market
Wii play was free with control
This shouldn't be count
No, Microsoft with Minecraft, Skyrim and Forza >>>>
@@Miltmishyyy dude what? Microsoft bought Minecraft when it was already at around 70 million sales Microsoft literally has nothing to do with its success, Skyrim was on 3 generations, 8 different platforms and it sold over 30 million in over a decade, which isn't even that impressive, if you think about how many platforms it's on, and this before Microsoft even owned them, and Forza is a niche franchise, all Forza games combined have sold only 16 million copies.
@@bryankowalczyk3982 da fuck are you saying? Microsoft and Sony isn't publishers, it's Just plataforms to play games, the publishers make games, mojang is now a Microsoft publishers, like naugthy dog and insommaniac, and Microsoft bought Minecraft on 2014, since then Microsoft has participated in the management of updates. Forza had more than 30 milion players bcs of game pass, Isn't niche franchise anymore.
Sony have the market share
What I find incredible is that most gamers are not even remotely aware of how high Tetris is in this list. Also, once upon a time Sonic sold more copies than SMB3. Clearly, SMB3 must have had terrible marketing 😂. And last but not least, you can always be dethroned by a new phenomenon in the industry. Minecraft literally came out of nowhere and rose to the top.
or there got the game when there buy the thing you play it on...
@@popsjov ....what?
if im correct alpha nad beta were free? for minecraft.cant remeber right.
@@varjudeemon5072 Yeah those aren't counted as sales since you're not buying them. If games like Fortnite or Roblox were not free they could be on this list
@@CoolerFN15 Beta wasn't free. And what Trizplash means: Tetris was almost always sold directly when you bought a gameboy back in the 90ties. So everyone with a gameboy had Tetris, even if they didn't actually play it. That "bundling" a console with a game was normal in the 90ties and is one of the reasons some of the games are up so high in the rankings.
Oh, I didn't expect Tetris to stay in the top :) Although it's a classic. By the way, Tetris is a puzzle video game created in the USSR in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. The famous musical theme of Tetris "Korobeiniki" is a Russian folk song of the nineteenth century. Now there is still a Russian game "Аtоmiс Heart" - I haven't played it myself, but many people like it. And the music there is great.
Love to see the top 10 with revenue comparison. Bet there would be a few flips
Candy Crush would be top of the rankings, I believe
Yeah, mostly mobile games and GTA 5 @@Phoenix51291
This was super cool to see!
According to Nintendo's numbers Mario kart 8 is at 60.46 million copies sold
Since the wii u version sold 8.46 million and the switch version sold 52.00 million , which adds up to 60.46 million.
Then again, do keep note that the video was released before the Nintendo Q4 sales were released...
@@dylanmajor100 it was posted after, so
Either way, the original video was first uploaded before Nintendo's 2022 Q4 results
I think Gizmo has the best, most comprehensive and correct barchart videos. I always enjoy coming back every year to check out the latest "Best Selling Videogames" video.
Thanks for the videos and I bet you can get 500k subscribers
..f..b..n..u..m
something about watching history of stuff is awesome
do you know anything about the muller-powell ?
Nostalgia ❤
Tetris - squares
Minecraft - cubes
People are just like cats, they like boxes.
Yes
Terraria: Not that much cubes now
bloody hell the NES was still going hard in the late 90s, crazy.
Extremely cheap and reliable system (if well cared for). Most of my extended family members only had that system from when they where kids to when they left home.
Somethings modern systems all lack IMHO... NES was that huge.
Heck, I still own a newer version of an NES and still use it every now and then
It's fascinating that Gaming is bigger than ever and still growing but there hasn't been much movement in this list in the last couple decades. There's just so much variety now and the sales are distributed among many different genres. But most importantly Free to Play titles cannot really be included here.
FTP is the reason. The business model has completely changed. If the rankings were by total downloads instead of purchases, the list would be dominated by FTP games like Fortnite, CSGO, League of Legends, COD: Warzone, Valorant, Dota 2, and Roblox.
Recall Super Mario Bros came with the NES, and Tetris came with the Game Boy. That may explain the high sales beyond them being good games.
The fact that sonic 1 and mario 1 managed to sold more than likes of gta 4 and san andreas is amazing
it's both amazing and sad how those that developed Super Mario couldn't beat their own game, And tried so hard to do so!
Lemmings was low-key an all-time great. And here I thought it was my little secret back in the day …
That Super Mario Bros number should still be climbing if you count all the Nintendo Switch online subscriptions.
Duck Hunt clinging to Mario for some good old fashioned stat-padding
I look at this and I have to give a nod to Pac man. The OG game that started it all and the numbers on the video didn't stop moving EVER!
Witcher 3 was announced to hit 50M copies sold recently.
Very wierd that a game fo the year took 10 years to crack the top 12.
How do these things happen even.
lots of games sell many copies, doeesn't mean is the best, they just have goood marketing
Compared to some of this type of video, you can really see how platform-exclusivity played a big role. I was waiting for the big N64 and ps2 games from ~1999ish, but they never showed up, because consumers were split across so many platforms.
They never showed up because there weren't any PS2 games in the 90's. PS2 didn't arrive until 2000 (March Japan, October US) But otherwise you are right, multi-plat games have and will continue to dominate the top spot (I don't believe Minecraft will ever be supplanted as it stands now). As for Nintendo they had some good runs back in the day (90's and with Wii) but today you don't see Switch first-party games with 50%+ attachment making this list and you definitely won't see PS games. With the growth of subscription services we may have to define a new way to count a games' popularity (i.e. unique MAU over sales)
So what is the music you are using? I've been hearing this little tune for years now and can't figure out what it is! And your videos are great!
Really fascinating, thank ewe 👍🐑
Now it makes sense why Rockstar hasn't released a new GTA, they were trying to get to number 1
From my point of view, Red Dead Redemtion 2 is the best game I played so far. Even if I start to play games when Pong was released on Atari console.
I can't believe that the Super Mario Bros jumped over Pac-Man so easily
The literal second blackberries came on the market, Tetris became overlord
Super Mario Bros still selling to this day and even being on the list just shows that it is the game of the century!
Programmers must be proud to see their game is still popular after 38 years. It's hard to name any other program which is still in use for so many years.
It's because that game is exclusive.
Legend knows video is Reuploaded
Yesterday's version had a few errors, I had to reupload it.
does anyone have any idea what program they using to make this type of video
thank you.
I got to the magic room in Atari! Some kid on the playground told me how to do it. Thought he was pulling my leg, but sure it was-- the peak moment of the best game around at that time!
Gta6 will be the only one on the next list ....WATCH
watching this was like watching myself grow up.
And that's how underrated Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are... Two of the greatest games of all time!
I'm 46 I have just seen my life flash before my eyes. This was emotional.
"Wow, I can't imagine a game selling quicker and better than GTA V"
Minecraft 6:41: "hold my beer"
Minecraft hold my beer more like hold my apple juice lol
In my opinion, GTA V is better, this is just me though, I respect your opinion if otherwise.
@@VanillaV4 yes I respect your opinion as a Minecraft lover. Every one has their own taste of games and what they like.
@@flashthedash765 yes
@@Mehr_Leichtathletik its for all ages
When i first played Minecraft back in 2011 (unofficial alpha Version) the first thing i said was 'this is the game that will crash all competition and define the new era'. I was not that wrong i guess
What happened to Lemmings was criminal, Sony bought the studio, Psygnosis, then essentially made it console exclusive, then sat on it.
Man the memories of these games from 2000s to 2012 best era of gaming
Tetris was having fun being in the #1 spot until Minecraft came and changed that
the fact that minecraft was rising so much past 2016 is astonishing
i thought that people stopped playing it after a boom in 2011
They use it in school now. At least where I live. My daughter used it in her math and science classes. (5th grade)
@@mojojojo1529exactly, I’ve been playing it for a long time, before 1.8 is all I know
Minecraft is pupular as hell, for example hypixel, which is only a server for mc has over 50000 players playing it this second... And minecraft truly has infinity possebilities cause the community is yust great... Mods for example. Songs of War is too pretty nice (My opinion)
Respect to Pac Man. Not many people had games consoles as they do today but to be one of the earliest games and still be in the top ten is amazing!
PAC MAN and Super Mario bros. have been selling copies since I was a toddler.. thats fucking wild.
I’m very surprised that no Halo games were on here. Halo CE was extremely popular, as was Halo 2. Halo 3, the seventh most best selling game of all time, widely considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, is not here. ODST and Reach were super popular too
Tbh it might be because it was Xbox only game
@@olliered9924 true
Because Halo is a shit game. Dont be surprised.
Tetris never stopped selling, it was never not available on some platform and continues to be rereleased and updated to high demand
Same with Minecraft which is why its basically on all platforms.
Nice job;)
Chat gpt wait for the next episodes
Doom? Need for speed? Fifa?
Indeed, Wolfenstein 3D - Duke Nukem 3D - Doom II - Tomb Raider....
Command and conquere? Warcraft3?
How in the world is Goldeneye 007 not on this list? I didn't know a single person who didn't buy this game when it came out.
8 millions sold only, i do remember that it was super popular
I dont know about this game
happy to see ACNH is on 2023:)
That was very cool.
Im surprised No other pokemon game challenged the og Pokemon R/B/G/Y
First gen of Pokemon games were a novel concept for the time. But the developers (Game Freak), didn't do much to keep their next games of the series fresh as when they were first released. For the titles of the series GF just refined things here and there through the time, added cool features in one game to immediately take away in the next game, but overal, no significant changes were made for the games so... I am not really suprised to be honest.
And the franchise is still only 2nd to Mario in all around games sold.
So San Andreas was never at the top.. But I guess a lot of us played the pirate version of it. I never owned it myself.
I was a PC gamer (and still am) but I bought a PS2 just for GTA SA because it was Playstation only for a long time.
First and last console I ever had (if you don;t count a GameBoy as a child)
Wtf is the pirate version???
@@Kbxbigbro808 "Arrrr! Here we go again!"
Good old memories of old games
Man, I was born in '87 and I've played everything on the list that was released before then except Atari Adventure and Dragon Quest, a lot of them on original hardware. I think my older brother even has our old NES laying around somewhere in storage. Been at least a decade since we pulled that old thing out.
Edit: Damn, the fact that the original Super Mario Bros and Pac Man are still in the top ten and still "selling" is amazing.
If San Andreas had come out at the time GTA V came out, and if it had its online, it would undoubtedly be the best-selling game in history, it is without a doubt the colossus of the industry
Facts
Super Mario - the best!
I see the best games and the most sold games don't really correlate. That goes for a lot of things.
This is very interesting. I've never even heard of the Lemmings game and never would've guessed that Minecraft would be the best selling video game ever.
Lemmings was awesome!
Very surprised Mario 64 didn't appear there after it came out...
me too! not even mario kart golden eye NONE of the N64! im stunned.
Most people could not afford the sixty four, or their games. Even heard stories of people renting out games from video stores because it was such a luxury.
I'm more surprised not a single Playstation game showed up.
Gta? @gigastrike2
Minecraft hit the Jackpot!
Insane that was it was developed by more or a less one person.
It may have pixelated graphics but it's still the big daddy of all other games
Respect for Super Mario, I was watching to see when it would stop but just kept on climbing 🙌
Minecraft the GOAT
If your between the age of 5 and 12 sure
@@Mehr_Leichtathletik i have 17, Minecraft isn't roblox, it is for all ages
You saying shit
@@Mehr_Leichtathletik It's for all ages, not just kids. My parents play Minecraft, my mates parents play it. Its a game with an endless amount of design
@@marcusmccauley3172off topic but Liverpool fan I see, we got man city in the ql coming in a few weeks, hope klopp put yall back in the top 4, but to minecraft yeah I know a alot of adults who play it I just see it has a children's game no disrespect just not for me, I'm like la noire, red dead, 2009 mw2, halo and resident evil games like that
You cant disagree
Big Moments :
Super Mario Enters the Scene
1:17
Super Mario takes PAC-Man for 1st
1:34
Tetris enters the scene
1:55
Tetris passes PAC-Man
2:06
6:42 Minecraft completely destroys the opposition
5:24 other Tetris beats Super Mario bros
You completely forgot Final Fantasy 7 and 8, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Team Fortress 2, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, DOOM 2016 and Eternal, Undertale, and all of the Super Smash games.
My boy is still on top!
Nintendo is king
Is Fortnite not on here because it’s free?
They should do a whole other video on micro transactions I’m sure Fortnite takes the cake.🎂
@@SumPixelz Nah, GTA shark cards definitely would beat it. People are DUMB
Probably yeah. Fortnite can't have sales since it a free to play game
It does say best selling, and free games aren't exactly sold
Really is incredible how dominant these older games really were. Pacman was in the top 10 for 40 YEARS. I can't think of another single product that had that kind of retention.
One I thing I wish u could’ve added to the list was the final fantasy series and the legend of Zelda series