Has the split between console and PC ever been this one sided before?
I see 84% went to console only games (at release) (not counting other) and it certainly wasn't a weak year for PC releases.
The SNES really hit top popularity in 1994, even though at that time I didn't even know a single person with a SNES. (Just wasn't popular where I lived in Europe)

That's still just stunning to read!  It makes perfect sense, since I know console gaming didn't really take off in Europe until the PlayStation came around, but it still just sounds so strange to me. No Super NES owners at all. Wow.

What I hear you saying here is that Nintendo needs to localize Mother 3.

Nintendo games were very expensive where I lived (The Netherlands) while PC, C64, Amiga 500, MSX games were basically 'free' thanks to rampant piracy. Copy parties were shamelessly promoted everywhere. Whole events where everyone dragged their PC or Amiga to the event just to copy each other's games.

Playstation games were a lot more affordable thanks to CDs. Nintendo games also suffered from PAL conversion, or rather not converted, running slower (50hz) and with black bars (more lines in PAL 576 vs NTSC 480). You could buy imported Nintendo games as well, but those were 3x as expensive as Playstation games. The compomised PAL ones still 1.5x as expensive.

PC games also got all the shelf space with their extravagant boxes and were cheaper than console games in general. SNES was around, just expensive and compromised. Nintendo had no love for Europe :/

Wow, that really does sound different from what I experienced growing up! Kinda cool too. Copy parties?

I remember video games in general feeling a lot more expensive than now. People today gripe about games costing $70 in U.S. money. $55 to $80 was a standard price range for Super NES games in the mid-90s; the difference being that that was nearly 30 years of inflation ago. In today's American money, that would be equivalent to like $120 to $150 per game. And that's before the infamous Texas sales tax. I suppose many in today's generation don't remember that because their parents were buying their games back then if they were even alive yet.

I had to pay for my own internet and phone bill as well. I played Everquest from 1999 on, first on dial up. So that was $9.89 a month originally for the EQ subscription (989 studios publisher), paying for ISP access (35 guilders a month), plus paying local phone costs which Everquest drove up to avg 200 guilders a month. Then you had to buy the expansions separately as well. So about $1,400 a year to play Everquest before expansions. $2,380 in today's money.
Plus I was playing on a 9,000 guilder PC at the time. About $4,000 back then, now $6,800.

But it was all possible because I got a good job while still living in cheap accommodations right out of university. My living costs were 10% of my gross income. My rent was 300 guilders a month ($136 at the time) including utilities. I didn't have much though, but enough to play games in!

Btw I always find it funny Americans complaining about sales tax. It was 19% for us in 1999, nowadays it's 21% in Europe! I live in Ontario now where it's 13%. But I also remember getting 6.5% interest on my standard bank account back then...

There are still some people keeping the tradition going


Most screens had this running

Hahaha...IIRC, was the slogan Maraude it Professional, or something like that?

But I really have only two options: FF6 and Live A Live.
FF6 is my favorite of the ones I've played (8 first). It certainly is the most iconic of all these.
And I hate to throw my vote to an obscure Other that'll likely get no second vote.

But my sincere opinion is that Live A Live is the best JRPG ever (with possible exception of Phantasy Star 1, but that's personal nostalgia), I have to vote that. Modern consoles are getting versions for a reason.

1994 to me was one of the biggest standout years in the history of this medium and it's one I feel very strongly about because it includes two of my all-time favorite games. Let me start out with a little bit on what made those two games so special to me if I can:

Super Metroid received my vote in this thread. It's also going to be my pick for best game of the decade and ranked fifth last year on my list of all-time favorite games. I replay it every year and it never seems to lose its impact on me no matter how much it ages. It's an embarrassment of commercialism that this game wound up being among the worst-selling entries in the Metroid franchise. Today it's among the very most respected and few other games can be said to have inspired so many other titles. That right there is the textbook definition of a cult classic.

I've already shared a lot of thoughts about Super Metroid at length on several other threads and main page commentaries before, but my most detailed so far can be found here for those interested. To add some contextualization though, Super Metroid came out in April of 1994, early on in the year, at a time when I was in a very, very dark place, feeling quite alone in the world. Something about the depth of the isolation, the subtle but gnawing sense of fear, that this game's atmosphere conveyed in its varied strokes and degrees and the way these shifted so organically from one to another as you traveled to its different areas, felt relatable to me at that moment in time in a way that I struggle to even put into words here. It felt like this was my world -- my inner world -- in all of its nuances, full of secrets stored everywhere that could help me, and conquering the challenges of Zebes felt like mastering that world of mine; like finding a sense of hope that my own newfound, all-pervading sense of emptiness, hopelessness, and fear could be conquered. With help. And that last note is what separates Super Metroid from even Metroid Prime in my personal opinion. There's a scene near the end of the game where...

-Snip-

I had to pay for my own internet and phone bill as well. I played Everquest from 1999 on, first on dial up. So that was $9.89 a month originally for the EQ subscription (989 studios publisher), paying for ISP access (35 guilders a month), plus paying local phone costs which Everquest drove up to avg 200 guilders a month. Then you had to buy the expansions separately as well. So about $1,400 a year to play Everquest before expansions. $2,380 in today's money.
Plus I was playing on a 9,000 guilder PC at the time. About $4,000 back then, now $6,800.

But it was all possible because I got a good job while still living in cheap accommodations right out of university. My living costs were 10% of my gross income. My rent was 300 guilders a month ($136 at the time) including utilities. I didn't have much though, but enough to play games in!

Btw I always find it funny Americans complaining about sales tax. It was 19% for us in 1999, nowadays it's 21% in Europe! I live in Ontario now where it's 13%. But I also remember getting 6.5% interest on my standard bank account back then...

There are still some people keeping the tradition going


Most screens had this running