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

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

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

Wikipedia is the most likely corporate look at the relase date for the 7800 on there.

 

As I said at best we are looking at Canada+Mexico internationally and that's a small shipment.

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Mitch said:

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

The atari corp sales reports are US only.  So there's, canada, mexico, and the rest of north america. And then the other ntsc countries in the rest of the world.  In the later 1980s, it wasn't uncommon for video games not selling in the us to be dumped in latin america.

Edited August 30, 2020 by mr_me

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, Lost Dragon said:

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. 

Are there any American press sources for NES figures to compare? 

[Torr]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Wikipedia is the most likely corporate look at the relase date for the 7800 on there.

 

As I said at best we are looking at Canada+Mexico internationally and that's a small shipment.

I must say, here in Newfoundland (Basically the ghetto of Canada for those unfamiliar) 7800s were fairly common.

But anyone who had one, didn't want it. They asked for an NES, but their poor (financially poor) parents saw a cheap alternative and bought that.

No one actually played them. They either eventually got an NES (or in my case an SMS... I got my first VCS, a JR model, for xmas '86, even though I asked for a Coleco like my cousin had, and an SMS the summer of 90) or they forgot about the gaming hype altogether and had fun instead tearing up the woods on quads and skidoos.... which your parents had NO problems spending money on!!! ??

 

I regret not caring about the 7800 sooner, because even by '93 when I was buying other peoples old VCS games (I've been a retro gamer since before it meant something) people ironically still had all their old VCS games... but literally had thrown their 7800s away.

And forget dumpster diving or whatever... throwing shit away here (especially in those days) meant having a big fire in your backyard.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Torr

[empsolo]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Are there any American press sources for NES figures to compare? 

Yeah, Plenty.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-03-31-8903310356-story.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-07-01-8801120114-story.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-06-05-8801050145-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-12-16-fi-369-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-13-fi-3249-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-26-fi-276-story.html

 

Hell, the Nintendo Times Warp zone page is co-run by Frank Cifaldi and goes through a chronological historical account of the NES through primary sources in a sort fake newsite that's pretends that its giving live gaming news from the 80's. Plenty of articles from the NY times, LA Times, and Chicago tribune are referenced.

 

https://nintendotimes.com/welcome-to-warp-zone/

Edited August 31, 2020 by empsolo

[Lost Dragon]

Touch more on UK side. 

 

 

 

When Sega unveiled the Master System II at the Chicago CES and price drop from $79 to $59 (?) 

 

 

We in the UK were told not to expect it until late 1991,but early 1992 more likely. 

 

The reasoning being, the original machine was getting a little jaded in the USA, but since it was relatively new here in the UK, it was performing fine at retail as it was. 

[Leeroy ST]

12 hours ago, empsolo said:

Yeah, Plenty.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-03-31-8903310356-story.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-07-01-8801120114-story.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-06-05-8801050145-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-12-16-fi-369-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-13-fi-3249-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-07-26-fi-276-story.html

 

Hell, the Nintendo Times Warp zone page is co-run by Frank Cifaldi and goes through a chronological historical account of the NES through primary sources in a sort fake newsite that's pretends that its giving live gaming news from the 80's. Plenty of articles from the NY times, LA Times, and Chicago tribune are referenced.

 

https://nintendotimes.com/welcome-to-warp-zone/

I meant for US LTD, some of those are just stock press releases like the 1989 one.

 

The LA Times on in 1991 mentions an Ltd but a bit unclear if that's ww or us with the wording. They don't say where they got the number from either of course.

[empsolo]

10 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I meant for US LTD, some of those are just stock press releases like the 1989 one.

 

The LA Times on in 1991 mentions an Ltd but a bit unclear if that's ww or us with the wording. They don't say where they got the number from either of course.

 

I think its 30 Million US, as Japanese figures are 19 million and 9 million additional consoles were sold over the rest of the world. By the By, Nintendo actually has released thier sales figures for all current and legacy systems here: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/

Edited August 31, 2020 by empsolo

[A Black Falcon]

On 8/30/2020 at 11:28 AM, 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.

 

Yeah, and that's the issue, the 1.1 million number is an interesting guess -- saying "maybe that 3.7 million was actually hardware + software combined, subtract the software number from that for the real hardware number of 1.1 million" -- but yeah, it doesn't make much sense, the resulting numbers are too low.

 

Looking for a comparison around that amount of sales, the Atari 5200 is said to have sold about a million systems.  I know this is only a resale snapshot, but right now there are 65 5200s for sale in the 'video game consoles, north america only' category, and 135 sold in that category.  That's 200 total, a distinctly lower number than the 7800 and SMS numbers I mentioned earlier, 361 and 340 respectively.  It sure looks to me like the 7800 should have sales in the SMS's range of 1.5 to 2 million, perhaps slightly above the SMS's total here in the US, and not the 5200's one million.  The 7800 is more common than the 5200, it clearly sold better.  (I like the 5200 more personally, but that's unimportant here...)

Edited September 1, 2020 by A Black Falcon

[mr_me]

Atari 7800 US sales are in the range with the 1.5M sms sales in the united states.  Atari internal sales reports are precise while anything reported to the press is rounded up to varying degrees.  It's possible that there's something missing from the sales report.  If unsold stock is liquidated in 1991 how would it be accounted for.  But the atari sales report is not a guess, it's not even an estimate.  It's precisely accurate for what it is 

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Atari 7800 US sales are in the range with the 1.5M sms sales in the united states.  Atari internal sales reports are precise while anything reported to the press is rounded up to varying degrees.  It's possible that there's something missing from the sales report.  If unsold stock is liquidated in 1991 how would it be accounted for.  But the atari sales report is not a guess, it's not even an estimate.  It's precisely accurate for what it is 

Outside of Atari manufacturing reports contradicting some of the numbers.

 

But other than that I still dont buy the sms hitting 1.5, I can see how from 89-1992 it sold over 1 million consoles when sales were flattening in 88 and Tonka was bleeding due to low sales in 1990 and they lost the distribution rights to the Genesis which was taking over SMS on shelves and hit 1 million by late 1990 iirc.

[mr_me]

What kind of manufacturing reports do you have?  Ahd why does it have to equal the sales in one country?  The SMS 1.5M in the US is probably high, with the number given to the newspaper likely rounded up.  Sales flattening in 1988 could mean a strong three quarters followed by a disappointing fourth quarter.  Overall 1988 sales could still equal or exceed 1987.  In Canada SMS sales doubled from 1987 to 1988, and there's no reason their sales didn't flatten in the fourth quarter as well.  A 1989 drop in SMS sales is likely, and then almost non existent in 1990 just like the Atari 7800.

Edited September 1, 2020 by mr_me

[Leeroy ST]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

What kind of manufacturing reports do you have?  Ahd why does it have to equal the sales in one country?  The SMS 1.5M in the US is probably high, with the number given to the newspaper likely rounded up.  Sales flattening in 1988 could mean a strong three quarters followed by a disappointing fourth quarter.  Overall 1988 sales could still equal or exceed 1987.  In Canada SMS sales doubled from 1987 to 1988, and there's no reason their sales didn't flatten in the fourth quarter as well.  A 1989 drop in SMS sales is likely, and then almost non existent in 1990 just like the Atari 7800.

We have a widely known report that Atari could only manufacture 100k in 1986 remember?

 

As for the SMS I think by the end of its life it hit around 1 million but I just don't see anything to indicate much more than that, as the flattening statement was for the year of 1988 up until that point. Atari likely had a terrible January after its best holiday season and both declined in 1989 most likely imo.

 

But I can't by either the 7800 or SMS hitting 2 million. Also the SMS had the Genesis cannibalizing SMS sales as well while Atari didn't even give the press a hint of a new system at the time until after the 7800 was irrelevant and that was for the prototype panther.

 

I think that may have been Atari's biggest mistake, they should have had a 1991/92 release date for panther and held the Jaguar. It would have only been one year after the SNES NA release.

[mr_me]

Can you describe this widely known report.  Is it an actual copy of an internal report, or is it a number some pr person gave a newspaper.  We're talking about a relatively small number in 1986 anyway.

 

The flattening statement you described as being late november.  Sega probably had disappointing christmas orders.  Doesn't mean the first three quarters weren't strong.  Nintendo starting to leverage their monopoly muscle with retailers perhaps.  We have no evidence of what sms 1989 sales were, likely declined like the atari 7800, but we do have evidence to suggest that sales increased significantly in 1988 over 1987 since they doubled in canada.  Nobody is suggesting either system hit sales of 2M in the united states.

[jhd]

On 8/28/2020 at 12:52 PM, Leeroy ST said:

Man that's a lot of gaming history down the tubes, and wayback machine never archived the google newspaper links so that's just a big fat freaking headache. 

 

The best thing about newspapers is that they exist outside of the Internet, so they can be accessed even if they are removed from websites. They are still available (and searchable) at libraries.

 

In the course of researching some articles that I have written for publication (none of which had anything to do with video games), I have reviewed various newspapers from the 1760s through the 1990s -- none of which were available online.

 

If one is writing a book, it may be helpful to look at sources that are not available online. 

[Leeroy ST]

14 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Can you describe this widely known report.  Is it an actual copy of an internal report, or is it a number some pr person gave a newspaper.  We're talking about a relatively small number in 1986 anyway.

 

The flattening statement you described as being late november.  Sega probably had disappointing christmas orders.  Doesn't mean the first three quarters weren't strong.  Nintendo starting to leverage their monopoly muscle with retailers perhaps.  We have no evidence of what sms 1989 sales were, likely declined like the atari 7800, but we do have evidence to suggest that sales increased significantly in 1988 over 1987 since they doubled in canada.  Nobody is suggesting either system hit sales of 2M in the united states.

I mean the article quotes Atari from what I saw. I'd have to find it again in fact it's probably on here somewhere.

 

As for Sega you're making a very strange assumption that Tonka was referring to holiday orders, they mention stock(wall st) in an earlier part of the article and were referring to up-to-that-point. Considering that after the Nov shopping craze in December articles have Atari and Sega increasing marketshare in 1988 (though Sega still single digits) should also throw that theory out the window.

 

You also can't treat Canada as a mirror without considering the unique situations there believing that it always continued on the same trajectory year we don't even know if Sega hit the 100k in Canada in 1988, they were estimating it may. We have no data past 1988 for Canada or comments about sales.

 

We can also use the NES for a baseline.

 

According to this article The Tampa Tribune Dec 1988 which is the exact timeframe we are discussing for the other two:

 

 

The guy says that the NES sold around 11 million units. Which according to the other article is 70% of the market, Atari had 20% and Sega had 8%.

 

If we add the combined percentage of Atari and Sega to 11 million that would make it 14.08 million being the approximate size of the market at the time of early Dec 1988.

 

This means Atari and Sega together are 4.08 million divided among them.

 

We know that earlier in JUNE of 1988 that Atari sold 2 million systems and Sega sold 500,000, so these are known numbers we can subtract from 4.08 mill.

 

This leaves 1.58 million left to distribute and we are still missing the months of sales from June until after Nov for both, that's just taking out known sales from June to narrow down the number and determine what we can allocate.

 

We know of this 1.58 million, 3 systems are from Atari and one is from Sega, and we know this is Atari's best year in the market.

 

We also known by the December articles that Atari increased the gap between the two from November in marketshare in that one month period, and we still haven't gotten Christmas week sales yet and the last part of December which would be later after the articles were published.

 

I can't see Sega getting more than 200k of this number which may be a generous number. Sega was at 500k in june LTD so 200k would be a very large number to add to Sega sales from June to after November, putting the SMS at 700k and possibly being 750k~ after December.

 

I can't see where it's going to get the other 800k with single digit market penetration, declining sales, and poor sales mentions in 1990 in the middle of the year to reach 1.5 million.

 

I doubt either Atari or Sega sold 300k systems from 1990-1992, which may be too generous for both. That would mean from the last part of December and all of 1989, the SMS would have to sell 500k which i can't possibly see happening and that's making a very generous assumption that the SMS sold 300k from 1990-discontinuation which is also unlikely.

 

It's mostly likely of the 1.58 million is lopsided toward Atari as it was the 7800's best year but the XEGS and 2600 were also still sold. In June 1988 Atari sold 1 million WW which would mostly be in one region we could make this as low as 700,000.

 

Assuming we lowball and give the Atari 7800 700,000 units, then in its best year it's likely that of that 1.58 million between nov and the rest of dec, the 7800 likely hit 1 million sales domestically or very close to it which would be around 300k units.

 

This leaves 1.28 million left to be allocated between the 2600, XEGS, and the SMS.

 

We only have one Xegs number and that's 100,000 sold out of its initial shipments in its launch period. We can subtract that 100,000 from the 1.28 million since we are dealing with domestic LTD's by december 1988.

 

So that's 1.18 million left to distribute.

 

So the question is how much did the Xegs do from it's 1987 launch period all the way until early December 1988? We have no clue.

 

The Atari 2600 we know would sell around 5 million~ during the 1986-1992 time period and we are now in early December 1988. It's likely and obvious that the early half of that 1986-1992 period would be the better selling portion as all Atari systems suffered ill sales in the latter half. And it's likely during the June 1988 LA times article that had Atari at 2 million systems that 1 million of that would likely be the 2600 if not a slight bit more like 1.1 million.

 

So the question is how many 2600 units sold from June 1988 until early December 1988? We don't know.

 

If we assume in June it sold 1 million than we can take that off the allocation since we are dealing with LTD's.

 

That leaves 800k left for distribution.

 

So we have 800k to split between the 2600, the Xegs, 7800, and SMS in the US.

 

Remember that's the Xegs from post launch period all the way until early December 1988.

 

Remember that's the 26000 from June 1988 (estimate) until early December 1988.

 

Remember that's the 7800 from June 1988 (estimate) until early December 1988.

 

So we already have enough to know that 1.5 million is unrealistic for the SMS, because let's say that we go nuts and give the SMS 300k from June until AFTER December. That would bring the SMS sales from 500k to 800k in 1989. It would then have to sell another 700k from 1989-1992 and I can't see that happening. 

 

Issue is that's already giving the SMS a generous amount of sales, as the 3 Atari systems would likely drop that down to 200k or less, but the fact even with my generous allocation that SMS reaching 1.5 million STILL doesn't make sense, just proves it doesn't add-up. 

 

It's likely SMS is only getting 150k to max 200k of that 800k distribution. 

 

 

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

32 minutes ago, jhd said:

 

The best thing about newspapers is that they exist outside of the Internet, so they can be accessed even if they are removed from websites. They are still available (and searchable) at libraries.

 

In the course of researching some articles that I have written for publication (none of which had anything to do with video games), I have reviewed various newspapers from the 1760s through the 1990s -- none of which were available online.

 

If one is writing a book, it may be helpful to look at sources that are not available online. 

You are making an assumption all my sources are online. It's just some sources "were"easier to finds when they were online. Not all localities have access to the same papers, and without writing down the paper and date you may forget which paper to look for if they ARE in an offline archive.

 

It's only within recent years for example that when I find online paper articles of interest, whether I use them in anything or not, that I write down the name of the paper and the date just in case as well as other pertinent information, just in case. The articles I am upset about were uploaded on sites in the early 2000's before I had that mindset and google screwed over newspapers years ago abruptly out of nowhere so it wasn't expected. 

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

 

As for Sega you're making a very strange assumption that Tonka was referring to holiday orders, they mention stock(wall st) in an earlier part of the article and were referring to up-to-that-point. Considering that after the Nov shopping craze in December articles have Atari and Sega increasing marketshare in 1988 (though Sega still single digits) should also throw that theory out the window.

 

You also can't treat Canada as a mirror without considering the unique situations there believing that it always continued on the same trajectory year we don't even know if Sega hit the 100k in Canada in 1988, they were estimating it may. We have no data past 1988 for Canada or comments about sales.

The article with the canadian sms sales data you quoted is dated 1989 nov 4.  So it's based on solid data for 1988 and most of 1989.  It says 50k for 1987, 100k for 1988, and that they expect another 100k for 1989.   To get 1.5M in the US the ratio between countries would be 6:1.  The US videogame market is at least 10x that of canada so even if 1989 christmas sales fell short of expectations in canada, an underperforming Tonka distributor can conceivably sell 1.5M SMS consoles in the US.

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, mr_me said:

The article with the canadian sms sales data you quoted is dated 1989 nov 4.  So it's based on solid data for 1988 and most of 1989.  It says 50k for 1987, 100k for 1988, and that they expect another 100k for 1989.   To get 1.5M in the US the ratio between countries would be 6:1.  The US videogame market is at least 10x that of canada so even if 1989 christmas sales fell short of expectations in canada, an underperforming Tonka distributor can conceivably sell 1.5M SMS consoles in the US.

I wasn't talking about Canada.

 

You also are distorting tons of scenarios and trying to narrow it down to push the vision you want but that doesn't work. We don't know if they hit 100k, we have no evidence each year was 1:! with the US, you are just trying to project that theory and it doesn't work.

 

I also made a very long post breaking things down that you basically ignored and spun right back to your Canadian 1:1 theory. What's more strange is you think Canadian sales somehow add up to 1.5 million in the US or help indicate that? What?

 

Like I said in the long breakdown there's very little room for allocation for the SMS. This was all broken down with data we actually have instead of some strange scenario where Canadian sales were always 1:1 and basing a guesstimate of something that may have come or not as a real number for 1989. 

[mr_me]

Editing.

Edited September 1, 2020 by mr_me

[mr_me]

Forgot about the 500k sms in the 1988 la times article.  We know this doesn't include any 1988 sales because the nes number reported doesn't include 1988 sales.  That would make 1987 sms sales in the us 375k, which is a 7.5:1 ratio with canadian sales that year and a 25% underporfmance in comparison.

 

Also looking at what was calculated earlier, the consideration of sega genesis sales in canada in late 1989 could change things.  Let's say half the 1989 expected 100k sales were genesis leaving 50k sms.  That would mean 200k sms in canada through 1989.   The 1.5M total sms us sales would mean a 7.5:1 ratio with canada.  That's the same 25% underperformance meaning the 500k after 1987 adds up with the 1.5M total us sales.  I'm not mirroring the numbers, the numbers are mirroring themselves.

 

------------

Again the sales reported in the 1988 la times article; the 4.1M nes, 2M atari, and 500k sms are for 1986 and 1987 only.  We know this because of a newspaper report of 3M nes for 1987 and another 1.1M nes for 1986.

 

Regarding the different market shares reported by different newspapers.  Well it's simply that each one is coming from a different manufacturer, each with different numbers.  It also represents the total video game market of consoles and cartridges and is based on total revenue not units sold.  So there's a lot of factors to consider if you were to use that data and that includes the discrepancies.

 

From the Aiken Standard, 1988 dec 1:

"Lindner said Nintendo estimates its current market share at 77.4 percent, with Atari at 13.3 percent and Tonka’s Sega at 4.1 percent. He gets an argument from Michael Katz, president of Atari’s entertainment electronics division in Sunnyvale, Calif. Katz pegs his company’s dollar share of the market at 20 percent. Another objection comes from Patty Lewis, vice president of marketing and product development for Sega in Minnetonka, Minn., who says Sega expects about a 13 percent share."

 

The Spokesman review, 1988 apr 9:

market share:  70% nintendo, 16% atari, and 10% sega

[Leeroy ST]

 

16 hours ago, mr_me said:

Also looking at what was calculated earlier, the consideration of sega genesis sales in canada in late 1989 could change things.  Let's say half the 1989 expected 100k sales were genesis leaving 50k sms.  That would mean 200k sms in canada through 1989. 

No, this is some weird spin on something that you have no clue even came close to happening and require it to fall exactly on point for you to even have half an argument. This type of ratio consistency rarely applies and I don't know why you think for some reason all of a Sudden canada had a direct even correlation overtime with US sales that's bonkers. 1987 already throws that theory out the window.

 

16 hours ago, mr_me said:

Regarding the different market shares reported by different newspapers.  Well it's simply that each one is coming from a different manufacturer, each with different numbers.  

 

You must have skipped the long breakdown up above since the marketshare numbers are all the same. Right now you are stuck in JUNE 1988, and trying to guess post that, issue is we have NES sales for the post Nov 1988 period and marketshare figures.

 

The 13.3% and 4% you wrote down aren't the post Nov numbers, those are the old marketshare numbers that were mass reported earlier your source posted it late, as already shown before. Those were updated after November by other outlets the source you posted was just slow, (and the Dec.1st date kind of gives that away)

 

Break down 

 

11 million NES sold before Christmas week in 1988!

 

This came with a SMS growth from 4% to 8% and a growth of Atari from 13-14%-20%.

 

We have the numbers for post november period by the end of the year.

 

If SMS is 8% and Atari is 20% of that number we can dissect the sales. Which I did above.

 

You're moving backwards trying to rearrange the LAtimes figures when that's not really relevant to the timeframe we need information for.

 

After breaking down the sales, there's only 4.08 million to divided among the SMS and the 3 other Atari systems for the LTD.

 

The 500,000 and 2 million Atari systems in the LA times article are part of the LTD and can be subtracted from the 4.08 million to narrow down the distribution.

 

That leaves only 1.58 million to distribute among the SMS and the 3 Atari systems by this time. We have 100,000 at launch period for the XEGS which drops that to 1.48 million.

 

That's Atari 7800 from June 1988 (when they announced the 1 million) to until early December 1988 post November shopping season on the consoles best year.

 

That's the Atari 2600 across 1988 up until post November shopping period.

 

That's the Atari XEGs from launch period 1987 all the way until December 1988 post November shopping period.

 

So tell me how you can distribute 1.48 million across the 3 Atari systems and Sega's SMS and give Sega enough for 1.5 million in the US to be possible?

 

It's very likely at the time when Atari sold "2 million systems" that around 1 million came from the Atari 2600 and even you hinted at that in a previous post awhile ago.

 

Assuming that's correct and it likely is that's dropping the distribution to 480,000. Even if the 2600 didn't sell 1 million of that 1 million systems, we know the 2600 had to have sold at least 1 million LTD by then from 1986 to June 1988 in the US.

 

I apologize for the last breakdown I had given a lot of leeway for the SMS and Xegs and the it gave too much allocation in the end.

 

At the end of it all you have 480,000 to distribute between 3 consoles from the period noted in bold a few lines above.

 

So how are you going to distribute this number?

 

Even if we assume the 3 Atari systems and SMS had decent novembers (and it would be the 7800's best December) how much more could that add to the 480k? 200K? 300k?

 

Even if we went with 300k, that's 780k to distribute, across 3 consoles. We know the 2600 sold around 5 million from 86-92 and that most of said sales would be in the earlier half of that timeframe, so it's likely the 2600 sold a good bit especially at the new bottom of the barrel pricing plus free games. The 7800 had its best year, so it would have to have a chunk of that.

 

So even without thinking considering the XEGS and only focusing on the SMS, 7800, and 2600, what part of this pie does the SMS get? 100k? Maybe 150k at best?

 

And that's all IF we make assumptions, without those assumptions for December we are looking at a range of ONLY 480,000-500,000 to distribute across for consoles.

 

It's not possible, I can't possibly see how you can allocate enough for the SMS to make 1.5 million in the US work. It just doesn't add-up. In addition Sega had the genesis announced in 1988 which likely took wind out the sales, and it released in 1989 with much better performance from the get go, while Atari didn't have any sequels announced (or released within the next year) and kept cutting prices.

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[mr_me]

Again,  I'm  not applying ratios or creating any spin.  I'm  just showing that using the numbers as reported, US sms console sales consistently underperformed compared to canada.  Those are the numbers reported not saying they are right or wrong, just that they are consistent.  In fact I would assume the actual numbers are lower and the reported numbers are rounded up.

 

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On 9/1/2020 at 3:09 PM, Leeroy ST said:

 

We can also use the NES for a baseline.

 

According to this article The Tampa Tribune Dec 1988 which is the exact timeframe we are discussing for the other two:

 

 

The guy says that the NES sold around 11 million units. Which according to the other article is 70% of the market, Atari had 20% and Sega had 8%.

 

If we add the combined percentage of Atari and Sega to 11 million that would make it 14.08 million being the approximate size of the market at the time of early Dec 1988.

 

This means Atari and Sega together are 4.08 million divided among them.

 

We know that earlier in JUNE of 1988 that Atari sold 2 million systems and Sega sold 500,000, so these are known numbers we can subtract from 4.08 mill.

 

This leaves 1.58 million left to distribute and we are still missing the months of sales from June until after Nov for both, that's just taking out known sales from June to narrow down the number and determine what we can allocate.

 

If there were 11M nes in the US in 1988 and assuming a 70% market share since 1985 and leaving out the other 2%, would make the console market in the US 15.4M since 1985.  Subtract 2M atari consoles and 500k sega leaves 1.9M consoles.  Divide that amongst all the different atari and sega consoles over whatever 1988 months you like.  That still leaves 1989 and 1990 declining sales to get to 1.5M or something close to it.  Notice we're using very round numbers to calculate some sales estimates.

[Leeroy ST]

11 hours ago, mr_me said:

Again,  I'm  not applying ratios or creating any spin.  I'm  just showing that using the numbers as reported, US sms console sales consistently underperformed compared to canada.  Those are the numbers reported not saying they are right or wrong, just that they are consistent.  In fact I would assume the actual numbers are lower and the reported numbers are rounded up.

 

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If there were 11M nes in the US in 1988 and assuming a 70% market share since 1985 and leaving out the other 2%, would make the console market in the US 15.4M since 1985.  Subtract 2M atari consoles and 500k sega leaves 1.9M consoles.  Divide that amongst all the different atari and sega consoles over whatever 1988 months you like.  That still leaves 1989 and 1990 declining sales to get to 1.5M or something close to it.  Notice we're using very round numbers to calculate some sales estimates.

 

no it would be even using your calculations 15.4-11 which would be 4.4 million, and yes that would be 1.9 million however we still have the 1 million from the 2600 in the "2 million atari systems sold which drops it to 900k.

 

We then have the Xegs which we know sold 100k during the launch window which is 800k.

 

So you have a large chunk of 1988 up until december missing for the 2600, same with the Xegs which we only have 87 window for, and the 7800 during its BEST YEAR on the market, and we know that the 2600 sold around ~5million during 85-92 and most of that would have to be within the first few years, and we have no idea what the first year performance of the Xegs is.

 

How are you splitting that 800k?

 

One thing to note is Atari's marketshare increased after november as did Sega, but Atari widened the gap. Was that due to the 7800, the 2600, or both? Maybe Xegs helped?

 

There are several months of sales missing for 1988 for the 7800 and 2600 and with a low price cut for the 2600, and a price cut plus more games, and deals in for the 7800 for the best year, that would be a big chunk of the 800k.

 

You then had the Xegs which likely sold a few hundred thousand across the whole year plus the November shopping season.

 

So what can you possibly give the SMS? 150k or less? Don't forget that missing 2% gets a piece of the pie as well.

 

It really is pretty much impossible to get that 1.5 million, especially since after 1990 we are looking at 10's of thousands of sales in a year as the sales dropped not 100k or anything higher. People really underestimate how much these things dropped.

 

1989 would have to sell like 600k to make up the differences in sales (maybe more) which is literally impossible.

[mr_me]

47 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

 

no it would be even using your calculations 15.4-11 which would be 4.4 million, and yes that would be 1.9 million however we still have the 1 million from the 2600 in the "2 million atari systems sold which drops it to 900k.

 

We then have the Xegs which we know sold 100k during the launch window which is 800k.

The 2M atari consoles include atari 2600s and whatever xegs consoles sold in 1987.  You can't subtract them twice.  But yes there are atari 2600s and xegs and maybe atari 5200 amongst the 1.9M.  is that suppose to be for 1988?