It was announced this week that Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare had broken the record for global sales within the first five days of a game’s release.
This landmark achievement inspired us to have a look back through the annals of video game history and bring you some interesting facts about record-breakers and industry changers.
With so many consoles and new technologies available to use for gaming these days, it would be slightly laborious to go through all of them. Therefore only the biggest of record breakers have been included in this article, but feel free to add to your favourites.
With regards to Nintendo, there really is only one winner. Super Mario Bros and their various spin-offs have sold well in excess of 100 million copies world wide, and they hold the highest selling for each of the Nintendo consoles. They also hold second place on the highest ever games sold for the Wii console, with the ‘Wii sports’ brand claiming top spot.
Tetris sold over 35 million copies for the first Gameboy, but the big record breaker for the console is Pokemon, with its various colour-named versions sweeping the board on the later editions of the handheld device. The other big handheld player, the Nintendo DS and 3DS, sees the Mario Bros fighting against the Nintendogs brand for superiority in the number of sales for these devices.
Variations on the Sonic the Hedgehog brand are the biggest selling Dreamcast and Sega console games, and Gran Turismo sold over 10 million copies for the first Playstation brand. Playstation 2’s biggest seller was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, with over 17 million copies sold worldwide, but the Playstation 3 is another Gran Turismo winner, this time with the brand’s fifth release.
The Sims is the biggest selling PC game of all time, and the biggest selling mobile phone game is the rather traditional Tetris.
Computer gaming seems to have stood the test of time, with its new developments and technologies appealing continually to each generation. Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare’s success just proves that the industry is still hugely grossing and successful, and is likely to continue to grow.
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