Jump to content
IGNORED

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


Recommended Posts

This thread is being made because I'm getting frustrated with the constant changing Atari sales numbers over the years, sources being lost or being behind old newspaper paywalls by the company. So I wanted to put oit all under one thread just to see what research we ACTUALLY HAVE. These are what we are looking for:

 

1. Atari 2600, often debated between 30 and 40 million worldwide (although we know most of that is America by a wide margin but would be interesting if anyone had regional sales), and I've heard stories, but no links, of events in the mid eighties with Atari having signs shown 25-30 sold. What official, or credible numbers do we actually have?

 

2. Atari 5200, we know it sold 1 million at some point but we also know the hardware still sold for awhile afterward, do we have anymore numbers? (Im also wondering about intellvision and Colecovision as well on this one, that whole set used to have a lot of articles on them and now most of them are gone.)

 

3. Atari 7800, we keep seeing 3.77 for NA, and yet there are articles, like on wikipedia, saying that it sold 1 million in 1988. Then we have reports on Atari selling 100k-500k in the launch year. It's all very inconsistent. the only accurate thing I can find are some old articles is that Atari 7800 in NA was always put infront of the MAster system and that at launch multiple retailers saying it sold out.

 

I'm also curious on any sales outside the U.S. as apparently it did pretty well in Europe (and apparently never released in japan officially?)

 

4. Atari Xegs. Or XE Game system. The only thing I have found on this, and put on wiki myself, is that the Xegs sold out at launch all 100,000 units of shipment. I've heard on business reports that it made good money, and heard that it sold really well in europe and often you'll run into this sytem when looking for an actual XE. But I've not heard anything else in either the U.S. or Europe on how well it did at all.

 

5. Jagaur. We know how many were produced, we don't know how many of that actually sold.

 

6. Lynx, the biggest one, I've seen numbers from 3 to 7, to 10 million. I've found articles for NA and Europe of selling out and doing well but no numbers. The only thing I found was an article where the Gamegear and Lynx together sold like 7 million with no spllit.

 

I belive that some may have numbers for these or have been posted before but are spread out across 700 threads over the years and hard to really find. So i thought an umbrella thread to post the numbers we know, and to eventually figure out some kind of conclusive range, would be very helpful.

Edited by JaguarVision
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is this thread limited to the listed machines, or open to all Atari lines, including those not listed (ST, A8, Portfolio, etc.)?

 

And does the "2600" include the Flashback 2, or is it limited to console architecture actually sold by the parent company? And what about the 2600's clones?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is this thread limited to the listed machines, or open to all Atari lines, including those not listed (ST, A8, Portfolio, etc.)?

 

And does the "2600" include the Flashback 2, or is it limited to console architecture actually sold by the parent company? And what about the 2600's clones?

You can do computers as well, but of course we are talking official company here. Flashback wouldn't be part of 2600 in any actual research or history book.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd be interested to know how many flashbacks sold [all models], seperately from the sales of the original Atari Inc and Tramiel's Atari Corp. There were lots of different 2600 clones; those numbers might be too much to ask. I would expected the number for flashbacks and other clones to not be too significant compared with Atari's numbers.

Edited by mr_me
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Flashback 2 would be a clone. Would the Sears Video Arcade be considered a clone? I don't consider the Sears Intellivision a clone. They are identical to Mattel's other than the top plastic.

 

The Sears stuff was manufactured by Atari so of course it would be included. I am curious of the sales data for the Sears stuff, but I would bet good money on that never appearing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The Sears stuff was manufactured by Atari so of course it would be included. I am curious of the sales data for the Sears stuff, but I would bet good money on that never appearing.

 

I would think that Atari themselves would have included Sears sales in any numbers they released. (For example, those signs saying 25-30 million sold.) There's nothing in it for them to not include those sales in their own released sales numbers.

 

So if somebody does find official Atari numbers, I think you can pretty safely assume that includes Sears. Atari knows how many systems they built for Sears and they'd certainly want to include those in their sales numbers for competitive reasons. No point going to a developer or the public saying you've sold 15 million units when there are really 25 million units out there that you've built and can play the same games.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would think that Atari themselves would have included Sears sales in any numbers they released. (For example, those signs saying 25-30 million sold.) There's nothing in it for them to not include those sales in their own released sales numbers.

 

So if somebody does find official Atari numbers, I think you can pretty safely assume that includes Sears. Atari knows how many systems they built for Sears and they'd certainly want to include those in their sales numbers for competitive reasons. No point going to a developer or the public saying you've sold 15 million units when there are really 25 million units out there that you've built and can play the same games.

I meant 2600 sales broken down by Atari vs. Sears. I doubt we will ever know how many of those X amount of systems sold were Video Arcades.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is this website. http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Second_generation_of_video_games

 

It has a reference that six million colecovisions were sold but I'm not sure it's correct.

 

The 3 million Intellivisions comes from Intellivision Productions. They always say that they have Mattel's sales numbers through June 1983 so it should be higher.

 

It has 24 million for the 2600 but the reference is lost.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 3.77 million 7800s sold through I think 1990 has been corroborated on here with Atari's own internal sales data. Someone keeps changing it back on Wikipedia to the lower number, but the higher one is accurate. Anecdotally, looking at the old Computer Entertainer newsletters suggests the 7800 was a relatively hot item in 1986, having dropped a few months before the NES got its national release (and thus having the market largely to itself). It does also sound like Atari annoyed the hell out of those buyers when it didn't release any games between November and midsummer 87.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Flashback 2 would be a clone. Would the Sears Video Arcade be considered a clone? I don't consider the Sears Intellivision a clone. They are identical to Mattel's other than the top plastic.

Sears Video Arcade was made by Atari and sold by Sears.

 

Flashback 2 wasn't contemporary to the 2600, it came 25 years later and had completely different hardware. Yes it has some compatibility, but I don't think that's nearly enough to consider it a clone.

 

Not that it really matters much, as I doubt we're going to be told exactly how many they sold.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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? I wanted to have this thread be the umbrella for all the sales numbers we actually have for Atari's official systems. Yet instead we have a vgsales wiki link what? nobodys thats been on this website for years want to maybe link or bring up some numbers old magazine articles, i know people have seen them or have them, I've noticed the threads over the years but they are all jumbled into different threads, hence why this thread was made.

 

 

The 3.77 million 7800s sold through I think 1990 has been corroborated on here with Atari's own internal sales data. Someone keeps changing it back on Wikipedia to the lower number, but the higher one is accurate. Anecdotally, looking at the old Computer Entertainer newsletters suggests the 7800 was a relatively hot item in 1986, having dropped a few months before the NES got its national release (and thus having the market largely to itself). It does also sound like Atari annoyed the hell out of those buyers when it didn't release any games between November and midsummer 87.

 

Any idea where this info was?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If someone has a source for the 3.77M 7800s sold, they should post it to a reputable place, so Wikipedia can use it as a citation.

 

I have no data, but that number seems really high to me.

3.77m in the NA doesn't really seem high when the SMS was always put below atari during both their relevancy's and Atari had 12% of a market usually consistency as the NES was selling 10's of millions. If Atari held 12% around the NES selling 30 million in the U.S. that would be 3.6 million so that's not far fetched at all really. Though I'm curious if anyone had international numbers.

 

 

But still need a source. I would appreciate if people who have participated in sales threads for any of the systems in the op provide them here under one thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's not proof either, that's just a feeling. :)

 

Sega Master System feels like it came up a little bit later than the 7800 ... but that could be a symptom of one having better distribution than the other. Wikipedia says 2M SMS in the USA. More 7800 than that would be a huge surprise to me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sears Video Arcade was made by Atari and sold by Sears.

 

Flashback 2 wasn't contemporary to the 2600, it came 25 years later and had completely different hardware. Yes it has some compatibility, but I don't think that's nearly enough to consider it a clone.

 

Not that it really matters much, as I doubt we're going to be told exactly how many they sold.

 

Yes, I doubt we'll be able to see AtGames' sales figures for many, many years (if ever). Still, I recall reading somewhere -- here? -- that Curt reportedly that it sold "very well...above 800 000 units".

 

I've never seen any sales figures at all for the Portfolio, but it was apparently quite popular in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe?).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 3.77 million 7800s sold through I think 1990 has been corroborated on here with Atari's own internal sales data. Someone keeps changing it back on Wikipedia to the lower number, but the higher one is accurate. Anecdotally, looking at the old Computer Entertainer newsletters suggests the 7800 was a relatively hot item in 1986, having dropped a few months before the NES got its national release (and thus having the market largely to itself). It does also sound like Atari annoyed the hell out of those buyers when it didn't release any games between November and midsummer 87.

What do they mean by hot? Like how many sales? We know by newspaper accounts that its competitor in the NES sold about 1 million units by January of 1987. Which is pretty damn good fora console that only had a few months of national exposure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Curt Vendel found some Atari Corp. documents that had 7800 sales figures from 1986 through 1990 and the total for those years was 3.77 million. Atari was still selling the 7800 in 1991 so those numbers are not there (probably a small number) and there may have been some sales in 1992 even though they stopped support on the first day of 1992 (probably a very small number). That also does not include however many Atari, Inc. sold in 1994.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

JaguarVision, on 30 Jul 2017 - 1:06 PM, said:

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? I wanted to have this thread be the umbrella for all the sales numbers we actually have for Atari's official systems. Yet instead we have a vgsales wiki link what? nobodys thats been on this website for years want to maybe link or bring up some numbers old magazine articles, i know people have seen them or have them, I've noticed the threads over the years but they are all jumbled into different threads, hence why this thread was made.

 

 

 

Any idea where this info was?

Here is a link to Atari 7800 North America Sales Figures from 1986 to 1990 :

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/144552-happy-25th-7800-sales-figures-attached/?hl

 

Curt has a download attachment with the figures. People on that thread back in 2009 looked at the attachments and figured out the sales figures by adding and subtracting numbers that were listed in that attachment.

Edited by 8th lutz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a link to Atari 7800 North America Sales Figures from 1986 to 1990 :

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/144552-happy-25th-7800-sales-figures-attached/?hl

 

Curt has a download attachment with the figures. People on that thread back in 2009 looked at the attachments and figured out the sales figures by adding and subtracting numbers that were listed in that attachment.

 

So that's where the 3.77 million came from? That number seems suspect. If you look at the price per unit, it ranges from less than $10 to $70. I'd guess that some of those sales were consoles but others were games.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...