Atari 7800 Game Sales Figures 86-90

[Curt Vendel]

Here are the sales figures on how many units of each game sold in each year, pretty good numbers.

 

7800_game_sales.zip

 

Curt

[+GroovyBee]

Thanks Curt.

 

CX7825 SKY FOX 0 .00 0 .00 0 .00

 

Thats not in the list of released games for the 7800!

 

Its a proto :-

 

http://www.atari7800.org/screenshots/Sky_Foxscreen.htm

 

To be in the sales list there must have been quite a few knocking around, ready to ship.

 

EDIT: For proto information

Edited May 25, 2009 by GroovyBee

[DracIsBack]

Thanks, Curt! Time to have some fun with Excel.

 

Just looking quickly, it looks like Atari's 7800 "business" in the US was worth over $100 million.

 

I counted net revenue of $23,965,258.00 in software sales between 1986 and 1990; and $87,695,415.31 in console sales.

 

Will look at the titles shortly. :-)

[+Mitch]

Pole Position 2 seems to be the worst selling title of them all. Wow, I wonder why...

 

Mitch

[nonner242]

Pretty Neat to see!

[ApolloBoy]

Since I didn't see those games, I assume these games were released in 1991? That would probably explain why most of these are hard to find:

 

Alien Brigade

Fatal Run

Meltdown

Motor Psycho

Scrapyard Dog

 

I also didn't see Barnyard Blaster for some odd reason.

[mimo]

Pole Position 2 seems to be the worst selling title of them all. Wow, I wonder why...

 

Mitch

And yet every time I buy a 7800 lot from US,Europe or GB I always get 2 copies of PP2

[Mayhem]

I think Mitch's roll eyes were because PP2 was bundled with the 7800 in the US, and those aren't included in the sales figures...?

[Greg2600]

Am I wrong in wondering how there were 3.7 million systems sold, but only 300K Ms. Pac-Man games, the most popular? Only 8% of people who had a system had Ms. Pac-Man? What am I missing here?

[DracIsBack]

Am I wrong in wondering how there were 3.7 million systems sold, but only 300K Ms. Pac-Man games, the most popular? Only 8% of people who had a system had Ms. Pac-Man? What am I missing here?

 

Sort of like there are 22 million GameCubes but only 7 million copies of Smash Brothers.

 

One consideration as well is: how many people bought a 7800 but only had 2600 games on it, due to their relatively higher availability?

[+Mitch]

I think Mitch's roll eyes were because PP2 was bundled with the 7800 in the US, and those aren't included in the sales figures...?

 

Exactly. Pole Position 2 was the pack in for every 7800 sold in North America. Why they decided to make it available seperately is beyond me.

 

Mitch

[DracIsBack]

Exactly. Pole Position 2 was the pack in for every 7800 sold in North America. Why they decided to make it available seperately is beyond me.

 

I always wondered that too. It's almost like they were made in error ... like the factory manufactured the NTSC version when they were asked to manufacture the PAL version for markets outside North America.

[+Random Terrain]

Here's something that's kind of related:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattMatthew..._1986__1990.php

[carmel_andrews]

it would be interesting to find out if more 2600 carts/games were 'SOLD' because of the backwards compatibility of the 7800

[mcjakeqcool]

Between '86 and '90 Atari seemed to be releaceing 7800 and 2600 titles simultainously and just brushing up the 7800 ports, a bit like with the 5200 and 7800 between '82 and '84, for that reason Atari could'ent shine over the 2600 and was never as sucsessful, although all this helped the 2600 become a massive sucsess, it did not help Atari as a company, when the 2600 was discounied in 1992, Atari could'ent find it's feat again, and the Jaguar proved to be a faliure, that's just my knowledge, it may be a bit rusty and you have absolutely reason to belive it. The point of this post is to point out that Atari could never go foward after the 2600, unlike say Nintendo with the SNES, Sony with the ps2 and Microsoft with the Xbox 360.

[Joey Kay]

I cannot for the life of me get these files to open on Excel. Is the download still valid or am I just daft?

Edited July 3, 2009 by Joey Kay

[+Mitch]

I cannot for the life of me get these files to open on Excel. Is the download still valid or am I just daft?

 

Try notepad instead.

 

Mitch

[Joey Kay]

Still can't open them properly. And I've tried on three different computers between work and home in the past two days.

 

Can some kind person post these into a pdf? I would be eternally grateful.

[+GroovyBee]

Can some kind person post these into a pdf? I would be eternally grateful.

No need. Just extract the files from the *.zip archive, right click on the file, select rename and add a ".txt" (without the quotes) to the end. You should be able to open them by double clicking then.

[Joey Kay]

Brilliant! Thanks.

 

I never realized how starved the 7800 was for titles in 87 and 88.

 

On a somewhat related note, is it possible that PPII was manufactured in preparation for a change in the pack-in with the 7800? Surely it must have been at least considered when the library started to grow.

[guyjin]

I think Mitch's roll eyes were because PP2 was bundled with the 7800 in the US, and those aren't included in the sales figures...?

 

Exactly. Pole Position 2 was the pack in for every 7800 sold in North America. Why they decided to make it available seperately is beyond me.

 

Mitch

 

People loose things.

[+Random Terrain]

People loose things.

I hate loose things. I like tight things better.

[guyjin]

People loose things.

I hate loose things. I like tight things better.

 

oops.

 

Also, what's the deal with Ballblazer, Hatrick, and Karateka in 1990? how did they get more returns than sales? And how did Dark Chambers lose money when it sold (however few) units?

Edited July 6, 2009 by guyjin

[carmel_andrews]

So if atari sold gazillion more 7800's then xegs's where have all the users disappeared to....perhaps they don't know that things like atariage exist