Mario Kart Wii is 2008's best-selling game worldwide

Top Global Markets, a monthly report featuring video game consumer and retail information, has released a report on world-wide video game sales for the year of 2008. Some of the more notable information released pertains to the 11 percent growth in sales over the year, despite a recession plaguing most of the world's nations for a large portion of 2008.

Of course, any video game market report worth its salt is going to include best-selling games for fans to hem and haw over, and this one is no different, including the five 2008 releases that have sold the most copies worldwide. While not explicitly stated, we're presuming the rankings only include games released this year, as perennial chart-topper Wii Play was nowhere to be found. Taking first place is Mario Kart Wii, with an astounding 8.94 million units sold. Nintendo also claimed second and fourth place, with Wii Fit pulling in 8.31 million units and Super Smash Bros. Brawl selling 6.32 copies. The two other top sellers were Grand Theft Auto IV, which pulled in 7.29 million in sales to finish in third, and Call of Duty: World at War, which rounded out the top five with 5.89 million units. Both third-party top-sellers benefited from multi-platform sales, with GTA's three-system release and Call of Duty's six-system (6!) release being combined into one figure. The entirety of Top Global Market's press release is below

2008 VIDEO GAME SOFTWARE SALES ACROSS TOP GLOBAL MARKETS EXPERIENCE DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH

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Top Global Markets, a monthly report featuring video game consumer and retail information, has released a report on world-wide video game sales for the year of 2008. Some of the more notable information released pertains to the 11 percent growth in sales over the year, despite a recession plaguing most of the world's nations for a large portion of 2008.

Of course, any video game market report worth its salt is going to include best-selling games for fans to hem and haw over, and this one is no different, including the five 2008 releases that have sold the most copies worldwide. While not explicitly stated, we're presuming the rankings only include games released this year, as perennial chart-topper Wii Play was nowhere to be found. Taking first place is Mario Kart Wii, with an astounding 8.94 million units sold. Nintendo also claimed second and fourth place, with Wii Fit pulling in 8.31 million units and Super Smash Bros. Brawl selling 6.32 copies. The two other top sellers were Grand Theft Auto IV, which pulled in 7.29 million in sales to finish in third, and Call of Duty: World at War, which rounded out the top five with 5.89 million units. Both third-party top-sellers benefited from multi-platform sales, with GTA's three-system release and Call of Duty's six-system (6!) release being combined into one figure. The entirety of Top Global Market's press release is below

2008 VIDEO GAME SOFTWARE SALES ACROSS TOP GLOBAL MARKETS EXPERIENCE DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH

Overall Sales in United States and United Kingdom Continue to Climb While Japanese Market Experiences Annual Decline

NEW YORK, TOKYO, LONDON, February 2, 2009 - According to recent findings from Top Global Markets, an integrated monthly report from leading providers of consumer and retail information in the video games industry, The NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track Limited and Enterbrain, Inc., combined video game software unit sales across the world's three largest games markets experienced growth of 11 percent in calendar year 2008 (Jan.-Dec.), totaling 409.9 million units versus the 367.7 million units sold across these markets in 2007.

The increase in growth comes from both United States and UK, with respective increases of 15 percent and 26 percent. Japan did not fare as well, experiencing a 13 percent decline in 2008, which can largely be attributed to a decline in portable software, followed by console software.

While Japan's overall gaming software market in 2008 declined, it wasn't due to poor sales on any current-generation hardware platform. Instead, the decline in Japan was driven by the shrinking PlayStation 2 software market, which experienced a 46 percent decrease in 2008 based on units. According to Enterbrain, Inc., sales for Nintendo DS' Touch Generation software series was also slightly down in 2008.

Looking at the Japanese video game software market by console platform, each system (Sony's PlayStation 3, Nintendo's Wii, and Microsoft's Xbox 360) experienced positive year-over-year growth.

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