Looking for any post 1988 Atari 7800 and sourced SMS sales figures (any date) for new book.

[Leeroy ST]

25 minutes ago, Torr said:

No... it started when I made the point that "The Atarian's" Mailbag Column had a letter where some kid claimed that not only he, but all his friends too, would rather come to his house and play Mario Bros. (1983) and Winter Games on his 7800 in the year of 1989 than anything released on the NES to that point. Which is laughable. Hurt my sides laughable.

And then you actually defended that letter and acted as though it could have been real. (This was in their FIRST issue mind you... how many people are sending letters to a magazine that doesn't even exist yet??)

But yeah, I'm out of troll food.

 

Enjoy alienating the small audience your book has.

Yes, people did buy the 7800 for Mario bros, people had to have a reason to buy the system, and generalizing based on this one example is NOT constructive. If you had multiple examples of this same issue, where people wrote in saying they would rather play Mario Bros, than your argument would have more merit, but as you wrote it with the one example, it clearly came off as you having a point of view already in mind. 

 

Now if there were multiple letters saying the same thing please post them as then I would agree with your stance. (also dimissing that bill interpretation and acting like it had nothing to due with several members attacking me doesn't help things)

[Bill Loguidice]

4 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Clarifying a 3rd time, What I said is that the 7800 attracted a certain group of people to the system, although not by much considering how it and the SMS were steamrolled, and Nintendos lock on third-parties with illegal policies helped that. This group generally were those who were interested in fast-paced arcade style or computer-style games. I never said the 7800 had "more" computer-style games or that the NES didn't have "any", but the audience interested in the NES were not people who match that demographic. That's why most of what were cult or popular computer games that had ports on the NES (in NA) did not do well or in many (not all) cases, couldn't produce just passable numbers on the NES.

 

 

 

 

 

Considering something like 30 million NES units sold in the US and its massive library literally featured every possible genre (including educational content) and support from just about every major and minor publisher out there (including Tengen to cover some of the Atari and Sega arcade stuff), it's a pretty strange assertion to put forth that the "audience interested in the NES were not people who match that demographic." You're making stuff up here, something you're accusing everyone else of doing. It's the same thing with that last sentence I quoted you above about "cult or popular computer games that had ports on the NES (in NA) did not do well or in many (not all) cases, couldn't produce just passable numbers on the NES." Really? Where's your evidence for this? It's likely that many of even the poorest selling such titles on the NES still moved bigger numbers of units than what would be considered strong sellers on the competition based on sheer user base alone (and that's not to mention sales in other territories that the 7800 never even made it to).

[Bill Loguidice]

Just now, Leeroy ST said:

Yes, people did buy the 7800 for Mario bros, people had to have a reason to buy the system, and generalizing based on this one example is NOT constructive. If you had multiple examples of this same issue, where people wrote in saying they would rather play Mario Bros, than your argument would have more merit, but as you wrote it with the one example, it clearly came off as you having a point of view already in mind. 

 

Now if there were multiple letters saying the same thing please post them as then I would agree with your stance. (also dimissing that bill interpretation and acting like it had nothing to due with several members attacking me doesn't help things)

Can you kindly explain why you think someone would prefer the 7800 version of Mario Bros. over the NES version, the literal home of Mario-based gaming?

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, Bill Loguidice said:

Considering something like 30 million NES units sold in the US and its massive library literally featured every possible genre (including educational content) and support from just about every major and minor publisher out there (including Tengen to cover some of the Atari and Sega arcade stuff), it's a pretty strange assertion to put forth that the "audience interested in the NES were not people who match that demographic." You're making stuff up here, 

No you're making stuff up, like your "post crash baggage" comment. You are basically arguing that people who liked PC-style games would generally buy a NES because it had more, and yet we knwo from the sales of those games that's not the case, nor was the NES targetting that demographic, the NES had a perception of being a more kid-friendly console. Those type of games actually sold more once ports came to the Genesis, which had a similar control scheme and also had similar games the NES had in other categories and grabbed a shit ton of marketshare. So we have PROOF that the NES alienated a large group. Even the LYNX would continue to have similar game-styles be better selling games on the system because a person who is interested in those games would get a system that is preceived to be focusing on that type of gamer no matter how small the mount or how limited the library is.

 

You're argument was poorly used for the Gamecube back in the day as well, another consoles that targeted a key demographic creating a perception of the consoles a certain type of way, despite also having many of the same HIT games that the competitors have. I don't know why you are pretendin this is some strange thing.

 

Also are you really going to say freaking Wizardry and some other PC ports sold gang busters on the NES? The NES isn't the difficult counsole to consult for on sales unlike the other two, I'd like to see these massive selling PC ports. As I said the majority of them didn't so that well on the NES why would this be a controversial statement, did Wizardry sell 1 million copies I didn't know about? 500k? 300K? 200k?

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

4 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Can you kindly explain why you think someone would prefer the 7800 version of Mario Bros. over the NES version, the literal home of Mario-based gaming?

You mean the homne of scrolling Super Mario based gaming? Mario Bros came out first.

 

Also we go back to the post I made to you above, Atari was a console preceived as a palce where you could get some PC-style games and arcade style classics and BC with a consoles that primarily focused on classic arcade style gameplay.

 

Mario Bros (the original) is a classic arcade style game.

 

I mean you could get them on both but I can see why a person who buys a 7800 for (then) classic style arcade games would buy most of those style of games only on the 7800, which was preceived as having those types of games, even you said they were "outdated" and the NES had the "next-level", so you are basically contradicting your own argument here.

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

 

I'm not sure how you screwed this up, but it doesn't say Tonka, it says Irwin.  Irwin was the Canadian distributor for the sms.  Those are Canadian numbers.  Canada is about ten times smaller than the united states so you can estimate US numbers to be about ten times larger or more.  So no, this doesn't throw anything in to question.

 

And regarding Atari market share in the late 1980s.  As you know the Atari 2600 was still their top selling model and accounted for a large chunk of that market share.

10x more 100,000 would be 1 million so that would place 1988 at 1 million and Sega expecting another 1 million in 1988 using your measurements for the US. But that's not how the markets work they aren't 1:1

 

You are also dissecting everything other than the irwin mistake I made to try and dismiss the other sources which is dishinest.

 

TIMELINE OF ARTICLES:

 

Atari sold 1 million consoles in 1988 n JUNE not counting the next 6 months including the holiday season. of the year which will conclude to be Ataris best year overall. Since most 7800 launches wouldn't happen until 89, most of that 1 million is in the us. 

 

in 1988 the LA times says that Atari sold 2 million systems and the SMS sold 500,000.

 

Note: You try to use 2600's to downplay the 7800 sales but that still doesn't work here. For one we don't know if the original 25 million included 1985 sales which Atari sold 1 million. Even if we did and assume the LTD of 30 million is true, that would give the 2600 26 million or 25 million in 1986. The 2600 was discontinued in 1992. Including 1986 that's 7 years to sell between 5 or 4 million units so there's no way for Atari to sell 1 million every year.

 

So as said above, we know that most of the 1 million Atari 7800 sales were in NA, and so that could be around 950,000 for all we know. Even if we lowball the 7800 and give the Atari 2600 over 1 million and make up a decent Xegs number that would still put the 7800 at 700,000 sold that's still 200,000 higher than the SMS before the 7800's best 6 month period in itslife with low balled numbers.

 

 

This was what was going around in late NOV 1988, this is a repot of Sega sales flattening for Tonka (not Irwin), which shows that the 500,000 units were slowing sales.

 

In addition

 

 

This was going around multiple news articles about Atari having 13.3% of the market and Sega having 4%, although both Sega and Atari in some articles claimed they had a bit more, that is not an insignficant gap especially by this time in the generation (we'll call it that I guess) which can't be ignored.

 

Then after NOV

 

 

We now have several articles (although slightly different how the article is written) in DEC 1988 showing an increase in marketshare for both Sega and Atari, but the previous gap of ~9.x between Atari systems and the SMS became a gap of ~12.x

 

Again not insignficant.

 

Also in some articles like this one, they say that Atari had set-backs and held 20%, but Sega was an also-ran  accounting for JUST 8%, still not in the souble digits and 1989 is literally around the corner.

 

So we don't know the sales of that 8% for the SMS but we do know the sales were flattening not long before a month earlier (actually less than a month earlier) so in order for the SMS to reach 1 million in 1990 as some say it would have to make up that gap in 1989.

 

But here's an article from Summer 1990

 

 

 

As Tonka's SMS sales slowed and the fact they were not renewed for the Genesis hurt their bottom line. As in earlier articles you can find Tonka talking about how SMS was there best selling product so this isn't of much surprise.

 

So what we have here is a flattening of the SMS at 500,000 units, a shoddy November/Black Friday with Atari increasing a lead, and skipping one year (1989) we see an expected collapse which certainly Atari also experienced a similar crash because both of these consoles were free falling by that point.

 

While I would like to have more articles, this is all we have and it clearly indicated even lowballing 7800 numbers that there is a higher "proibability" that the 7800 outsold the SMS. I don't see the controversy here. However, I will say that I am not going to cement that claim because we are missing a crap ton of data and I'm not going to pretend we aren't, we are, but considering both these consoles falling and dying in the very early 90's I cant really see the SMS catching up and then some in a 1 year and a half period it seems very unlikely unless there's an article out there showing the SMS had some massive killer app that blew up sales. 

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

Now with the above said, with some of the misunderstanding and agression here I didn't have a chance to really put out my opinion on this issue.

 

I actually don't think either the 7800 or the SMS were second place, I honestly don't see anything that would indicate either the 7800 or the SMS sold 2 million units or even near it. I think that the 7800 would have the best chance, but even after a stellar holiday after that 1 million and 1989 european launches I'm not entirely sure that would bring the results to another 1 million copies, maybe, but it seems iffy to me.

 

I generally believe that both lost to the 2600. Because while some poor downplaying of 7800 sales with the 2600 doesn't really add up since you are looking at 6-7 years of the consoles starting and including 1986, I do firmly believe that the 2600 did manage to commulatively across all those years actually sell another 5 million units especially with the new games coming out and the incredibly cheap price.

 

I think the NA sales standings are probably something like:

 

1. NES = 30+ Million by mid 90's.

2. Atari 2600/JR ~5 million by 1992

3. Atari 7800 ~1.7 million (?) by 1992

4. SMS ~1 million (?) by 1992

 

Possibly the biggest gap ratio between the market leader and it's major competitors? (maybe even more than PS2?) It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was the sales standing and it really does show how much the 2600 managed to sale across 3 generations (2 if you listen to wiki lol). If there's one console we can say actually met it's cap in power and developers squeezed everything out of it possible, it's the 2600.

 

Of course we don't have the data to prove this although even when we though the SMS was 2 million and the 7800 was 3.7 million year and years ago, the consensus was that 2600 sold around 5 million launch aligned from 86 so it was still second even back in those years. It's crazy when you think about it. The closest match to the NES in NA may have been a console from 1977.

 

 

Also I think it may have been a mistake to redesign the 2600 to look similar to the 7800 while also balancing the advertising of the two.

Edited August 29, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

10x more 100,000 would be 1 million so that would place 1988 at 1 million and Sega expecting another 1 million in 1988 using your measurements for the US. But that's not how the markets work they aren't 1:1

 

You are also dissecting everything other than the irwin mistake I made to try and dismiss the other sources which is dishinest.

...

What's dishonest about what I said?

 

The US market is roughly ten times the size of Canada and it's certainly possible for one market to outperform the other (per capita) especially if there are different distributors.  But the 10:1 ratio is always a handy rough guide.

 

The four million Atari 2600 consoles were reported by articles dated sept 1986 and feb 1989. That's less than 2.5 years.  More than a million atari 2600 per year.  Any market share Atari had in those years would include Atari 2600, 7800, 5200, xegs, consoles as well as their cartridges.

 

We know for a fact that 1.12 million Atari 7800 consoles sold in the united states.  To make that 1.7M for north america would mean 580k consoles in canada, mexico and central america.  That would mean the US accounts for less than 66% of north american sales.

 

And mario games started in 1981 with donkey kong, the best mario game of the 1980s.  The 7800 version looks pretty good.  How does it compare?

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by mr_me

[Bill Loguidice]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

You mean the homne of scrolling Super Mario based gaming? Mario Bros came out first.

 

Also we go back to the post I made to you above, Atari was a console preceived as a palce where you could get some PC-style games and arcade style classics and BC with a consoles that primarily focused on classic arcade style gameplay.

 

Mario Bros (the original) is a classic arcade style game.

 

I mean you could get them on both but I can see why a person who buys a 7800 for (then) classic style arcade games would buy most of those style of games only on the 7800, which was preceived as having those types of games, even you said they were "outdated" and the NES had the "next-level", so you are basically contradicting your own argument here.

After all you've said and written I'll just say that I look forward to your book. ?

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

What's dishonest about what I said?

 

The US market is roughly ten times the size of Canada and it's certainly possible for one market to outperform the other (per capita) especially if there are different distributors.  But the 10:1 ratio is always a handy rough guide.

 

The four million Atari 2600 consoles were reported by articles dated sept 1986 and feb 1989. That's less than 2.5 years.  More than a million atari 2600 per year.  Any market share Atari had in those years would include Atari 2600, 7800, 5200, xegs, consoles as well as their cartridges.

 

We know for a fact that 1.12 million Atari 7800 consoles sold in the united states.  To make that 1.7M for north america would mean 580k consoles in canada, mexico and central america.  That would mean the US accounts for less than 66% of north american sales.

 

And mario games started in 1981 with donkey kong, the best mario game of the 1980s.  The 7800 version looks pretty good.  How does it compare?

 

You do not know that for a fact. Where are you getting 1.12 million from? We have 1 million ww in 88 with near all of that in one location excluding the last 6 month's of the 7800's best year and 4 years after that. It's not two million but it's not 1.1 million either because the numbers dont add up.

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

After all you've said and written I'll just say that I look forward to your book. ?

Doesnt make sense to call for answers to questions and not respond to the answers. Especially given your uh, words and perception of the 7800 Im surprised, you wouldn't realize people attracted to classic style arcade games would gravitate toward lts "old" titles.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Leeroy ST]

Anyway as I said, I started looking back at old threads back when people thought sms sold 2 million and the 7800 sold 3.7 million (lol), it really does seem people neglected the fact the 2600 was the main NES competitor after all. Kind of amazing in hindsight

 

 

 

[empsolo]

I don't know why it is incredulous that Atari wouldn't be above making up shit. Stephen Herman's The Rise and Fall of Video Games has a section where he discusses the 1986 and 1987 CES shows. He points out how Atari Corp would routinely make announcements of lists of games that Atari Corp was announced as coming to the 7800 in the near future in order to attract retailers to the system. Herman points out that these lists would include lots of vapor ware that was designed to pad Atari's prospective library in order to entice retailers to the system. Retailers would then get frustrated when the games that Atari had earlier promised became announced as cancelled or quietly dropped.

Edited August 30, 2020 by empsolo

[A Black Falcon]

On 8/26/2020 at 3:29 PM, mr_me said:

What's more legitimate than internal Atari Corp sales reports.

 

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

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/144559-atari-7800-game-sales-figures-86-90/

 

Atari US 7800 console sales:

1986  84,668

1987  404,656

1988  415,690

1989  181,296

1990  31,247

 

Where did those numbers from?  because those aren't the numbers in the thread you linked; I remember those numbers well from when they were revealed, they add up to 3.7 million systems sold in the US, versus about 1.1 million in your numbers here.  That's a big difference. 3.7 million always did sound somewhat implausibly high, particularly claiming so many sales in the first year (286,000!) when they hadn't even made that many systems,  but where did you get those numbers from?  I don't see any hint of them, in the threads you link.  If 3.7 million is maybe believable but high, 1.1 million seems too low.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/144552-happy-25th-7800-sales-figures-attached/?do=findComment&comment=4510692

 

Wait, I got it -- you're subtracting software sales from what was previously reported as hardware sales to get the numbers in your post.  Given how those "hardware" sales are higher than the software sales numbers, I get why you might do this, though if this has been discussed somewhere, that those numbers may include hardware + software instead of only hardware, I missed it.  That's plausible I guess then, though I am skeptical that the SMS outsold the 7800 in the US...

 

As for the Master System, the only estimate I've ever seen is that it sold between 1.5 and 2 million systems, which is quite believable and is within the range Sega stuff usually sold here, Genesis excepted.

 

Modern evidence exists to suggest that the 7800 seems to have outsold the SMS in the US.  For example, check ebay... anytime.  Now, five years ago, whenever, the results are the same: if you search for "Atari 7800" and "Sega Master System" in the video game consoles category, searching North American listings only, you will see more 7800 listings than SMS listings.  Right now, this search gets 153 for the 7800, and 67 for the SMS.  If you add sold listings this gets closer, as right now ebay reports 208 sold North America listings for the 7800 versus 273 for the SMS, but even so the 7800 has a higher total, if not by quite as much.  This gap in number of systems sold, with the 7800 consistently having higher sales numbers on ebay, has held up for years.  I think this is definitely supporting evidence for that the 7800 outsold the SMS.

 

And I doubt that this gap is because SMS owners are a lot more likely to hold on to their systems, the SMS is definitely not popular here.  This lines up with what I've seen in person, too -- I see 7800s used around here quite a bit more often than I  do SMSes.  Sega released twice as many SMS games as Atari did 7800 games, but with its better name recognition and better-known titles at the time, the 7800 selling better despite this makes sense.  For instance, as a somewhat irrelevant aside, I was born in the early '80s, but have absolutely no memory of even hearing about the existence of the Sega Master System during its life.  Console gaming was the NES, pretty much.  I did know of Atari, though.

 

Now, regardless of how many actually sold it's clear that most of those 7800 owners mostly played 2600 games on their system and got only a few actual 7800 games, but those are still 7800 systems regardless of which games they were playing on them.

Edited August 30, 2020 by A Black Falcon

[mr_me]

6 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

You do not know that for a fact. Where are you getting 1.12 million from? We have 1 million ww in 88 with near all of that in one location excluding the last 6 month's of the 7800's best year and 4 years after that. It's not two million but it's not 1.1 million either because the numbers dont add up.

 

 

Internal sales reports are facts and much better facts than what is reported to the press which are admitted by staff often inflated.  There were only two years of US sales after 1988, with sales dropping by over 56% in 1989, and only 31k in 1990.  Then one more year of pal sales before being discontinued after 1991. If US sales were around 700k by mid 1988, you have Canada, latin america, and pal territories to make up the difference for one million worlwide.  Why wouldn't it add up.  Lets say canada and mexico brings it to 840k, that leaves only 160k for the rest of the world.  You can adjust those estimates all you want, we're not talking about large numbers.

[Lost Dragon]

46 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Internal sales reports are facts and much better facts than what is reported to the press which are admitted by staff often inflated.  There were only two years of US sales after 1988, with sales dropping by over 56% in 1989, and only 31k in 1990.  Then one more year of pal sales before being discontinued after 1991. If US sales were around 700k by mid 1988, you have Canada, latin america, and pal territories to make up the difference for one million worlwide.  Why wouldn't it add up.  Lets say canada and mexico brings it to 840k, that leaves only 160k for the rest of the world.  You can adjust those estimates all you want, we're not talking about large numbers.

If he's serious about trying to get anything like credible data, he's going to need to do a lot of reaching out to the people involved at the time, if they are still with us. 

 

For the UK and Nintendo, people like:

 

Mike Wensman, director of Nintendo UK subsidiary NESI. 

 

You can't go off press claims with likes of Atari saying they hope to sell another 250,000 2600 machines in the UK based on them apparently spending £600,000 on a TV advertising campaign for it.. 

 

Claims of over 3 million consoles already sold in UK since 1981

 

 

As for NESI :When they were claiming 30 million NES units sold worldwide, the figures were disputed and claimed to be closer to either 20 or 25 million.

 

12 million in Japan

 

7 million in USA, with predictions of that jumping to 10 to 12 million after the Xmas period. 

 

45,000 in the UK

 

25,000 In Scandinavia 

 

 

Master System 45,000 in UK. 

 

You'd then see a disclaimer at bottom of the article.. 

 

#these figures are from informed sources, not the manufacturers themselves. 

 

 

 

You've also got them proclaiming Bob Armour, being busy finishing off 7800 Gauntlet for US GOLD, complete lie, it was never started.. 

 

And in same news piece saying whilst the 7800 wasn't particularly well marketed in the UK, there were around 2 million machines sold in the USA

 

#article May 1990

 

 

Earlier in March 1990,Virgin Mastertronic said they were confident 200,000 Sega Master Systems had been sold in UK. 

 

Confident..not actual, audited figures, just confident. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Lost Dragon

[mr_me]

This was covered in the other thread a couple of years ago but lets review what's been reported for SMS console sales in north america.

 

There's a Computer Entertainer article showing 1986 sales at 125k.  This thread has an article showing sales in canada at 50k in 1987 and 100k in 1988.  The French magazine Tilt 1988 march issue has an article with Sega claiming 500k SMS sales for 1987 in the US.  Note that this is 10x canada.  Then there's the 1990 mar 22 new straits times article reporting total 1.5M US sales.  And finally david sheff's 1999 book game over stating 2M sms consoles, presumably for north america.

 

With 1988 sales doubling over 1987 and flattening or even declining going in to 1989.  US being 10x the size of canada and mexico being bigger than canada.  I don't see anything that doesn't add up in the above numbers.

Edited August 30, 2020 by mr_me

[Leeroy ST]

10 hours ago, A Black Falcon said:

Where did those numbers from?  because those aren't the numbers in the thread you linked; I remember those numbers well from when they were revealed, they add up to 3.7 million systems sold in the US, versus about 1.1 million in your numbers here.  That's a big difference. 3.7 million always did sound somewhat implausibly high, particularly claiming so many sales in the first year (286,000!) when they hadn't even made that many systems,  but where did you get those numbers from?  I don't see any hint of them, in the threads you link.  If 3.7 million is maybe believable but high, 1.1 million seems too low.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/144552-happy-25th-7800-sales-figures-attached/?do=findComment&comment=4510692

 

Wait, I got it -- you're subtracting software sales from what was previously reported as hardware sales to get the numbers in your post.  Given how those "hardware" sales are higher than the software sales numbers, I get why you might do this, though if this has been discussed somewhere, that those numbers may include hardware + software instead of only hardware, I missed it.  That's plausible I guess then, though I am skeptical that the SMS outsold the 7800 in the US...

 

As for the Master System, the only estimate I've ever seen is that it sold between 1.5 and 2 million systems, which is quite believable and is within the range Sega stuff usually sold here, Genesis excepted.

 

Modern evidence exists to suggest that the 7800 seems to have outsold the SMS in the US.  For example, check ebay... anytime.  Now, five years ago, whenever, the results are the same: if you search for "Atari 7800" and "Sega Master System" in the video game consoles category, searching North American listings only, you will see more 7800 listings than SMS listings.  Right now, this search gets 153 for the 7800, and 67 for the SMS.  If you add sold listings this gets closer, as right now ebay reports 208 sold North America listings for the 7800 versus 273 for the SMS, but even so the 7800 has a higher total, if not by quite as much.  This gap in number of systems sold, with the 7800 consistently having higher sales numbers on ebay, has held up for years.  I think this is definitely supporting evidence for that the 7800 outsold the SMS.

 

And I doubt that this gap is because SMS owners are a lot more likely to hold on to their systems, the SMS is definitely not popular here.  This lines up with what I've seen in person, too -- I see 7800s used around here quite a bit more often than I  do SMSes.  Sega released twice as many SMS games as Atari did 7800 games, but with its better name recognition and better-known titles at the time, the 7800 selling better despite this makes sense.  For instance, as a somewhat irrelevant aside, I was born in the early '80s, but have absolutely no memory of even hearing about the existence of the Sega Master System during its life.  Console gaming was the NES, pretty much.  I did know of Atari, though.

 

Now, regardless of how many actually sold it's clear that most of those 7800 owners mostly played 2600 games on their system and got only a few actual 7800 games, but those are still 7800 systems regardless of which games they were playing on them.

I don't buy those numbers as Atari themselves and media reports inidicate that made 100,000 in the US because that was all they could actiallu produce at the time. 

 

Then there's the 1 million sales in June 1988 and most of that million would be the US, the center piece of Ataris console business branching off for the "comeback" as they say, even if you low ball that number and unrealistically give the international in 1988 300k that's still 700k in NA and that's low balling the numbers.

 

This would mean that 216,000 sales would have had to be made in most if not all the first 6 months of 1998 up until the release of that article, which would be MORE THAN HALF of what his numbers say Atari sold for the TOTAL of 1988, even though the last 6 months of 1988 are Ataris BEST SELLING FOR the 7800's life, which doesn't make any sense as that would mean Atari sold LESS the second half of the year.

 

6 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

If he's serious about trying to get anything like credible data, he's going to need to do a lot of reaching out to the people involved at the time, if they are still with us. 

 

For the UK and Nintendo, people like:

 

Mike Wensman, director of Nintendo UK subsidiary NESI. 

 

You can't go off press claims with likes of Atari saying they hope to sell another 250,000 2600 machines in the UK based on them apparently spending £600,000 on a TV advertising campaign for it.. 

 

Claims of over 3 million consoles already sold in UK since 1981

 

 

As for NESI :When they were claiming 30 million NES units sold worldwide, the figures were disputed and claimed to be closer to either 20 or 25 million.

 

12 million in Japan

 

7 million in USA, with predictions of that jumping to 10 to 12 million after the Xmas period. 

 

45,000 in the UK

 

25,000 In Scandinavia 

 

 

Master System 45,000 in UK. 

 

You'd then see a disclaimer at bottom of the article.. 

 

#these figures are from informed sources, not the manufacturers themselves. 

 

 

 

You've also got them proclaiming Bob Armour, being busy finishing off 7800 Gauntlet for US GOLD, complete lie, it was never started.. 

 

And in same news piece saying whilst the 7800 wasn't particularly well marketed in the UK, there were around 2 million machines sold in the USA

 

#article May 1990

 

 

Earlier in March 1990,Virgin Mastertronic said they were confident 200,000 Sega Master Systems had been sold in UK. 

 

Confident..not actual, audited figures, just confident. 

I though the 30 million figure was US or NA for the NES?

 

[Leeroy ST]

6 hours ago, mr_me said:

Internal sales reports are facts and much better facts than what is reported to the press which are admitted by staff often inflated.  There were only two years of US sales after 1988, with sales dropping by over 56% in 1989, and only 31k in 1990.  Then one more year of pal sales before being discontinued after 1991. If US sales were around 700k by mid 1988, you have Canada, latin america, and pal territories to make up the difference for one million worlwide.  Why wouldn't it add up.  Lets say canada and mexico brings it to 840k, that leaves only 160k for the rest of the world.  You can adjust those estimates all you want, we're not talking about large numbers.

The issue here is the 700k is a number from be low balling the 7800 number.

 

By saying that of the 1 million the US was 700k that means you're unrealistically giving the rest of the world 300k worth of sales and some change. THis doesn't add up with the 7800 being near a US execlusive device with limited manufacturing capacity in 1986 and than gradually growing in the source country and slowly picking up the out sourcing to other nations some of which released to matter including in 1989.

 

That would also be nearing half of the LTD for international for the 7800 in the first half of 1988 and that's just not plausible. 

 

You are also trying to overallocate some of these 7800 sales, 7800 was dead third in latin america and that wasn't evena focused territory, that would be Europe (much later for many nations there), Canada, Mexico, and a a futile attempt in Japan that may as well never happened.

 

It's the definition of wouldn't add-up.  Even assuming your example was even 5% accurate, that 160k couldn't have possibly came from latin america, they barely lit up the SMS and that was far and away a winner and it took years for that to add-up to something notable significant. We are talking about the 80's these are unrealistic numbers in such short a time.

 

But the issue is the 700k is lowball, 100k-150k is the best range that makes any sense for the 7800 outside the US in that 2ish year time frame.

 

What's likely to be close to the mark is that 850-900k of that 1 million were from the US and even if it was 700k, the 4 months before the holiday season (Nov and Dec) would have likely closed or came close to closing that 300k gap to 1 million anyway with the holidays pushing it over making your estimate of 1.12 million LTD for the 7800 impossible, and we still have 1989-1992.

 

Of course I don't think it's exactly 1.7 that's why I added the "~" as I expect the 1988 second 6 month period to bring it around 1.2-1.3and thinking 89 will likely make that ~1.5  so I think that the 7800 hacving an LTD of 1.6-1.7 is plausible.

 

I definately don't believe that either the SMS or 7800 hit 2 million.

[Leeroy ST]

4 hours ago, mr_me said:

This was covered in the other thread a couple of years ago but lets review what's been reported for SMS console sales in north america.

 

There's a Computer Entertainer article showing 1986 sales at 125k.  This thread has an article showing sales in canada at 50k in 1987 and 100k in 1988.  The French magazine Tilt 1988 march issue has an article with Sega claiming 500k SMS sales for 1987 in the US.  Note that this is 10x canada.  Then there's the 1990 mar 22 new straits times article reporting total 1.5M US sales.  And finally david sheff's 1999 book game over stating 2M sms consoles, presumably for north america.

 

With 1988 sales doubling over 1987 and flattening or even declining going in to 1989.  US being 10x the size of canada and mexico being bigger than canada.  I don't see anything that doesn't add up in the above numbers.

It's hard to corroborate the entertainer article but even taking it at face value, the 500k was in 1988 and the media all covered it the same with slightly different articles all were 2 million Atari systems and 500,000 SMS systems, It's impossible for their to be 500k in the US in 1987, as that would mean the SMS would have to sell ~400k by the end of 1987 with a poor distribution network and we already have articles from the past and posted in this thread that show that Ataris marketshare over sega grew from 1987 (even accounting for the other systems) to possibly 1990 before both quickly became irrelevant (more so) in the market. (and that's buying the entertainer article for 1986.)

 

Also Gameover has had many issues in the past, the 2 million doesn't add up, just like 1.5 million in 1990 in the US.

 

Where did Sega get that extra 1 million sales from 1989-1992 in the US? 500k in 1988 with TOnka reporting flat lining sales and worsening sales hurting their bottom line in 1990 and post 1990 having falling sales makes that very hard to believe. 

[Lost Dragon]

15 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

I don't buy those numbers as Atari themselves and media reports inidicate that made 100,000 in the US because that was all they could actiallu produce at the time. 

 

Then there's the 1 million sales in June 1988 and most of that million would be the US, the center piece of Ataris console business branching off for the "comeback" as they say, even if you low ball that number and unrealistically give the international in 1988 300k that's still 700k in NA and that's low balling the numbers.

 

This would mean that 216,000 sales would have had to be made in most if not all the first 6 months of 1998 up until the release of that article, which would be MORE THAN HALF of what his numbers say Atari sold for the TOTAL of 1988, even though the last 6 months of 1988 are Ataris BEST SELLING FOR the 7800's life, which doesn't make any sense as that would mean Atari sold LESS the second half of the year.

 

I though the 30 million figure was US or NA for the NES?

 

And here in lies the problem going off press publications. 

 

Pick a region, pick a publication and watch them give a totally different set of figures and if your lucky, see them put a disclaimer about figures coming from 'informed sources'. 

 

Actual sales figures for leading consoles have been (often heatedly) debated for years and this is why. 

 

 

There's not even a confirmed number being used between magazine publishers, let alone the mags themselves at the time. 

 

 

The 'best' you can sometimes take from them, is the names of people in charge of big high street stores, manufacturers P. R people etc. 

 

NESI chap i have already named. 

 

If your looking for Master System, you'd need to find Nick Alexander, M. D of Virgin Mastertronic. 

 

 

Virgin signed a 5 year, £100 Million deal with SEGA for Europesn distribution of over 1 million M. D and Master System machines and 7 million units of Software, after the deal with Ariolasoft fell through. 

 

That's just what the deal covered mind. 

[Leeroy ST]

1 minute ago, Lost Dragon said:

And here in lies the problem going off press publications. 

 

Pick a region, pick a publication and watch them give a totally different set of figures and if your lucky, see them put a disclaimer about figures coming from 'informed sources'. 

 

I though the 30 million NA or US NES figures were a consensus weren't they? Across the press?

[+Mitch]

Why do people keep talking about international sales of the 7800 in 1988? The 7800 wasn't released outside of North America until 1989.

 

Mitch

[Lost Dragon]

5 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I though the 30 million NA or US NES figures were a consensus weren't they? Across the press?

The NUMBER seems consistent, 30 Million. 

 

But then you see some UK press breaking them down into areas outside the US, as i demonstrated earlier in the thread. 

 

 

NESI announced to UK press 30 Million NES machines sold, but tell them that's world Wide. 

 

UK Press, being skeptical by nature, look into these number and via their sources, say they closer to either 20 or 25 million.

 

 

And then go further and break the numbers down into the following :

 

 

12 million in Japan, a claim they'd made, months before.. ".. It will be challenging Nintendo on their home ground, where they've sold at least 12 million machines". 

 

 

And even before that:

 

".. Although the Nintendo is alive and well, and living in the homes of 12 million Japanese and 5 Million American families" 

 

Source of the above Luther De Gale Ex-Konami boss. 

 

7 million in USA, with predictions of that jumping to 10 to 12 million after the Xmas period. 

 

45,000 in the UK

 

25,000 In Scandinavia 

 

 

And that's just one report, from one publication and one publisher at the time. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

Autumn 1988:

 

Virgin Mastertronic state they have sold APPROXIMATELY 40,000 Master Systems in the UK claim to be pulling in around £5 Million a year from the system. 

 

 

 

Nintendo state the previous year, Mattel spent £300,000 on a giant TV advertising campaign to market the NES in the UK and it FAILED to generate even 100,000 sales. 

 

As a result Nintendo spending £2.2 million on TV advertising and they had ditched Mattel and after initially planning to go with US GOLD offshoot, Go!, were going with their subsidiary, Nintendo Entertainment System International (NESI). 

 

 

Mastertronic were said to be pleases with sales via home shopping catalogs like KAY'S but Nintendo said that won't work for them, the machine had to be on display where it could be demonstrated. 

 

 

Just a brief look at the UK side, which took Nintendo by surprise, as the UK failed to embrace the NES, in the manner they expected. 

 

Might be of use as a foot note in the book?