2nd & 3rd Generation Console Sales and Survivability Rates

[Metal Ghost]

Hey everyone, I was just thinking: does anyone know what the sales figures were for the 2nd and 3rd generation of video game consoles? I was specifically thinking of the big-boys:

 

• Atari VCS
  
• Atari 5200
  
• Atari 7800
  
• Colecovision
  
• Intellivision
  
• NES
  
• Sega Master System
  

 

I mean it seems to be easy to find sales figures for modern day consoles (and even some of those 3rd gen systems mentioned above), but it seems more difficult to get reliable sales figues for the lesser known ones.

 

But, moving on to the second part of my question, that is really the difficult one: out of the total sell through figures for each console, how many are estimated to still exist?

 

I've done some searches to see if such an investigation had ever been done, but didn't come up with anything.

 

I don't know, what do you guys think? Would some sort of investigation like this be a good thing?

 

And, does anyone out there happen to know the sell through figures on the above consoles?

[DragonmasterDan]

Hey everyone, I was just thinking: does anyone know what the sales figures were for the 2nd and 3rd generation of video game consoles? I was specifically thinking of the big-boys:

 

• Atari VCS
  
• Atari 5200
  
• Atari 7800
  
• Colecovision
  
• Intellivision
  
• NES
  
• Sega Master System
  

 

I mean it seems to be easy to find sales figures for modern day consoles (and even some of those 3rd gen systems mentioned above), but it seems more difficult to get reliable sales figues for the lesser known ones.

 

But, moving on to the second part of my question, that is really the difficult one: out of the total sell through figures for each console, how many are estimated to still exist?

 

I've done some searches to see if such an investigation had ever been done, but didn't come up with anything.

 

I don't know, what do you guys think? Would some sort of investigation like this be a good thing?

 

And, does anyone out there happen to know the sell through figures on the above consoles?

 

Reliable sales figures prior to say the 32-bit era are sketchy at best outside of in Japan. The reason being NPD didn't consider it in the US for example to be a major point of interest and their TRST (Toy Retail Sales Tracking) numbers mixed in video game sales with GI Joes and Power Ranger figures.

 

The only people who know would be the manufacturers. It's also worth noting that some platforms for example the master system generated most of their sales long after they were past their prime in the market, mostly in lower income parts of the world where it was one of the few products localized for those areas.

[theking21083]

I'll help get you started with an investigation on remaining systems. I have 1 Atari VCS, 1 NES, and 1 Colecovision. Now everybody else in the world just has to post on here how many they have and that will be settled.

[opeygon]

I'll help get you started with an investigation on remaining systems. I have 1 Atari VCS, 1 NES, and 1 Colecovision. Now everybody else in the world just has to post on here how many they have and that will be settled.

 

funny, but ok here goes:

 

1 atari 2600 heavy sixer

1 sears telegames 4 switcher

1 atari 5200 two port

1 coleco vision

1 NES

 

okay people, lets keep it going!

[chrisbid]

the blue sky rangers always bring up the number 3 million for number of intellivisions sold. however, im sure a decent number of those were sold at huge discounts after the crash.

[Lemmi]

the blue sky rangers always bring up the number 3 million for number of intellivisions sold. however, im sure a decent number of those were sold at huge discounts after the crash.

 

and a number of those being thrown out for overheating/power supply problems

[vdub_bobby]

Wikipedia claims to know worldwide sales...

 

2nd generation:

VCS: 30 million

Intellivision: 5 million

ColecoVision: 6 million

 

3rd generation:

NES: 60 million

SMS: 13 million

7800: 1 million

 

Can't find 5200 sales anywhere though...

Edited December 11, 2007 by vdub_bobby

[DragonmasterDan]

Wikipedia claims to know worldwide sales...

 

2nd generation:

VCS: 30 million

Intellivision: 5 million

ColecoVision: 6 million

 

3rd generation:

NES: 60 million

SMS: 13 million

7800: 1 million

 

Can't find 5200 sales anywhere though...

 

Those are projections of units produced. Again, it's not really accurate.

[jsoper]

Those are projections of units produced. Again, it's not really accurate.

It's accurate enough for me, I found consoles in the wild at about that ratio.