'Guitar Hero' Rules! : The 10 Top-Selling Videogames

The last year's top games were as interesting for who made the list as for who didn't.

In short, mighty Sony's latest console has been shut out, with not a single game designed for the PlayStation 3 making the list of top sellers in the U.S. Expect that to change--fast--as Sony looks to leapfrog Microsoft's XBox 360 console. But there can be little doubt, now, that the long-standing pecking order in the gaming industry has been shaken up.

If Sony is now looking to claw back lost ground, so are game developers, many of whom missed the success of Nintendo's Wii last year. The result: Four of the 10 top-selling games were not only exclusive to Nintendo's Wii but developed by Nintendo itself for the console.

Look for that to change as big studios such as Electronic Arts start pumping out more game titles that take advantage of the Wii's unique motion-sensitive controller.

In fact, if you count the success of "Pokemon Diamond," a game developed for Nintendo's DS handheld gaming system, six of the 10 top-selling games last year eschewed the traditional keyboard or hockey puck-shaped controller.

Instead gamers bashed at virtual tennis balls with their Wii wands, or slashed their way through monster guitar solos on "Guitar Hero III."

Look for the trend to continue this year, with Nintendo bringing its hot-selling Wii Fit to the U.S. and Europe this year.

It's a package of fitness games that come with a pad that allows players to run up virtual mountain trails or shimmy their way down ski slopes and game developers are already working on titles that will take advantage of the game's oddball new controller.

But if the way people played games changed, other things stayed the same. Electronic Arts' powerhouse, the Madden NFL franchise, remained a top seller.

The third iteration of Microsoft's alien-blasting adventure "Halo 3" sold 4.8 million copies, making the XBox 360 a must-have for many hard-core gamers. "The top genres are essentially the same year after year," argued Anita Frazier, an analyst with NPD Group, which tracks sales of videogames in the U.S. "There is very little movement year after year in genre ranking."

At the annual Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco held in mid February, you could find plenty of evidence to support that idea. Even developers of so-called "casual games," which are drawing legions of nontraditional gamers including women in their 40s and children under 10, bemoaned the plethora of me-too titles.

And Microsoft confirmed that "Gears of War 2," a good old-fashioned shoot-em-up, is due in November.

But there are signs of fresh creativity as well. Microsoft and Nintendo are both encouraging developers to create snack-sized online games for their consoles.

That's a big shift in an industry that has been traditionally dominated by epic games with huge budgets. Enthusiasm for mobile games is heating up as well.

And "Spore," the long-promised masterpiece from SimCity creator, Will Wright, which mixes elements from diverse genres to help players model and evolve new creatures, promises to become a best-seller when it is released in September.

It will be an interesting year.