The numbers for Wii Play are misleading, since everyone that buys a second (or third, or fourth) Wiimote is "buying" a copy of Wii Play. It's not as if they're going to the store to purchase a copy of Wii Play. Same on Nintendo and NPD for counting these as units sold.

Is it really the game or the spare controller that's selling here? The game is great value added but not the reason I bought Wii Play

@1

Well, it's not that shameful is it, because they ARE sales? Whether punters are buying the pack for the controller or the game, the game itself is still being sold.

Not sure I agree - yes sales are sales, but I do think the reporting should omit this game, or at least include some sort of an asterix (ie includes controller, game is actually cr*p) if it doesnt already. I believe Wii Play is an incentive to buy an extra controller - I dont think the game itself is the incentive behind the sale and it isnt quite right to be putting it in the software sales charts when the substance behind the consumer purchase is the controller and not the game. It is obviously a sale but shouldnt be included in the software sales charts in my opinion. If the hardware is fairly unique to the game (ie if Shaun White came with a balance board) it may be fair to include this in a software sales chart because I believe the intention behind the purchase would be to get a full experience on Shaun White. I do not believe the intention behind buying Wii Play is to play the game, but is instead to have a 2nd, 3rd or 4th controller on Mario Kart etc. Still...as usual, you gotta hand it to Nintendo. Besides it would be a matter of judgement to determine which games in bundle sales are counted and which aren't based on how good it is because I am sure there are many out there that think Wii play is a good game...just not the majority.

The idea that it's our place to pass judgement on the quality of a title in a story about sales charts is quite ludicrous. I think you misunderstand the function of our site.

And regardless of how you may or may not feel about it, the number of copies of the game sold is fact. All other debates surrounding quality or its inclusion in a hardware bundle are for elsewhere. Sales reports are concerned only with one thing - the number of copies sold.

Agreed - not an attack on the reporting on this site as Wii play sales are recorded as sales on all charts I have seen. In fact any sales chart omitting Wii Play would need a disclosure to this effect and its reasons as it would not be consistent with the remaining charts that do include it. Was just meant to be a more general theoretical discussion as you state.
We all know that Wii play would not sell the volume it has without the controller - but I already raised the point in my earlier post that choosing whether to omit a game on this basis is too much a matter of judgement and would be impossible to do. A very good game could sell with a controller bundle that may sell high volumes anyways without one...it wouldn't be fair to omit this game then because it came with a controller. However the fact is that bundles are usually made to encourage sales of a game that wouldn't otherwise sell, so in theory it does not seem right to include - but in reality it is impractical not to.

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