What Atari sales numbers do we have for their systems? (Research thread)

[spacecadet]

There are a few users who have posted, like for example, Spacecadet, who have participated in sales threads over the years but don't have any numbers to contribute to the thread?

 

Hey, I never claimed to - does that mean I can't even talk in the thread?

 

I only know the same stuff everyone else knows. You sounded like you were looking for fully corroborated, verified numbers. I know the stuff that's on Wikipedia that anyone can look up, plus stuff I "heard" back in the day that's probably even less reliable. The number of 2600's sold I had always known as 29 million, forever and before Wikipedia, but I have no idea where I know that from. So I didn't say it.

 

The other systems I really have no idea except that the numbers on the high end always seem way out of whack to me considering how hard most of them failed.

 

Ask me Nintendo hardware sales and I can look up those exact numbers for you right now - Nintendo actually puts out a spreadsheet of all their sales. But Atari's much harder to pin down. I come into threads like these curious if anyone else has real numbers, and then sometimes I get caught up in ancillary conversations.

 

Edit: I do also have that 7800 sales report from that other thread and agree it's impossible to tell what's really being counted. There seem to be a lot of games and probably Atari computers in there as well.

Edited July 31, 2017 by spacecadet

[JaguarVision]

So nobody is able to find all the Atari numbers we have so far to put in this thread? i know many here were in those threads over the years and I though just having one general thread for any sales data, artciles, magaxines, etc. would be easier for people to get information. Nothing on Lynx/7800 sales? 30 or 40 million for 2600?

[jhd]

Back in the early-1980s, the business press often reported approximate/estimated market share data for Atari (and its competitors), but I cannot recall having seen any hard production or sales numbers. I do not have my notes handy, but I can to see what specifically was reported, if that is of any value.

 

Frankly, I would be surprised if a company was willing to publicly release this information.

[mr_me]

So nobody is able to find all the Atari numbers we have so far to put in this thread? i know many here were in those threads over the years and I though just having one general thread for any sales data, artciles, magaxines, etc. would be easier for people to get information. Nothing on Lynx/7800 sales? 30 or 40 million for 2600?

Is this one of the threads you're talking about. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/120190-how-many-2600-consoles-were-sold/

 

It has an Atari press release dated June 1988 posted. It claims 25 million 2600 and one million 7800.

[empsolo]

I'm not sure this helps but I managed to find this article on the 1987 Summer CES from the June 5th edition of the Chicago Tribune:

 

One of the largest exhibitors at McCormick North was Nintendo whose sprawling complex of video game machines came on like blast from the past The size and scope of the exhibit were the direct result of continuing strong sales of the Nintendo Entertainment System this year The company captured 72 percent of the American video game market in 1986 with sales of 300 million Nintendo expects 300 percent increase in unit sales in 1987.

 

 

So the real question is how much of that remaining 28% did Atari and Sega sell in fiscal year 1986?

[JamesD]

I'm not sure this helps but I managed to find this article on the 1987 Summer CES from the June 5th edition of the Chicago Tribune:

 

 

So the real question is how much of that remaining 28% did Atari and Sega sell in fiscal year 1986?

You are assuming that's the only systems they are counting as part of the video-game market.

And that's dollars, not machines.

 

*edit*

The article doesn't cite a source for the info either.

Edited September 1, 2017 by JamesD

[empsolo]

You are assuming that's the only systems they are counting as part of the video-game market.

And that's dollars, not machines.

 

*edit*

The article doesn't cite a source for the info either.

Well the common sales figure for the NES i the US in 1986 was around 1 million with around double that in cartridge sales. So do the math?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mr_me]

I'm not sure this helps but I managed to find this article on the 1987 Summer CES from the June 5th edition of the Chicago Tribune:

 

 

So the real question is how much of that remaining 28% did Atari and Sega sell in fiscal year 1986?

https://m.imgur.com/eUXac6M

From the "Computer Entertainer" Feb 1987; sales through Dec 1986 in the United States:

Nes: 1.1 million

Atari 7800: 100000

Sega MS: 125000

 

[Was the Atari 2600 on the market in 1986?]

 

You are assuming that's the only systems they are counting as part of the video-game market.

And that's dollars, not machines.

 

*edit*

The article doesn't cite a source for the info either.

You don't trust the Chicago Tribune. Edited September 1, 2017 by mr_me

[Bill Loguidice]

Personally - although I can't dispute the numbers since I have no additional sources - always thought the Atari 7800 outselling the SMS in the US was suspect. I really only recall seeing the 7800 at Toys R Us, while the SMS also had kiosks at many big electronics retailers. This was in addition to having many more TV commercials than the 7800, much better coverage in magazines, and more and arguably higher profile games. I realize Tonka kind of bungled a lot of things distribution-wise, but I just don't see logically how the 7800 could have outsold the SMS in the US by nearly double. This seems especially suspect when Atari themselves reported only 1 million Atari 7800 consoles sold worldwide by mid-1988 (link). Are we really expected to believe that there was a massive consumer desire to purchase the 7800 in the US after 1988, particularly with a NES in its prime and SMS bringing out well advertised releases like Phantasy Star?

 

Now, if Atari overproduced the 7800 and we count all worldwide territories, and a lot of those were sold on clearance (somewhat like the Jaguar), maybe that's more believable, but I just don't know otherwise.

[CatPix]

Yeah, figures might be misleading. As you name hte Jaguar, I sometime see the figure of 200 000 or 250 000 Jguar sold. And either figures are either given for "total" or for "US sales".

 

It might be that 200 000 Jaguar were sold in the Us and 50 000 in Europe, but that sounds extraordinary small. Even the GX 4000 sold 150 000 units, and it was in one year in France and the UK.

[Bill Loguidice]

Yeah, figures might be misleading. As you name hte Jaguar, I sometime see the figure of 200 000 or 250 000 Jguar sold. And either figures are either given for "total" or for "US sales".

 

It might be that 200 000 Jaguar were sold in the Us and 50 000 in Europe, but that sounds extraordinary small. Even the GX 4000 sold 150 000 units, and it was in one year in France and the UK.

 

I haven't seen the breakdown by territory, but the numbers from Atari's own SEC filings seem to clearly indicate that eventually no more than 225,000 made it out into the wild (which is assuming none were destroyed for tax purposes), but probably well under 150,000 in total when it was not in a state of close out/liquidation. It's not surprising then with two full years on the market having only sold 125,000 units that it was all but ignored by third parties, even after pledging their early support.

 

What I find interesting about the GX 4000 is that so many, even now, are available new in the box. I have two myself. Of course, I don't know anything about the how/why of sales or even top of my head what the retail price was. Perhaps it was much cheaper relative to something like the Jaguar?

[Lost Dragon]

@Bill:

 

Regarding the Amstrad GX4000

 

 

It was advertised heavily in UK Press, not that it did it much good as by Autumn 1991 UK High Street chains like Dixons were clearing stocks as fast as they could of it and the C64GS...

 

 

Whilst Amstrad still had a R.R.P for the GX4000 of £99.99, stores had price of new units down to £19.99 which when you consider the weaker hardware based C64GS was selling for £29.99 new in clearance, shows how desperate they were to get shot of it.

 

 

 

I believe the limited Ram size on carts caused developers issues (128K?), with US Gold saying that was why 'World Of Sports' only featured 4 events, not great VFM at £24.99.

 

 

 

It soon became an utter laughing stock here in UK, appearing on Brit Soap Eastenders, being given away as 'mockery prize' in Zero magazine and support soon dropped by UK Press.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

You might find it hard to get independently verified UK sales data as we had examples like this:

 

 

Raze magazine with Atari's claim that according to a Mintel report it held 50% of UK console market.Here's actual quote from said magazine

 

:

'Atari often quotes a Mintel report that states the 7800, together with it's older brother, the 2600 accounts for around 50% of the UK Console Market'.

 

No specific numbers..let alone a break down of how much of that % was for the 2600 and the remainder for the 7800.

 

Then you have Darryl Still being interviewed on RVG with Q+A like these:

 

Q)Do you happen to know what the total sales figures for the Lynx were? There seems to be no other figures quoted other than articles that report Atari selling their one millionth Lynx.

 

I probably knew at the time, but cannot put a figure on it now. Less than it should have been, that’s for sure. Definitely more than that the worldwide build was 7 digits and they'd have all been sold into retail.

 

Q. I always guessed at about 2.5 million because I know Batman Returns helped sell a lot of Lynxes. I still remember the long advert before the film when I went to see it at the Odeon in St. Albans! I wish I had a recording of that advert!

 

Yes, something like that. Because of that game, Batman returns was the first proper film premiere I ever went to. Mrs S and I walked down the red carpet and people started screaming. Thought for a second it was at us, then realised Bob Geldoff, Paula Yates and Catherine Zeta Jones were right behind us!!

 

That ended up being used to justify the 3 Million claim as fact in RetroGamer magazine..yet it's heavily based around pure speculation. ..not verified data.

 

 

More from Darryl..

 

 

Q) There are claims that at one point the Lynx outsold Game Gear in the UK. Is that true?

 

I probably made those claims….not sure there was much foundation in fact, but at our peak, we would have been close I’d imagine.

 

Q. Did the Atari 7800 sell well in Europe?

 

It was well stocked by European retail. It never got the consumer traction that the 2600 did, but I remember we used to do a lot of units mail order through the catalogues and in the less affluent areas.

 

Given this is Atari UK P.R Manager that was, admitting he doesn't know actual figures..made claims that might not of have had much foundation in fact etc. .

 

You can see why solid data is so hard to come by..

Edited September 2, 2017 by Lost Dragon

[mr_me]

Personally - although I can't dispute the numbers since I have no additional sources - always thought the Atari 7800 outselling the SMS in the US was suspect. I really only recall seeing the 7800 at Toys R Us, while the SMS also had kiosks at many big electronics retailers. This was in addition to having many more TV commercials than the 7800, much better coverage in magazines, and more and arguably higher profile games. I realize Tonka kind of bungled a lot of things distribution-wise, but I just don't see logically how the 7800 could have outsold the SMS in the US by nearly double. This seems especially suspect when Atari themselves reported only 1 million Atari 7800 consoles sold worldwide by mid-1988 (link). Are we really expected to believe that there was a massive consumer desire to purchase the 7800 in the US after 1988, particularly with a NES in its prime and SMS bringing out well advertised releases like Phantasy Star?

 

Now, if Atari overproduced the 7800 and we count all worldwide territories, and a lot of those were sold on clearance (somewhat like the Jaguar), maybe that's more believable, but I just don't know otherwise.

So you don't accept the internal Atari 7800 sales reports posted here. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/144552-happy-25th-7800-sales-figures-attached/page-1

 

It says 285k for 1986 (more than double the magazine). And ~1.3M for 1987; add first quarter 1988 sales and you might have about ~1.75M where the Atari press release says more than 1M. As far as outselling the SMS, I never even heard of the SMS until 1988/89 when I saw a magazine ad. I could see the 7800 selling to older kids upgrading from their 2600, offering cartridge compatibility. It was an alternative to the NES that older kids might have seen as a toy; and there's brand loyalty. [And the 7800 sold for about half the price of the SMS.] Three million is not a big number and nes marketing was probably mostly responsible for driving Atari sales.

Edited September 2, 2017 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

I remember when Batman Returns came out. My first reaction was why the fsck is this Lynx game fifty bucks?

 

I can accept not knowing the real numbers for 7800 games. The fact that at least one wholesaler seemed to be selling deeply discounted 7800 for ten years says it all to me.

[ubersaurus]

I for one never heard of the SMS until the mid-90s, but anecdotally I knew a few 7800 owners in elementary school who got it because their parents had 2600 games or knew the Atari name (mine included). I can absolutely believe that Atari had a larger share of those market scraps.

[mr_me]

...The fact that at least one wholesaler seemed to be selling deeply discounted 7800 for ten years says it all to me.

They all count as Atari 7800 sales; probably all for the same year.

 

And those Atari 7800 sales reports are US sales only. That same thread mentions that Atari 2600 sales reports were posted in another thread.

Edited September 2, 2017 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

They all count as Atari 7800 sales; probably all for the same year.

 

And those Atari 7800 sales reports are US sales only. That same thread mentions that Atari 2600 sales reports were posted in another thread.

Im just saying that warehouse was sitting on a ton of unsold Atari 7800 product for a very long time, which to my mind speaks volumes about the lack of popularity of that system. Like the other stuff in this thread, its anecdote, not data.

 

Do we have any reason to think the 7800 was a big seller outside the United States?

[mr_me]

Okay. I thought we were talking about if the Atari 7800 sales reports for US sales 1986-90 are believable and if it outsold the SMS in the United States. Nothing was popular compared to the NES [in north america].

Edited September 2, 2017 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

I agree I dont see much point in worrying about which loser was ahead, since they were all SO far behind the NES, which led by a factor of 10X or more.

[CatPix]

I haven't seen the breakdown by territory, but the numbers from Atari's own SEC filings seem to clearly indicate that eventually no more than 225,000 made it out into the wild (which is assuming none were destroyed for tax purposes), but probably well under 150,000 in total when it was not in a state of close out/liquidation. It's not surprising then with two full years on the market having only sold 125,000 units that it was all but ignored by third parties, even after pledging their early support.

 

What I find interesting about the GX 4000 is that so many, even now, are available new in the box. I have two myself. Of course, I don't know anything about the how/why of sales or even top of my head what the retail price was. Perhaps it was much cheaper relative to something like the Jaguar?

The GX4000 was later revealed to be a way to empty the shelves of Amstrad's pile of chips. I read somewhere that they made about 200 000 GX4000, of which 150 000 were sold. It's likely that several of those 50 000 unsold consoles were not in a big central warehouse but into several ones which would explain the huge number of NIB system. That, and hte fact that the system was short lived so the peope lthat got one probably played it for some months and stored it back in the box

For the price, I think I remember it was fairly inexpensive, but heh, it was a mix of 6 years old tech and one new video chip so it would have been cheaper than a Jaguar.

Edited September 3, 2017 by CatPix

[jhd]

I have reviewed my notes, and this is what was reported in the business press in the early-1980s. I have no data for the 5200, 7800, and later systems as my research did not extend that far. There was very little coverage of video games in the business press in 1984. Please note that these may well be best estimates from industry insiders rather than based upon company press releases. These magazines are not available online, but a large public or academic library should have them.

 

Business Week – May 24, 1982

-- in 1981, Atari made $740 million from the sale of video game hardware and cartridges
-- Atari owns nearly two thirds of the game cartridge business

 

Fortune – November 15, 1982

-- in 1981, home video games accounted for 25% of Warner's sales and 57% of operating earnings

 

Business Week – September 13, 1982

-- Industry analyst Thomas Kully “estimates that Atari's share has already slipped from more than 70% last year to 65% this year for game players, and from 85% to 60% for cartridges”.

 

Fortune – August 8, 1983

-- “Atari’s share of the software sold for its own video game player dropped from over 80% in 1981 to 56% in 1982”.

 

By the end of 1978, Atari had shipped 800,000 VCS machines. Three years later, the cumulative total was more than six million, and by the end of 1982, that had risen to more than 11 million.

[zzip]

 

[Was the Atari 2600 on the market in 1986?]

 

Yes, that was around the time the Tramiels discovered they could still sell 2600's without advertising, and they released the 2600jr in response.

[ubersaurus]

The 2600 was officially reintroduced to the market in 1986, alongside Solaris, Jr. Pac-Man. and Midnight Magic's releases in the fall.

[Lost Dragon]

If only Atari had been as good at telling the press how many units of hardware they had sold..rather than how many they expected to sell...

 

Things would be a lot clearer..