When looking at the best selling games of 2008 it is quite easy to find yourself lost in a sea of numbers, mainly the overwhelming dominance on both the handheld and home console dominance that Nintendo seems to hold. However it is defiantly important to look at the historical context of what these sales mean, because without the context it is impossible to see how over or underwhelming this dominance by Nintendo is. Certainly if you have not seen the sales figures put out by the NPD group illustrating the top sellers of 2008 it is an important list to look over and analyze:

The Wii has continued to shatter sales and industry expectations throughout it’s two year lifespan by selling over 41 million units, easily becoming the sales leader in the current generation console wars. Even with the year advantage held by the Xbox 360, the sales of the Wii have been a juggernaut during both the holiday seasons, as well as the traditional low sales periods of the year such as the spring and summer. While the Wii has brought a breathe of new life into an industry that had an arguably stagnant consumer base previous to it’s launch, it is important to look at the other profound effects that the Wii has had on the industry, predominantly the hardware sales of the previous console leader, Sony.