News: Well, the PS3 version anyway.
A week before the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime was asked by Geoff Keighly of GameTrailers TV if the game could outsell Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Fils-Aime replied "On a single platform... absolutely. I say that unequivocally." He followed that up with a request to push the challenge through the end of the NPD reporting period for January.
Well, with the January NPDs in the books, it appears that Reggie was right. New Super Mario Bros. Wii absolutely crushed the PS3 version of Modern Warfare 2. In fact, it wasn't even close. However, also as predicted, the Xbox 360 version came out on top amongst the three games.
The final numbers are:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360)
November: 4,200,000
December: 1,630,000
January: 326,700
Total: 6,156,700
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
November: 1,390,000
December: 2,820,000
January: 656,700
Total: 4,866,700
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
November: 1,870,000
December: 1,120,000
January: 259,000
Total: 3,249,000
As you can see, Fils-Aime's prediction that NSMBWii would continue selling throughout 2010 as Modern Warfare 2 would drop off is also coming true. And Mario's latest adventure will likely surpass the Xbox 360 version of the latest CoD in sales sometime this Summer.
Pretty impressive for a side-scrolling platformer released on a system that many gamers still regard as a "fad".
We'll have more soon.