The "evergreen", when it comes to Mario, is money.
Last week the NPD Group reported that New Super Mario Bros. Wii had surpassed the U.S. lifetime sales of its 3D brother Super Mario Galaxy. After roughly 45 days on the market, NSMB Wii had moved past Galaxy's 4.1 million copies sold with a tally of 4.2 million.
According to Nikkei (via Kotaku), the worldwide sales figure for NSMB Wii now stands at over 10 million copies. Sales in North America have reached 4.5 million, while the title has sold over 3 million copies in both Japan and Europe.
Last year Nintendo President Satoru Iwata predicted that NSMB Wii could sell ten million units, and it turns out that he was right. At this rate – 10 million units sold in 8 weeks - it looks like it will sell much more than that.