Limit Break have posted up a family line chronicling Mario's nearly 30 years of appearances, starting as Jumpman in Donkey Kong Arcade back in 1981. The "tree" depicts how the Mario franchise has branched out over the years and where some of the concepts for the popular spin-offs stem from. For example, the Mario Kart series can be traced back to the Famicom Grand Prix F-1 Race game which was released in 1987, ages before Super Mario Kart was introduced. I seriously had no idea about some of ...

McClubbin via limitbreak.gameriot.com »

"10. Wii Play (Wii) 411,416 copies
9. Mario Kart DS (DS) 416,935 copies
8. Mario Party DS (DS) 497,547 copies
7. Wii Sports (Wii) 544,958 copies
6. Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3) 576,437 copies

Not sure which is more impressive: A month old game like MGS4 making it into the top ten or a two and a half year old game like Mario Kart DS doing it. YOU DECIDE! Hit the jump for the top five.

5. Pokémon Ranger: Battonage (DS) 576,467 copies
4. Wii Fit (Wii) 1,443,167 copies
3. Mario Kart Wii (W..."

Miss Razz via kotaku.com »

Japan's caught Pokemon fever once again with the release of the newest Pokemon Ranger game, as shown by the Simple 2000 Software chart, which includes sales from March 17 to 23. Also on this list are some new releases and older favorites, such as Wii Sports, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games.

Translation credit to Kotaku.

Avalith via www.gpara.com »

It's another zany sales week in Japan, with DS and Wii sales shooting through the roof in a Nintendo-dominated top ten, and some weird and disheartening PSP sales.

There was a flip-flop at the top of the rankings, as this week's top seller was last week's #2, Mario Party DS, selling 180k units. The #2 seller is last week's #1, Wii Fit, with 124k units sold. Rounding out the top five is the only non-DS/Wii game in the top ten, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3 - 116k - BD Version), Professor L...

Akira_EX via www.neogaf.com »

Last week, I got off easy; I got away with only putting four of that pretty large list of notables in the title. With the games releasing this week, it looks like that's not possible. This is how you know it's the holidays.

That said, there are plenty of good games that came out last week, coming out this week, and will come out in the upcoming weeks. Console allegiances be damned; we're all gamers, and let's enjoy all these games. Defense Forces need not apply. Support good games!

...

Akira_EX via www.joystiq.com »