bestsellers

Top U.S.-selling Games of All Time: Violence and Football

8:00AM Owen Good | And if American football, unabashedly violent, is also a combat simulation, then really one genre dominates the top 10 list that Forbes asked NPD to put together: the best selling home video games of all time, in units sold, in the United States. NPD’s data goes back to 1989, so this does not include units sold before them. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the winner at 9.4 million. Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock clocks in at 8.2 million, but after that, it’s nothing but football and shooters: Three versions of Madden (06, 07 and 08), Vice City, Halo 2 and Call of Duty 4. This list is almost immediately out of date, of course. Grand Theft Auto IV has shipped 11 million copies and sold 8.5 million, with an analyst saying it’ll move 15 million by the end of the month. That’s a global figure, but really, who wouldn’t expect it to park at No. 1 and bump Madden ‘05 off the list at No. 10. More »