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This is a list of the best-sellingvideo gamefranchises worldwide, ranked up to 50th place by reportedsoftware unit sales.Mario is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, with over 893 million units sold since its first commercial release in 1983.Nintendo, the publisher ofMario, has the most franchises on the list with eight entries.
For this list, sales figures must be directly attributed to a franchise to be included. In instances where overall figures for a franchise are not known but sales of a single game within that franchise are, sales for that game will be attributed to the franchise. Sales ofexpansion packs andepisodic video games are included. Metrics such as "players" or "installs" are not listed as they typically refer to user engagement rather than sales; even for paid games, these metrics could include free trials or other free promotions and cannot reliably be substituted for sales figures.
The listed publisher correspond to each franchise's most recent release, and release years refer only to the first commercial launch, excluding any pre-release stages. Rankings serve solely for numbering purposes and are not meant to be precise, reflecting the list's limited scope because there is no credible, comprehensive sales-tracking source for the video game industry,[1] unlike forfilms, which have box office tracking sites such asBox Office Mojo andThe Numbers. Tied ranks are resolved using thestandard competition ranking method, in which entries with equal figures share the same rank and following ranks are increased based on the number of tied entries.
^TheMario franchise consists of many sub-series, includingSuper Mario (430 million),[2]Mario Kart (159 million),[3] andMario Party (60 million).[3] These sub-series accumulated enough sales to be listed in the top 50, but are grouped into the main series.
^The release date of the firstTetris games sold commercially.[5] Earlier games were given out for free.[6][7]
^Tetris does not have a primary publisher. It is licensed bythe Tetris Company.
^Sales for theMinecraft franchise are attributed to the2011 game. A figure for the overall franchise is not known.
^Wii Sports (2006) wasbundled with theWii console in all regions except Japan.[16] Nintendo includes those bundles in the overall sales figure.[17]
^Tomb Raider does not have a primary publisher. It is owned byEmbracer Group.
^Sales for theOverwatch franchise are attributed to the2016 game. A figure for the overall franchise is not known.
