In the time that retro console plug-and-play re-releases (NES Classic, SNES Classic, Genesis Mini, etc) are becoming all the rage, how do you personally believe their sales numbers should be counted?

The way I see it, there are three schools of thought.

(1) Added to their original console's sales - after all, while it is very different hardware, it is an official release from the same company, designed to play only games from that specific console, and to play them the same way as when first released.

(2) Considered separate, but related - ie, "SNES Family". SNES at 49.1m, SNES Classic at (as of last report that I'm aware of) 5.28m, for a SNES family total of 54.29m.       
 
(3) Entirely separate. They may be playing similar software, but they're different systems and numbers shouldn't count any more than Wii systems bought for Virtual Console would count, either.


Furthermore, how would you consider software sales here? They're plug-and-play consoles, which means they (by design) can't have additional software added, and all games that are intended to be played with them come with the hardware purchase, so that certainly muddies the water, but after all, Super Mario Bros. numbers were counted with each NES console with which they were packed. Why wouldn't you, therefore, count these as well?

This is a discussion that likely happened a few years ago with the announcement of the NES Classic, but it's been a while and I'm curious what today's opinions are.

It would be only an option for the japanese wii sales since it didnt include wii sports

I think that is a difficult point to justify, counting Wii sales toward SNES in that circumstance, so yes, that's what I'm saying.

I would personally agree that 1 is nonsense, of course, but given that it is the SNES that sells the SNES Classic, NES that sells the NES Classic, Genesis experience that sells the Genesis Mini, etc, I would argue that #2 is certainly within the realm of reason.

If you don't count the software sales by any means, then would you therefore argue that SMB sales are skewed from everybody getting that when packed in with their NES consoles, or Wii Sports sales numbers invalid from NA and EU Wii sales?

It certainly does make it difficult to ascertain, because for instance, I had zero interest in yet another copy of ANY version of Street Fighter II, nor in Contra III, but then Star Fox II is exclusively available through SNES Classic. 

I'd say totally separate.

Once a console cycle has seen it's EOL and has been discontinued, any sales after that should be separate. To go back and compare hardware from early gens to find it was different than how it actually played out because the hardware was rebooted much later down the road doesn't make much sense. It's not the same type of hardware either.

Same basically goes for software. The bigger problem with the software is that it's all bundled with the classic editions and it's simply part of the entire package now, and none can be purchased and added, so it doesn't really make sense to count that towards individual game sales from a discontinued console long ago.

Things have changed in the past couple decades with slim versions of consoles and game bundles, but to try and impose that on the distant past just doesn't make much sense.

Option 4) Cash grab and we shouldn't care about the sales.

The same as with remakes and remasters; seperately.

There will be massive overlap with purchasers who bought both the old and new releases. Plus it’s unfair to add sales to an old release since they’ve been discontinued since long ago, purchases of the rerelease will mostly be based on nostalgia and times and market conditions have changed. You also can’t really say that, should the Mega Drive Mini sell 15m, that the Mega Drive was actually the 4th gen winner. This means that for example OoT sold 7.6 and 5.3 (or something) and SNES sold 49 and 6, not 13 and 55.

The point you make about OoT goes against what most generally consider, though - when talking about OoT sales, they are usually stated as a combination of all releases, unless otherwise stated.

Thus, most of the games, then, would be counted as follows: Star Fox (SNES): 2.99m; Star Fox (SNES:C): 5.28m; Star Fox (total): >8.27m etc.

Nah, it's becoming more and more clear that it should be considered an 8th gen release to support the 4th gen family - aka, option #2.

It's totally separate because it's nostalgia playback machines and they almost always have built-in games. So you certainly can't include the software sales, but hardware shouldn't be considered either.