| Khuutra said: Call of Duty was a PC title, not a console first person shooter, which saw only nominal success until the current generation actually launched that franchise into popularity. After the Halo games, the best-selling FPS on the Xbox sold under 1.8 million units, which might be impressive but doesn't compare to the FPS success from the N64 era - even the first Turok kicked the Hell out of the vast majority of the Xbox and PS2's FPS lineup in terms of popularity and sales. Halo did a lot of great things for the genre, certainly made it the center of the gaming world for a little while, but Goldeneye was bigger for its time, spawned more successful shooters on the N64 thereafter, and legitimized the genre in terms of playability on consoles. Legitimize meaning, of course, that it makes the genre legitimate, proving the viability of the first person shooters on a platform that wasn't the PC. Halo did not do that. Goldeneye did. |
List of all N64 FPS:
|
Title
|
Plat
|
Company
|
Reviews
|
Avg.
Vote |
Avg
Score |
| 1. GoldenEye 007 | N64 | Nintendo | 21 | 9.2 | 95.176% |
| 2. Perfect Dark | N64 | Nintendo | 43 | 9.0 | 94.658% |
| 3. Turok 2: Seeds of Evil | N64 | Acclaim | 21 | 7.5 | 89.438% |
| 4. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter | N64 | Acclaim | 13 | 7.8 | 86.615% |
| 5. Quake II | N64 | Activision | 20 | 7.2 | 81.960% |
| 6. The World is Not Enough | N64 | Electronic Arts | 24 | 7.5 | 81.025% |
| 7. Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion | N64 | Acclaim | 16 | 6.9 | 78.444% |
| 8. Quake | N64 | Midway | 7 | 6.7 | 76.143% |
| 9. Forsaken 64 | N64 | Acclaim | 15 | 6.5 | 75.333% |
| 10. Duke Nukem 64 | N64 | GT Interactive | 15 | 6.8 | 74.333% |
| 11. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six | N64 | Red Storm Entertainment | 13 | 7.2 | 73.708% |
| 12. Doom 64 | N64 | Midway | 12 | 6.7 | 73.467% |
| 13. Turok: Rage Wars | N64 | Acclaim | 18 | 6.9 | 72.389% |
| 14. South Park | N64 | Acclaim | 14 | 5.4 | 67.107% |
| 15. Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. | N64 | Acclaim | 13 | 5.4 | 61.285% |
| 16. Hexen | N64 | GT Interactive | 12 | 4.4 | 60.217% |
| 17. John Romero's Daikatana | N64 | Kemco | 5 | 3.5 | 42.340% |
Goldeneye sold 8 million, Perfect Dark sold 2.52 million, and Turok 1 sold 1.56 million. Only 3 FPS games, according to vgchartz, sold over 1 million copies on N64.
I will not list all of the Xbox FPS, but there were 82 according to gamerankings.com. here are the top, oh, 25.
Halo 2 outsold Goldeneye at 8.46 million. Halo 1 sold 6.43 million. Others that sold over 1 million: Ghost Recon 1 and 2, Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2, Rainbow Six 3, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (spys in multi), MoH: Frontline, Doom 3, MoH: Rising Sun, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (were spys removed?), and CoD: Finest Hour. That's 13 games to 3 on a system that sold 24 million hardware compared to 32 million N64's. oh, and you could also count Morrowind, except magic instead of guns, but whatever.
PS2:
|
itle
|
Plat
|
Company
|
Reviews
|
Avg.
Vote |
Avg
Score |
| 1. TimeSplitters 2 | PS2 | Eidos Interactive | 68 | 8.5 | 91.526% |
| 2. Red Faction | PS2 | THQ | 62 | 7.9 | 87.465% |
| 3. Medal of Honor Frontline | PS2 | EA Games | 60 | 8.2 | 86.722% |
| 4. TimeSplitters: Future Perfect | PS2 | EA Games | 52 | 8.6 | 85.552% |
| 5. Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 | PS2 | Ubisoft | 32 | 7.9 | 85.041% |
| 6. TimeSplitters | PS2 | Eidos Interactive | 49 | 7.6 | 83.748% |
| 7. Red Faction II | PS2 | THQ | 60 | 7.6 | 83.558% |
| 8. Half-Life | PS2 | Sierra Entertainment | 43 | 7.8 | 83.231% |
| 9. Quake III Revolution | PS2 | Electronic Arts | 39 | 7.1 | 83.013% |
| 10. Call of Duty 3 | PS2 | Activision | 20 | 7.7 | 82.375% |
| 11. James Bond 007: NightFire | PS2 | Electronic Arts | 39 | 7.6 | 80.808% |
| 12. Battlefield 2: Modern Combat | PS2 | EA Games | 48 | 8.2 | 80.773% |
| 13. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One | PS2 | Activision | 45 | 8.2 | 80.278% |
| 14. Project: Snowblind | PS2 | Eidos Interactive | 60 | 7.9 | 80.025% |
| 15. Black | PS2 | EA Games | 66 | 8.2 | 79.505% |
Timesplitters and Red Faction don't get enough credit; they came out before Halo. as you can see, though, Halo received the best reviews along with Perfect Dark and Goldeneye, with Halo 2 being #1. Halo 1 sold twice as much as any PS2 shooter.
PS2 FPS that sold 1 million: SW: Battlefront (3.24 million is the highest), Battlefront 2, Agent Under Fire, CoD: Finest Hour, CoD2, Ghost Recon, Red Faction (all of the above games sold more than Turok), Red Faction 2, and Black.
Only 9 games compared to 13 on Xbox, most higher rated on Xbox, despite a huge install base difference. Still, the selection was a lot more varied than N64.
So now, to your points directly:
1. You say CoD was only a "nominal success" on console before the current generation. That's interesting, because CoD: The Finest Hour and CoD 2: The Big Red One were both console spinoffs, not the PC versions, and both sold very well. Finest Hour outsold all N64 shooters except Goldeneye. CoD3, back to the main series, was developed for consoles only. None of those console games were developed by Infinity Ward, but the first 2 sold very well.
2. You say Turok sold better than any Xbox-era shooter other than Halo. Unless this site is wrong, I count 8 that sold more than Turok. 5 of those were on Xbox and among those 3 outsold it more just on Xbox. 4 if you count Morrowind.
3. You say Goldeneye was bigger than Halo, and yet Halo 2 sold more than Goldeneye and Halo wasn't exactly a slouch. Halo does deserve credit for spawning a lot of console FPS. There were 62 FPs on PS2 and 82 on XBox, but only 17 on N64. The grand majority of those came after Halo. More sold over 1 million on Xbox despite a lower install base, and Halo 2 was the higest selling FPS ever on consoles...until Halo 3. So yeah, you are right that Goldeneye showed that FPS was "viable" on console, just like Wolfenstein showed it was viable on PC, and yet it was Halo that spawned the console FPS revolution like Doom did for PC.
