Versus battle: Popular virtual console games

Nintendo launched a firmware update last night with a digital clock and a few new ways to browse titles in the Virtual Console shop. The most interesting addition for me was the ability to browse the most popular virtual console games. I wanted to see which games were on the top of the list in North America and Japan. To no surprise Mario topped the list in both regions, but the number one game was different. Super Mario Brothers is the most popular game in Japan while Paper Mario, a RPG, is North America’s number one. Shining Force barely cracked the top ten in North America and Animal Crossing’s distant relative, Hajimari no Mori made it on Japan’s top 20 list. Seeing Hajimari no Mori rank higher than Street Fighter, Sonic and almost every single TurboGrafx-16 game was a little surprising. But since the game was only on Nintendo’s Satellaview purchases probably weren’t fueled by nostalgia, people bought the game because they were curious about it. I hope that Nintendo will take note and release more Satellaview games on the virtual console in the future.

This is the top 20 list for Japan (left) and North America (right). It's not clear if these games are popular because they are the top selling Virtual Console games, most browsed games this month or most loved by the Nintendo staff (unlikely!). One thing that is odd is out of 40 games there is only a single TurboGrafx-16 game on the list, Bomberman '94. Poor TurboGrafix-16…