Currently at 3rd place, Wii Fit, Nintendo’s Balance Board enhanced “Workout Title”, has sold 7.9M units since its release last year. Experts seem to predict that may just take the second place spot, which is currently being held by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which has sold 8.25M units. Even with sales justifiably going down, and that Nintendo released a new Wii Fit Plus bundle, Nintendo and analysts seem to think it will take over that benchmark with ease.

What it may not even touch is the number one seller this decade. Care to guess what it is? With 11.1M units sold, we are of course talking about one of the most hotly contested games when it comes to both quality and the very definition of being a game: Wii Play

Brad’s Take: It’s almost jaw dropping how Nintendo seems to have a claim in every footnote in this generation. They’ve not only gain profits with their systems, but they’ve also gained tons of profits with their software, as evidenced by this (and not mentioned Mario Kart Wii, which is 4th place this generation).

That being said, lightning won’t strike twice for Wii Fit Plus. It will sell marginally well, but not nearly as well as the monstrous success of Wii Fit.

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Brad’s Take: I don’t think we need to say that the analysts were DEAD wrong on predictions of the new GTA. That being said, to call this ” a dud” would be shortsighted. Think about this, 160K units of a game sold on a platform that is not known for selling its style of game.

To me, that’s a success. And with the brand power of GTA, I think it will continue to do well.

Bryan’s Take: Like the sudden Wii sales drop in Japan, this isn’t anything to worry about. I also don’t see this as beening a problem for Nintendo or Rockstar.

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So, Nintendo has heard what a few of you have pointed out: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars didn’t exactly sell gangbusters this past month on the DS.

However, Steve Singer, vice president of licensing and third party relations with Nintendo says that the numbers aren’t indicative of the long legs of most DS titles. “‘Chinatown Wars’ is performing in line with AAA titles that have come to our platform like ‘Spore‘ or ‘Lego Star Wars…games went on to have very different life-to-date sales numbers.” Another that was mentioned was Call of Duty 4, which sold 38,000 on DS in the first month, but has since sold 500K.

This is all kind of funny, since in the first week sources from GameStop were saying that the game was “Exceeding Expectations” in sales…

Brad’s Take: First off, there were numerous things about Chinatown Wars that was strange for a DS game. First, it was M-Rated on a system being sold to casuals and younger children. Secondly, there was only a fraction of the marketing being put behind it. Lastly, Nintendo wasn’t making a primary focus at all on any of its campaigns (in fact, at E3 08, it was only a footnote to a presentation that was only showcasing Animal Crossing: City Folk, Wii Sports Resort and (shudder) Wii Music.

Couple all of those things together and the sales figure: 89,000 unit sold. To me, that’s pretty damn good for a game that was an odd duckling on a platform that doesn’t welcome its type of game onto it.

And you know what? I’ll even buy that the game has longer legs and will very much sell a million units by year’s end. It will not dethrone the current champions of the hardware, however, but I can surely see that Chinatown Wars will very much make another hit on this system.

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