2008 saw many new installments in established video game franchises, such as ''

Grand Theft Auto IV ''Grand Theft Auto IV'' is a 2008 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the sixth main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2004's ''Grand Theft Auto: San And ...

'', '' Fallout 3'', '' Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots'', '' Gears of War 2'', '' Super Smash Bros. Brawl'', ''

Persona 4 is a 2008 role-playing video game by Atlus. It is chronologically the fifth installment in the ''Persona (series), Persona'' series, itself a part of the larger ''Megami Tensei'' franchise, and was released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in Ju ...

'', '' Fable II'', '' Call of Duty: World at War'', '' Mario Kart Wii'', '' Madden NFL 09'', '' NBA Live 09'', '' NBA 2K9'', and '' WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009''. New intellectual properties included '' Army of Two'', '' Dead Space'', '' Left 4 Dead'', '' LittleBigPlanet'', '' Mirror's Edge'', '' iRacing'', '' Race Driver: Grid'', and ''

Spore In biology, a spore is a unit of sexual reproduction, sexual (in fungi) or asexual reproduction that may be adapted for biological dispersal, dispersal and for survival, often for extended periods of time, in unfavourable conditions. Spores fo ...

'', ''

De Blob ''De Blob'' (Stylized as ''de BLOB'') is a puzzle-platform game developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment and published by THQ for the Wii. Players explore and liberate an alien city from the evil and monochromatic INKT Corporation that has tak ...

'', '' Meat Boy''.

Major awards

Events

Business

Open to the public

Hardware and software sales

Worldwide

The following are the best-selling games of 2008 in terms of worldwide retail sales. These games sold at least units worldwide in 2008.

Canada

* Based on figures from the NPD Group: Video game console sales in Canada (first seven months of 2008)

Japan

* Based on figures from

Enterbrain , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing founded on January 30, 1987, as . Magazines published by Enterbrain are generally focused on video games and computer entertainment as well as video game and strate ...

: Video game console sales of 2008 in Japan (December 31, 2007 – December 28, 2008) Best-selling video games of 2008 in Japan (December 31, 2007 – December 28, 2008) * Based on figures from '' Dengeki'': Best-selling video games of 2008 in Japan (December 31, 2007 – December 21, 2008)

United States

* Based on figures from the NPD Group: * Based on figures from the NPD Group via

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

; the games' publishers are listed in brackets: * Based on figures from the NPD Group: Note: This list only includes games that were released after NPD started tracking video game sales data.

Other

* Based on figures from

, GfK Chart-Track, and the NPD Group, respectively: Best-selling video games in Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States combined (January–July 2008) Best-selling video games in Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States combined (July–September 2008)

Hardware releases

Game releases

Critically acclaimed titles

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

(MC) and

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...