Okay, that's a lot of numbers. Part of my analytical curse, though, is after I got them all neatly ordered, I couldn't stop there without delving a bit into what they mean. So here are some, I think, salient points that I took away from this list.
CONTEXT - Million Sellers on Prior Consoles
It's often bandied about that the DS is one of the best-selling pieces of gaming hardware in Japanese history (which is true), but how does the DS stack up against other consoles in terms of number of platinum-selling games?
Here's a list of consoles and the number of million-sellers:
Code:
NES 40 N64 11
PSX 31 GBA 4
SNES 29 Wii 4
GB 25 SAT 1
PS2 22 PSP 1
NDS 21 GCN 1
The DS is currently at 21, now that Kirby and Love & Berry have officially joined along with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 and Mario Party. There's another guaranteed million seller in Dragon Quest IX. That puts the system at 22.... at only three years into its life. It'll be interesting to see how many it has when it's done selling (DQV and DQVI; Yoshi's Island 2 and Zelda: PH seem like good bets; the Laytons? NSMB2?). It seems certain the DS will pass the PS2 and Game Boy, but will it be able to beat the top three systems? The NES seems positively out of reach, but who knows.
3RD PARTIES
We know third party games don't sell on the DS because, well, it's obvious. But they do sell just a little bit, I guess. In looking over the list by publisher, Nintendo and Pokemon together came out to have 47 games of the 108, which is roughly 40.9% of the list. That's a lot, and it's pretty undeniable that Nintendo software is selling way, way better than anyone else's. But it's not a monopoly. However, it's worth noting that while third parties have a majority of the games on the list, the vast majority of the sales (69.6%) are Nintendo/Pokemon (though even then, some of those are games, like Namco's Flash Focus or Square Enix's Mario Basket or Chunsoft's Pokemon Dungeon, that are being made by third parties and are still profiting them). I'm not sure how much that will ultimately matter, though.
If third parties are still achieving optimal sales on their own, in comparison with their own prior successes rather than in comparison with Nintendo's current success -- for instance, Sega has one million-selling game here compared to its total of one million-selling game before in its whole existence; Square Enix had 7 million-sellers on the PS2 and 9 on the PSX compared to 3 current million-sellers on the DS and three guaranteed future million-seller (it'll be interesting to see if they can hit the same number as on prior platforms) -- that's what matters most.
Here's the publisher breakdown:
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Nintendo 47 Rocket Company 2
Namco Bandai 16 Hudson 2
Square Enix 12 Banpresto 2
Sega 9 Tecmo 1
Pokemon Co. 5 TDK Core 1
Capcom 7 Shogakukan 1
Marvelous 4 Atlus 1
Takara Tomy 4 Spike 1
Konami 5 MTO 1
IE Institute 3 EA 1
Level-5 2
On the topic of third parties, by the way, the thing that interests me the most here is the prevalence of new publishers -- it certainly seems like the combination of low development costs and unprecedented popularity of the system is providing a pretty fertile ground for publishers who are coming out of nowhere and finding great success. Prime examples: Rocket Company and IE Institute, two publishers that were unheard of before the DS and have gone on to sell over 1.7 million in games.
While most of us probably don't care about the specific games these two are making, it's still good to have an environment in which new, small publishers can flourish because it can inject new blood and new ideas. The other notable example is Level 5, who's managed to sell over 600,000 copies (more than all three of their Sony-published PS2 games combined) of its first self-published game, which is also the first game in a trilogy. The success was sufficient that they're now working on a new RPG.
NON-GAMES vs. GAMES
There's often a characterization of the DS as having a library consisting solely of non-games, and owing all of its success to them. Well... clearly that's not entirely true (something we actually knew before thanks to
this thread by Jonny). I went and marked the games that it seems fairest to classify as non-games, and while it's clear they're having a big impact, it's just not as drastic as it seems like a lot of people assume.
As I figure it, there are 21 of these non-games on the list of >100k titles. That rounds out to about 19% of the total list. I'm not sure that these are really destroying the gaming industry, though, but it seemed the best bet would be to quantify that by doing a comparison with another presumably bad non-genre: pachislots. I scanned across some yearly sales lists and found 4 >100k pachislot games for the PS2 in 2006; 6 in 2005; 3 in 2004... I actually got a bit disturbed at that point and stopped checking. The point is, that's a lot of pachislot.
They're not all million sellers, though, and apparently the DS has five platinum non-games. Which, I guess, is a really really bad thing compared to million sellers on the PS2 and PSX like Simple 1500 Series Mahjong, train simulator Densha de Go, four Derby Stallions, Dance Dance Revolution, World Soccer Winning Eleven 6 - 10, and... well, a pachislot game. There had to be at least one. Anyway, for what it's worth, the number one genre on the system at the moment is... unsurprisingly, RPGs.
More importantly, the point is that real games seem to be doing pretty well. But again, fair to provide some context, right? So let's look at some comparisons.
Mario: NSMB has become one of the all-time best-selling Mario games. Great news for people who disliked the series' steep decline, or who longed for a return to classic old school 2D platforming. NSMB is still selling and will surge past 5 million.
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[B]New Super Mario Bros. NDS 4,995,153[/B]
Super Mario Bros. 3 NES 3,840,000¹
Super Mario World SNES 3,550,000¹
Super Mario 64 N64 1,639,921
Super Mario Sunshine GCN 789,989
Zelda: after steady declines with Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, a lot of people feared Zelda was dead in Japan... but Phantom Hourglass has brought it back in a big way. It's outsold all recent Zelda games except Ocarina in the past decade, including the game it's a sequel to. Now Eiji Aonuma is talking about making even more of them for the DS. PH is still selling regularly and has a good shot at passing a million eventually.
Code:
Ocarina of Time N64 1,147,068
[B]Phantom Hourglass NDS 839,395[/B]
Wind Waker GCN 742,609
Majora's Mask N64 601,539
Twilight Princess Wii 477,075
Oracle of Seasons GB 372,693
Oracle of Ages GB 373,361
Link's Awakening DX GBC 314,309
Minish Cap GBA 235,400
Dragon Quest Monsters: The DQM spinoff series kinda tanked in its third installment. It's hard to safely attribute a sales increase to lapsed/casual gamers, but for whatever reason DQM4 has more than doubled its predecessor's sales and has become the second best-selling DQ spinoff ever (it's drastically outsold DQ Yangus and DQ Torneko on PS2 also). It was also pretty clearly a good precursor to DQ9.
Code:
DQ Monsters GB 1,911,107
[B]DQ Monsters: Joker NDS 1,458,149[/B]
DQ Monsters 2: Cobi GB 1,253,013
DQ Monsters 3 GBA 593,812
DQ Monsters 2: Tara GB 480,582
DQ Monsters 1+2 PSX 294,758
Dragon Quest Remakes: Remakes (console and portable) of Dragon Quest games are a series tradition, and since the series has moved to the DS for its next installment, the remakes went with it. Maybe because of DQ9's impending arrival, the first DS remake did something unprecedented, though -- never before have we seen the portable remakes sell on the same level as the console ones, but DQIV DS has done that. The game's total sales tower over everything else in the series now.
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Dragon Quest V PS2 1,614,806
Dragon Quest IV PSX 1,173,671
[B]Dragon Quest IV NDS 1,123,000[/B]
Dragon Quest I+II SFC 1,150,000¹
Dragon Quest III SFC 1,010,989
Dragon Quest I+II GB 763,760
Dragon Quest III GB 638,551
Etrian Odyssey: When it came out, EO was plagued with problems Atlus had getting carts printed and shipped. Nevertheless, it's done pretty well for itself, yeah? While it's obviously not on the level of Atlus's flagship games, it sold almost as much as Digital Devil Saga and has ended up outselling most of the company's secondary PS2 games. Proof that truly brutally hardcore games can still find success on a supposedly casual platform?
Code:
Persona PSX 391,556
Persona 3 + FES PS2 369,750
SMT III: Nocturne + NM PS2 323,311
Persona 2: IS PSX 274,804
Persona 2: EP PSX 200,103
Digital Devil Saga PS2 153,421
[B]Etrian Odyssey NDS 119,584[/B]
Growlanser 4 PS2 107,134
Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha PS2 91,008
Digital Devil Saga 2 PS2 90,812
Odin Sphere PS2 90,232
Growlanser 3 PS2 74,814
Growlanser 5 PS2 69,711
Phoenix Wright: It's incredible the explosion of popularity Phoenix Wright got when it was moved to the DS. The first game's DS version sold well over double what it originally did on the GBA, and when the fourth game in the series was released, it achieved sales almost three times as high as the best selling GBA game.
Code:
[B]Apollo Justice NDS 515,417[/B]
[B]Phoenix Wright DS NDS 315,966[/B]
Phoenix Wright 2 GBA 171,187
[B]Phoenix Wright 3 DS NDS 170,826[/B]
[B]Phoenix Wright 2 DS NDS 164,484[/B]
Phoenix Wright 3 GBA 161,893
Phoenix Wright GBA 128,601
Itadaki Street: Enix's long-running board game series dates back to the NES, so it's not some sort of new DS fad. The DS game is one of the best-selling installments in the past ten years -- only FF + DQ Itadaki has sold more (and barely)... though Itadaki DS is still sitting in the weekly top 30, so who knows where it'll end up.
UPDATE: Itadak DS has now passed Itadaki Street Special (FF+DQ), and by quite a solid margin, too. Best selling games in the series as far as the data goes.
Code:
[B]Itadaki Street DS NDS 413,537[/B]
Itadaki Street Special PS2 380,482
Itadaki Street: Gorgeous King PSX 281,013
Itadaki Street 3 PS2 163,659
Itadaki Street Portable PSP 110,823
Momotarou Dentetsu: Another long running series, this one by Hudson. And again, the DS game has turned out to be one of the best selling games in recent years. It's actually outsold the actual 15th and 16th installments. And like Itadaki Street, Momotarou Dentetsu is still selling.
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Momotarou Dentetsu USA PS2 346,722
[B]Momotarou Dentetsu DS NDS 334,044[/B]
Momotarou Dentetsu 15 PS2 250,406
Momotarou Dentetsu 16 PS2 211,685
Momotarou Dentetsu G GBA 40,812
Chibi Robo: Chibi Robo was a pretty damned niche game on the GCN, so it was fairly shocking when Nintendo/Skip announced they were doing a sequel. Nevertheless... looks like that's paid off big time. Maybe we'll get lucky and see Giftpia DS?
Code:
[B]Chibi Robo: Park Patrol NDS 134,506[/B]
Chibi Robo GCN 97,879
Mario Kart: like with Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda, the DS version of Mario Kart is one of the best-selling versions in the franchise's history... by far.
Code:
Super Mario Kart SNES 3,820,000¹
[B]Mario Kart DS NDS 2,763,660[/B]
Mario Kart 64 N64 1,711,661
Mario Kart Advance GBA 938,175
Mario Kart Double Dash GCN 825,894
Super Robot Wars: The DS's first SRT installment is one of the best-selling portable games in the series -- though unlike lots of other series I listed, it doesn't even come close to comparing to sales of the home console versions. Still, at the time of W's release there were reports of cart shortages and trouble getting new ones printed promptly, so we'll have to see if Banpresto can pull bigger numbers in any subsequent releases.
Code:
SRT A GBA 310,513
SRW R GBA 285,314
[B]SRW W NDS 276,186[/B]
SRW Original Generation GBA 208,078
SRW D GBA 199,607
SRW J GBA 181,534
SRW Original Generation 2 GBA 164,884
SRW Compact WS 143,729
SRW Compact 2 Part One WS 114,164
SRW MX Impact Portable PSP 87,342
SRW Compact 2 Part Two WS 53,515
SRW Compact 2 Part Three WSC 47,359
Mysterious Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer: While the NDS version of this series isn't the best-selling, it still sold very well and is one of the best selling... proof that even incredibly difficult, hardcore-oriented games can still find success on the allegedly supremely casual system.
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MD: Shiren 2 N64 283,991
MD: Shiren SNES 229,539
[B]MD: Shiren the Wanderer NDS 195,052[/B]
MD: Shiren GB 2 GB 172,579
MD: Shiren GB GB 103,238
MD: Shiren Gaiden DC 50,750
Moji Pittan: Namco Bandai's puzzle series has definitely done well on the DS. Note that the PSP game sold 30% of its total through a Best Price budget rerelease, and a whopping 85% of the PS2 game's sales came from that budget release.
Code:
[B]Moji Pittan DS NDS 364,198[/B]
Moji Pittan PS2 PS2 263,323
Moji Pittan PSP PSP 164,432
Mega Man Battle Network: Another example of a third party pulling in excellent sales on a series comparable to what it did on a prior platform. The only thing that limited Star Force 1's potential is that by releasing three versions at one time, Capcom didn't give itself the opportunity to do a special version three months later like they did with 3 and 5.
Code:
Battle Network 4 GBA 928,850
Battle Network 6 GBA 595,447
[b]Star Force NDS 531,867[/b]
Battle Network 3 GBA 500,001
Battle Network 2 GBA 446,939
Battle Network 5: Blue GBA 415,630
Battle Network GBA 207,288
Battle Network 5: Col. GBA 194,472
Battle Network 3: Black GBA 173,144
[b]Battle Network 5: Double Team NDS 106,526[/b]
Battle Network 4.5 GBA 76,029
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Final Fantasy title for the GameCube wasn't the most popular spinoff in the series, but it did well enough that Square Enix decided to keep it going as its own side series. The DS game has outsold the original now, so it looks like the move's paid off for them.
Code:
[b]Crystal Chronices: RoF NDS 389,845[/b]
Crystal Chronicles GCN 355,470
Pokemon: While Sony once famously derided the DS's popularity as attributable to the success of Pokemon alone, oddly enough this series hasn't seen nearly the benefit from the DS's userbase that other franchises like Mario or Zelda have. Diamond/Pearl has sold well, of course, but doesn't look like it has a shot at being the best selling installment.
Code:
Pokemon Gold/Silver GB 6,089,503
[b]Pokemon Diamond/Pearl NDS 5,397,204[/b]
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire GBA 5,337,045
Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen GBA 2,824,674
Pokemon Emerald GBA 1,947,383
Pokemon Crystal GB 1,871,307
Taiko no Tatsujin: It's completely counterintuitive, but for some reason the DS installment of the Taiko drum series has become one of the best sellers. In fact, it's seriously revived the sales of a franchise that was sagging more and more with each installment. As with many games on the list, this one continues to chart and sell, so it may end up passing Taiko 2, which would make it the third best selling game.
Code:
Taiko no Tatsujin 1 PS2 743,334
Taiko no Tatsujin 3 PS2 578,993
Taiko no Tatsujin 2 PS2 407,181
[b]Taiko no Tatsujin DS NDS 303,461[/b]
Taiko no Tatsujin Anime PS2 205,130
Taiko no Tatsujin 5 PS2 194,840
Taiko no Tatsujin 4 PS2 156,164
Taiko no Tatsujin 6 PS2 98,106
Taiko no Tatsujin Portable 1 PSP 59,925
Taiko no Tatsujin Portable 2 PSP 58,782
Tales Of: Like with Super Robot Wars, let me state firmly upfront: the sales of the portable games do not come even close to comparing to those of the console games (even with Namco labeling the two DS games as "main series installments"). Tales ain't Dragon Quest. In any event, though, the DS installments of the series are selling historically in-line with prior portable Tales Of games.
Code:
Tales of Eternia PSP 249,173
[b]Tales of Innocence NDS 196,913[/b]
[b]Tales of the Tempest NDS 196,073[/b]
Tales of the World: Radiant PSP 195,271
Tales of the World: ND 2 GBA 186,413
Tales of Phantasia: ND 1 GB 154,602
Tales of Phantasia GBA 134,608
Tales of the World: ND 3 GBA 113,414
Tales of Phantasia FVE PSP 111,034
Tales of Destiny 2 PSP 80,411
Tales of the World: Summoner GBA 52,102
Mario Party: I'm really not a fan of the franchise, but I think we all have to give a bit of "holy shit" recognition to how Mario Party DS shivved expectations in becoming the best selling game in the series by a huge margin; it's especially surprising given the earlier performance of MP Advance.
Code:
[b]Mario Party DS NDS 1,440,738[/b]
Mario Party 8 Wii 1,053,934
Mario Party 4 GCN 902,827
Mario Party 2 N64 884,249
Mario Party 3 N64 846,452
Mario Party 1 N64 714,358
Mario Party 5 GCN 697,462
Mario Party 6 GCN 527,132
Mario Party 7 GCN 454,261
Mario Party Advance GBA 241,721
¹: most of the numbers I use are from Famitsu. For a few where I don't know of a good resource back that far, I've used Magic Box numbers, which I consider of a more dubious accuracy.
