7. Wii Sports
When it launched, the Nintendo Wii was running on five year-old hardware. Nintendo doubled down after the financial failure of the GameCube and attached a motion controller to the guts of that system, redesigned it, and marketed it to non-gamers. Wii Sports was the first salvo of that venture and it worked beautifully. A collection of minigames built around the new motion tech, Wii Sports helped the Wii sell millions so fast that the console has become the indisputable king of the 7th generation. Financially, that is.
Wii Sports marked the beginning of the "casual craze." By that, I mean companies started making games not specifically for you or me. And while that drew the ire of hardcore gamers who staunchly believed in the artistic and technical prowess of the medium, me included for a time, it meant that games could appeal to a much more diverse crowd than than companies thought it could.
