What was the Greatest Launch Title of all Time?

[Bofferbrauer2]

Wyrdness said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

What performances?

Just to make it clear, it wasn't the SNES and Genesis Megadrive! that killed the other computers, the PC itself did. Intel kept pushing the X86 further and further and after IBM stopped caring, other companies started to create their own graphics cards. Both ensured that no competitor in the computer market could keep up with the PC. Commodore went under, Atari tried to realign itself onto consoles with the "success" we know. Apple became a niche product for graphics and audio later on, but during the late 80's and early 90's, they actively tried to get computer gaming on the MacIntosh going strong like it did early on the Apple ][, but never got that known for that domain. However, none of this was the console's doing.

I gave the Amstrad as an example of computers other than PC or Apple of the time. But hey, 14M consoles sold better than 3M Amstrad, so consoles killed computer gaming, yay. Sorry, but that's patently false. Since you added up those two consoles (and I'll round it up to 15M with PC Engine and Atari 7800 sales), I'll do a similar thing with computers, with their sales during the lifetime of the third Gen, so 1985 to 1994, cutting off the sales before 1985:

Amstrad: 3M

Amiga: 5M

Atari ST: 2M

MacIntosh: 16M

Apple ][: 3M

PC: 158M

C64: 13M

Granted, those numbers are worldwide numbers, but only Apple computers and PC really were popular in the US. A part of those computers were used for professional reasons, especially with the MacIntosh and the PC. But if even just 10% of the PCs were used for gaming in Europe, which is a realistic number since Europe was the main PC market at the time, then those alone outsold the 3rd Gen consoles of the same timeframe.

What you've posted here doesn't debunk what I've said in fact it further highlights it as look at the numbers for a start outside of the C64 the home computers were outperformed by the new consoles in Europe and this was a time when they were meant to be on top in fact your WW numbers show that the console numbers in Europe were significantly higher than the HC's WW numbers if we go by WW numbers than it further shows what I've said. This is why Atari tried to realign with consoles because their time had come to an end and it took until the late 90s for PCs to reinstate that side of the market but they were still being dominated by consoles as gaming goes it's only later on in 00s when the market found itself as a mainstay again.

I showed WW numbers because I couldn't find European-only numbers in most cases. The Amiga stands at 4.2M in Europe only, the Amstrad is almost all European numbers, same for the Atari ST. That's already 9M just for those 3 platforms in Europe. While that's less than 14M, they are just a part from the European market. A small part, I might add.

Atari tried to realign to consoles because the Atari ST flopped compared to the main competitor, the Amiga - just look at the sales numbers I provided. Plus, it was very frontloaded (half of it's sales were done by 1988 while the Amiga peaked in 1991). It just couldn't keep up with the competition in the computer field. What's more, the ST was bleeding money. They tried to address this with the Falcon, but when it failed, they axed the entire Computer line in favor of the Jaguar, hoping it would have worldwide appeal, not just in Europe.

Also, if the Consoles would have killed the computers, then why did Atari kill it's 7800 successor, the Atari Panther, planned to release in 1991, early in development, resulting them to leave the console market for 2 years after they pulled the 7800 in 1992?

Your conclusion is just biased and slanted. I could prove just as well that consoles were a flop by comparing Amiga sales in Europe to PC their Engine sales and declare that consoles couldn't catch on in Europe. Out of those 158M

Finally, PC sales exploded in the early 90's. Out of those 158M, over 60 were just from 1993-1994, at a time when most companies already had computers. Why? Well, because some little game called Doom, that's why. Id Software at the time made $100,000 daily just from the sales of the $9 shareware episode unlocks. In other words, they sold over 10k games on a daily basis. The game was played by 10M people within 2 years of it's launch. Other games also put the PC into the frontlight, like the Monkey Island Series, Civilization II

Now tell me, how can a game sell 10M copies if the platform is dead?