Wedbush Morgan (employer of everybody's favourite analyst Michael Pachter) has published a huge report into gaming in the USofA. Included therein are the Top 30 brands for 2008.
Yes, 'brands' - an old fashioned word which is soon to replaced with 'IP-based Trope'.
Here are some interesting facts - remember, this is the USA we're talking about.
- Guitar Hero and Rock Band beat Warcraft in terms of revenue.
- Nintendo ($1,548 million revenues from the games it has in the Top 30), beat Activision ($1,542m) but Electronic Arts ($1,556 million) beat them both.
- Sports fans may be interested to know that EA's FIFA brand beat the hell out of EA's NBA Live brand but EA's Madden kicked the heck out of both of them.
- The fourth publishing player in the market was.... LucasArts with its LEGO and Star Wars brands.
- Mortal Kombat managed to stay in the Top 30.
The full list is here (figures in thousands of dollars)... enjoy:
01 - Guitar Hero - Activision Blizzard - $992
02 - Mario Brothers - Nintendo - $761
03 - Rock Band - Electronic Arts - $662
04 - Call Of Duty - Activision Blizzard - $446
05 - Wii Fit - Nintendo - $407
06 - Grand Theft Auto - Take-Two Interactive - $361
07 - Madden Football - Electronic Arts - $312
08 - Wii Play - Nintendo - $261
09 - LEGO - LucasArts - $224
10 - Star Wars - LucasArts - $180
11 - Sonic - Sega - $163
12 - Gears Of War - Microsoft - $146
13 - The Sims - Electronic Arts - $143
14 - Tom Clancy - Ubisoft - $130
15 - Pokemon - Nintendo - $119
16 - Need For Speed - Electronic Arts - $106
17 - Warcraft - Activision Blizzard - $104
18 - WWE - THQ - $103
19 - Fallout - Bethesda Softworks - $100
20 - NCAA Football - Electronic Arts - $94
21 - Tiger Woods - Electronic Arts - $89
22 - FIFA - Electronic Arts - $79
23 - Imagine - Ubisoft - $78
24 - Final Fantasy - Square Enix - $78
25 - Dance Dance Revolution - Konami - $78
26 - Metal Gear Solid - Konami - $77
27 - Fable - Microsoft - $77
28 - NBA Live - Electronic Arts - $71
29 - Mortal Kombat - Midway Games - $70
30 - Petz - Ubisoft - $70