Game Count by System
Entry posted by vdub_bobby
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IN VARIOUS threads folks have written that such and such system has a poor library of games and it got me a bit curious.
So, using various sources (most AtariAge and Digital Press) I tried to compile a count of games for each system.
Here it is (US releases only).
First, most to least (I last updated the current consoles a week ago)
PS1 1401
PS2 1262
NES 772
SNES 722
Genesis 706
2600 653
XBox 600
GC 528
N64 298
Dreamcast 252
Saturn 250
Colecovision 145
3DO 141
Intellivision 125
SMS 114
TG-16 94
Neo-Geo 90
5200 71
Jaguar 69
7800 59
Odyssey 2 49
Astrocade 40
XEGS* 32
Vectrex 28
Channel F 27
Arcadia 2001 22
Virtual Boy 14
RCA Studio 2 12
Same list, organized roughly by "generation":
PS1 1401
PS2 1262
NES 772
SNES 722
Genesis 706
2600 653
XBox 600
GC 528
N64 298
Dreamcast 252
Saturn 250
Colecovision 145
3DO 141
Intellivision 125
SMS 114
TG-16 94
Neo-Geo 90
5200 71
Jaguar 69
7800 59
Odyssey 2 49
Astrocade 40
XEGS* 32
Vectrex 28
Channel F 27
Arcadia 2001 22
Virtual Boy 14
RCA Studio 2 12
Same list, organized roughly by "generation":
2600 653
Intellivision 125
Odyssey 2 49
Astrocade 40
Channel F 27
RCA Studio 2 12
Colecovision 145
5200 71
Vectrex 28
Arcadia 2001 22
NES 772
SMS 114
7800 59
XEGS* 32
SNES 722
Genesis 706
TG-16 94
Neo-Geo 90
PS1 1401
N64 298
Saturn 250
3DO 141
Jaguar 69
Virtual Boy 14
PS2 1262
XBox 600
GC 528
Dreamcast 252
A few notes/comments:
-First, I counted only XEGS-specific releases for that machine, though every XL/XE and most 400/800 carts would also run on it, and similarly with the disk games if you bought a disk drive.
-Interestingly, the only generation without a clear, overwhelming leader was the 16-bit generation, with the SNES and the Genesis essentially playing to a tie.
-Later consoles have their numbers inflated somewhat (compared to earlier consoles) by sports games that are released every year.
-Obviously, my numbers may be wrong. 
Please point out any errors.
-It looks to me like ~600 games is the break even point for a console to have a "large" library. This is based just on things I've read - I frequently hear the N64, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Saturn, Intellivision, Colecovision, SMS referred to as having "small" or "narrow" libraries, while rarely (if ever) do I hear the same thing about the 2600/NES/PS1/PS2/SNES/Genesis. The Xbox is right on the borderline w/ 600 games, which seems to conform to folks' thoughts about it: sometimes it is condemned/lamented for its small/narrow library, sometimes it is praised for its large/wide game selection.
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