Zelda: Skyward Sword Misses Wii's 2011 Top Five

Lolololololololololololololooolololololololololololololololololololololololololol.

kind of shows where the.market is going. i mean my next retail game purchase before.for mass effect 3,uprising, and xenonlade will be kyxshape fitness eveolved for kinect.

Just Dance 2 and 3? Seems legit.

For shame for shame! Many people are missing out on one of the best games of 2011!

Shows just how in the minority traditional gamers are, sadly. When I read the title of the article, I immediately asked "Besides Kirby, what else was there for Wii in 2011 to outsell it?" Luckilly sales numbers don't indicate good games from bad, because Skyward Sword is freaking awesome. Zumba Fitness is NOT.

Who cares? Skyward Sword is the best game on Wii across the globe.

@4

Agreed.

That's kind of depressing.

Wait, is this UK charts as it states in the tags? PAL? I'm not sure if this list would be universal across the regions. Would NA or Japanese charts be different?
Also keep in mind Zelda was only in stores a month and a half in 2011.

It's the UK charts. Pretty sure most of those sales for the Top 3 are made by chavs / neds (Google it if your not from the UK).

This is sad to see. While it wasn't as good as some media (including NL) said it is, Skyward Sword is still a great game.

When did the masses ever have good taste? Pearls before swine...

Don't feel bad guys. Girls like the Wii too you know, and their games are very affordable. I think that explains the chart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxvl7jWrM2k

This list is soo wrong even if it did have Skyward Sword

That is so depressing...

With this bit of news, I am imagining that everyone in the UK is as fit as a fiddle!

That sucks! Wii U better be supported better by Nintendo!

As gamers we should stop obsessing over sales numbers. It sold great, and their will be future Zelda games. What's the problem? The only time we should worry about sales is if the studio gets shut down. This is Zelda, there's already a 3DS game in development, meanwhile Blue Tongue has disappeared and we'll never see another de Blob game.

As for Skyward Sword it's great game that most Wii owners should not miss, and a definite improvement over Twilight Princess, but it's not a masterpiece perfect 10 like some are claiming it be. I'd say it's about a solid 9.

Mario Kart Wii should be at the top! Stupid Zumba Fitness and Just Dance series...

Disgusting.

What's up with Zumba Fitness? Why do so many people buy it? Is it THAT good?

That Zumba Fitness and Just Dance sell well is no real surprise. Those games can be enjoyed by anyone with little learning curve. Zelda is a longish RPG game that requires commitment and has a bigger learning curve. This entry was the fastest selling Zelda of all time why is their so much bitterness in the comment section. So what if people like my sister enjoy playing Zumba fitness, she has fun and get's a workout. We'll complain when Nintendo games get mocked, yet we're being hypocrites when we mock casual gamers.

Also enough of this whining about us being the minority. Nintendo' fanbase is significantly larger than Sony & Microsofts's gaming fanbase. The Nintendo fanbase is literally larger than 200 million. There are dozens of Nintendo fan sites I come across everyday, enough of your whining.

When "Zumba Fitness" is #1 and "Xenoblade Chronicles" is no where to be seen, I know I am an old, dying race of gamer.

strange.

none of those games eve game out this year...

Zelda was not released untill the end of the year, I would think that had something to do with it ...

Time to make a rage comic

Bah. The only reason I have Wii Sports resort is because I got a second Wii this year as a gift. Methinks the list is a bit skewed so don't take it too seriously. Also...I am so tired of hearing about Zumba!! Go away!!!!!

Um.

I'm surprised that people are missing the major point that Skyward Sword was only around for five or six weeks of 2011. As has been pointed out, most if not all of these games were on sale the entire year. I wouldn't be surprised in Nintendo sold more Game Boy Advance units than DS units in 2004.

That being said, I'll agree that 2011 was a truly pitiful year for the Wii, and hopefully it's mostly due to Nintendo working on the Wii U, not just the 3DS.

to be fair, it was released right at the end of 2011.

Also, I'm 3 temples in and it's not exactly blowing me away

I'm honestly not surprised at this, SS only had two months to catch up to these titles, it's more than reasonable that it simply doesn't have the time to pick up that much steam, maybe we'll see it on the 2012 charts

@everyone saying that SS didn't have time
Mario kart 7 was 1 on the Japanese 2011 sales charts.

Wow! what's wrong with you UK people? you neeed to stop with all the dancing, sit down and play Zelda! take a break!

Really? Zelda SS is almost undeniably the best Wii game available and it doesn't even make the top 5?!?

Wow. A lot of bitterness going on here...Is it so wrong that games like Zumba Fitness and Just Dance sold well? The people who made those games were smart. They tapped into an audience, and they reaped the benefits from their decisions. Good for them!

So what if Skyward Sword didn't make the top 5 list? It was still praised across the gaming masses. Does its abscence from this list make it any less great of a game? Absolutely not.

Sure, this might be a sign that the casual market outnumbers the more hardcore market (a fact that honestly shouldn't be very surprising), but that doesn't mean that hardcore gamers are being ignored, like many people in the comments seem to be dispairing about...Skyward Sword, the Mario Galaxies, New Super Mario Bros., Rayman Origins, Return to Dreamland, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Monster Hunter Tri, Muramasa...We gamers are definitely getting our fair share here.

So everyone just chill out, and quit bashing games you've probably never played before.

Being sixth I would say it is selling much better than I've expected, for me this is the very worst zelda for its time.

I haven't played Zumba fitness but has anyone else here actually played it? is it fun? I've tried some other Wii fitness games and none can actually capture anything fun and qualify as exersize. Maybe it's fun, and if it is it's not the end of the world that it sold well.
but yeah, SS is pretty amazing, just not for everyone in the Wii market.

Zumba Fitness is number 1? Seems Legit.

Not like game is bad hell its like the best game EVER!!

Ouch! Nothing says **** you like getting beat out by Zumba! Well, I did my part. Skyward sword is on my top 5!

The fact that the first three are ranked above any game is a joke. Are people that lazy to go to a gym. Zelda's better than any "exercise game", Mario Kart Wii and Wii Sports Resort. Hopefully NA's isn't the same.

Since when did okay games start selling better than truly amazing games?

skyward sword came out at the end of 2011 though

It's unfortunate that a lot of people missed such an awesome game, but those people that did miss it weren't the intended audience. The Wii has sold 30 million consoles in Europe so far, where the Gamecube sold under 5 million in Europe and Australia in it's lifetime.

The Wii isn't a gamer-only kind of console, it was promoted to be a system that everyone could play. If someone bought the Wii for the games that unfortunately pretty much defined the system for non-gamers (exercise games, casual games, multiplayer games, simple stuff with mass-market appeal), I'm not going to be surprised that they didn't buy a deep game like Zelda. But, did they miss out? Definitely.

I'm part to blame. I didn't purchase SS in 2011, or even yet. Maybe my purchase would have bumped it to 5...

We traditional gamers are catered to too, just that the Wii has always been trumped as an everyone machine. Still, to quote Joevox316, ".I am so tired of hearing about Zumba!! Go away!!!!!" That is one of the best responses I've heard to Zumba hype. lol You win 5 stars from me.

Ugh. If Mario Galaxy 1, 2, NSMB Wii and DKC Returns were in there I'd feel much better about this, as it stands that list is a prime example why Nintendo, and frankly gaming as a whole, will never again be as great as it once was. Europe got Xenoblade, they got Zelda: Skyward Sword and somehow drek like Just Dance and Zumba outsells it. Wii Sports Resort is fun but it should not be selling better than Xenoblade or Zelda either, the only game on there that I'm not disappointed about seeing is Mario Kart because that series harkens back to a better time for gaming and the newer entries still hold true to what once made this industry awesome.

Unfortunately, this isn't only a problem in the UK. I haven't seen a list for the top 5 selling games in NA but I'm sure it's just as trash. I know the game store I work at sells boatloads of the nonsense like Just Dance, Zumba and Dance Central. The only thing that gives me a little bit of hope is that we still sold a lot of Zelda (both Skyward Sword and OoT 3D), Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart, Uncharted and Gears 3 over the holidays and all those games are excellent.

No Xenoblade...No SS...the 'I don't wanna live on this planet anymore' meme is looking very appropriate at the moment....

This is kind of like music, you know. When you look at charts all over the world, it becomes apparent that the majority buy into the most advertised stuff, not necessarily quality goods with alot of high production values.

So, the simple answer to why this happened (and will always happen is), smart and huge marketing = people buy the products which overshadow ones with less promotion. Yes Zelda is "big", however I saw more Zumba Fintess ads everywhere than Zelda ones...its just as simple as that sadly...and your "general population" falls for it everytime!

@10
Maybe they all bought it just for Soulja Boy?

well when you consider that the wii was heavily marketed and targeted to non-gamers, compared to the PS3 and x-box, it's not that a huge surprise to see just dance, zumba games coming top.

skyward sword was still a great game- i enjoyed it.

This leaves a pit in my heart that people are still buying this trash and not experiencing the great games out there. If people want to get fit, why don't they go to a gym? Honestly, this list shows that although the future of gaming will still get good "hardcore" games, it will never quite be the same as what it was.

Seriously!?!

This is troubling to say the least.

hopefully, when the wii U comes along, there will be more and more better quality titles around supporting the system.

I'm in the "why is this so surprising?" camp. Seriously, it's not that big a deal, as others have mentioned. Nothing wrong with casual dance games - nothing wrong with exercising. Is SS great? Sure! Anyway, it still has time to do well. As far as I've heard, it's sold pretty well on the whole.

UK please get on the right track. You get VERY epic games (NPC Pikmin 2, Xenoblade, The Last Story) and they lose to Just Dance games. I hold nothing against the UK just please get on the "hardcore" track.

WII SPORTS!!!!!!!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD!!!!

On the bright side - Nintendo can guarantee UK sales of WiiU by making Just Dance 4 and Zumba 2 only available on WiiU. Would probably PO a lot of people, but then they could heavily market the WiiUs backwards compatibility to play everyone's favorite Wii dance games. It's win-win.