Awesome find BKK2!! I'm just starting to look the mags from that site. I'm gonna try and copy the charts down and compare them to NPD (where available).
THanks so much, BKK2!
"The next time someone tells you Compact Discs are the wave of the future, tell them the future doesn't belong to snails!" - Nintendo Power, April 1994
Alright from EGM October 1993: they include the top sellers by console at Babbages:
covering the month? or week? ending Aug. 15th 1993:
N.E.S.:
1 NES Jurassic Park Ocean new
2 NES Kirby's Adventure Nintendo 3rd mo.
3 NES Super Mario Bros. 3 Nintendo 12th mo.
4 NES Mario is Missing Mindscape new
5 NES Tecmo NBA Basketball Tecmo 9th mo.
6 NES Bases Loaded 4 Jaleco 3rd mo.
7 NES Dragon Warrior IV Enix 4th mo.
8 NES Yoshi's Cookie Nintendo new
9 NES Tecmo Super Bowl Tecmo 2nd mo.
10 NES Tetris Nintendo 13th mo.
There's more if anyone's interested.
Since this is only Babbages stores this is what's selling among the more hardcore gamers so it is skewed I'm sure towards them. That makes it harder to know what's really selling.
Anyone know about how much of the market Babbages made up back in the early 90s? Even 10%? Less...?
"The next time someone tells you Compact Discs are the wave of the future, tell them the future doesn't belong to snails!" - Nintendo Power, April 1994
@Square & BKK:
Thx. :)
What´s Babbage? An old market reasearch company or something like that?
This should be interesting . Sorry , but I dont have any mags from back then ... hell I couldent even read untill '96 :P
Vote the Mayor for Mayor!
Here's Super NES: (same period as above)
1 SNES Street Fighter II Turbo Capcom new
2 SNES Mario is Missing SW Toolworks 2nd mo.
3 SNES NFL Football Konami new
4 SNES Super Mario Kart Nintendo 10th mo.
5 SNES Dungeon Master JVC new
6 SNES Bubsy Accolade 3rd mo.
7 SNES Final Fight 2 Capcom new
8 SNES Star Fox Nintendo 5th mo.
9 SNES Battletoads in Battlemaniacs Tradewest
10 SNES WWF Royal Rumble LJN 3rd mo.
Interesting to note: Super Mario All-Stars isn't selling at Babbages yet while the NA release date (according to wikipedia) was August 2, 1993...hmm. Is that release date an error? Surely it would be charting by Aug. 15th...
"The next time someone tells you Compact Discs are the wave of the future, tell them the future doesn't belong to snails!" - Nintendo Power, April 1994
| Orochimaru said: @Square & BKK: Thx. :) What´s Babbage? An old market reasearch company or something like that? |
Babbages was a major (if not the biggest) video game retail chain in the US back then. It competed w/ Software etc, Funcoland, et al. They have since all been bought out/merged together as Gamestop.
"The next time someone tells you Compact Discs are the wave of the future, tell them the future doesn't belong to snails!" - Nintendo Power, April 1994
...and Genesis:
1 GEN Jurassic Park Ocean new
2 GEN Jungle Strike EA new
3 GEN Shining Force Sega new
4 GEN RBI Baseball '93 Tengen 3rd mo.
5 GEN NHLPA Hockey '93 EA 6th mo.
6 GEN PGA Tour Golf II EA 6th mo.
7 GEN X-Men Sega 5th mo.
8 GEN Hardball III Accolade 5th mo.
9 GEN Ms. Pac-man Tengen new?? 1 mo.
10 GEN Fatal Fury Takara 4th mo.
"The next time someone tells you Compact Discs are the wave of the future, tell them the future doesn't belong to snails!" - Nintendo Power, April 1994
Square07 said:
Babbages was a major (if not the biggest) video game retail chain in the US back then. It competed w/ Software etc, Funcoland, et al. They have since all been bought out/merged together as Gamestop. |
Ok, thx for the answer. ^^
Do you have an idea how high their market coverage was in that time? :)
Sonic launch week in the UK:
Week ending June 29 1991:
Charts were dominated by home computers such as Spectrum/C64/Atari ST/Amiga back then. Gallup had only just started including console games in the charts not long before.
Here's the monthly July chart from C&VG:
| BKK2 said: Clearly UK charts, which should be from Gallup as they used to do the UK charts prior to Chart-Track. But, as Dorian Block, Director of Chart Track, the independent company that officially monitors and compiles all videogame sales data across the U.K., explains, the videogame Christmas No. 1 is far from a recent invention: "The first ever videogame Christmas number was, technically, 'Commando' published by Elite on the Spectrum and Commodore 64, in 1985. This was the first year that a videogame chart was ever compiled by a company called Gallup. Chart Track was formed in March 1996 after a management buy-out from Gallup. The current Chart Track directors all worked at Gallup and have decades of experience in the music, video and games markets, in terms of retail tracking." Link However, Gallup didn't start compiling UK charts until 1985, so I'm not sure where they get the July 1984 chart from. Anyway, thanks for those konnichiwa. @Square07 I have tons of UK magazines and even a few EGMs from the early 90's back in the UK. Unfortunately I'm not planning on visiting there anytime soon, so you'll have to be very patient until I can post those. |
I now have some explanations. In 1984 C&VG and The Daily Mirror commissioned NOP (since bought out by GfK) to produce what appear to be the first independant UK game charts. There was a fortnightly chart published in the Daily Mirror, and a monthly chart published in C&VG. This lasted through 1984, but appears to stop in 1985. After a couple of months break charts return to C&VG, but this time as the first Gallup charts, who would later in 1996 be bought out by management to become Chart-Track. So the charts posted from 1984 should be from NOP.
I've found the first copy of UK console mag Mean Machines from October 1990. They don't give a source for their charts. Presumably the Sega (Master System) and Nintendo (NES) charts are UK ones. Mega Drive charts could be either Japanese, US, or possibly even UK imports. It doesn't say which period the charts cover either, but probably September or August.
There weren't any official console charts back in 1990. Master System and NES charts were supplied by the distributors. Mega Drive charts were supplied by PC Engine Supplies (later renamed Console Concepts), who were probably the largest grey importer in the UK at the time (I actually used to use them). So it turns out the Mega Drive charts were UK imports.
C&VG April 1984 issue:
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