By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales - Reconstructing Gaming History: NYTimes From 6/1/1991 - NES @ 9m in 1989?

Sky Render on 28 July 2008

Fascinating finds, these. It just goes to show that, the more things change, the more they stay exactly the same. And it is interesting to see that the first article was apparently written just as the Nintendo/Sony/Phillips debacle went down, since the report states that the then-unnamed PlayStation would be able to play SNES games, and that Phillips was developing what would be the CD-i with support from Nintendo in the form of franchise rights. Gotta love history...



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Around the Network
TheSource on 30 July 2008

By the way, we're contacting Nintendo and other people with historical information to try to verify some of these old NES figures. Once we do, we'll work on old Sega, Atari, Intellevision, etc figures



People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

When there are more laws, there are more criminals.

- Lao Tzu

BKK2 on 30 July 2008
TheSource said:

By the way, we're contacting Nintendo and other people with historical information to try to verify some of these old NES figures. Once we do, we'll work on old Sega, Atari, Intellevision, etc figures

That would be great, I'm sure Nintendo will be helpful, but not so sure about Sega.

 



TheSource on 30 July 2008

This is what I was told are NES shipments in the Americas from one of our sources (not from Nintendo though)

1985 - .2m

1986 - 1.1m

1987 - 3.4m

1988 - 7.3m

1989 - 9m

1990 - 7.3m

1991 - 4.2m

1992 - 2m

1993 - 1.1m

1994 - .4m

1995 - .2m

1996 - .1m



People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

When there are more laws, there are more criminals.

- Lao Tzu

TheSource on 01 August 2008

Found my copy of Steven Kent's Ultimate History of Videogames:

He cites the following FY figures for Nintendo -

Note: he does this by fiscal year, so I may be interpreting this wrong, but since Nintendo's FY 2008 ends in 2009, I'm assuming FY 1986, which he says saw 1.8m NES units shipped ended in 1987.

Year Ending 8/31/1987 - NES shipped 1.8m

Year ending 8/31/1988 - NES shipped 5.4m

Year ending 8/31/1989 - NES shipped 9.3m

*Year ending 3/31/1990 - NES shipped 5.3m

Year ending 3/31/1991 - NES shipped 7.6m

 

As for 'Famicom' figures:

"In eighteen months, the Famicom had sold 3m in Japan"

I take that to mean by December 1984, Famicom shipped 3m in Japan (it launched July 1983).

We have figures for Famicom at 6.5m in 1986 in Japan so this makes sense to me.

Still looking.



People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

When there are more laws, there are more criminals.

- Lao Tzu

Around the Network
Retrasado on 01 August 2008
mrstickball said:
TheSource said:

Also note:

USA Population in 2003 - 291m. PS2 peaked in 2002, so probably ~289m

USA Population in 1990 - 248m. NES peaked in 1989, so probably ~245m

So the USA 2002 Pop= USA 1989 Pop * 1.17

If NES sold ~7.5-8.0m of those shipped units in the USA in 1989, and if I'm remembering correctly, PS2 did 8-9m in the USA in 2002, then PS2 roughly only peaked 17% higher than NES - exactly in line with USA population growth.

Thats all estimation but still fairly stunning if even remotely true.

Thing is though, Nintendo sold so well when they pretty much butchered the competition. Citing the article, they had no less than an 85% Marketshare in '91, and most likely were stronger when they did ship & sell the 8.0m units.

Lets look at it this way:

NES - 8.0m Sold in '89

Competition - Under 1.0m in '89 (11.1% Marketshare)

 

Playstation 2 - 9.6m Sold in '02 (Source = VGC)

Compeition - 5.8m Sold in '02 (37.6% Marketshare)

 

So in '89 around 9 million video game consoles sold. In 2002, it was around 15.4m - a 71.1% increase. In 2007, it was 19.625 million consoles. But more importantly: Handhelds sold 15.5m in 2007 versus 8 million in 2002 (and didn't exist in '89)

So we've seen absolutely huge growth (1500% increase) in Handheld sales, and have seen around 117% growth in console sales since 1989...Not too shabby. For comparison, the box office industry has increased 91.8% between 1989 and 2007.

 

 

I like how handheld sales have increased ∞% since 1989. Now that my friend, is an impressive increase....



Not trying to be a fanboy. Of course, it's hard when you own the best console eve... dang it

TheSource on 14 August 2008

Wrote to Nintendo's investor relations website.... I'm expecting a response of some kind within the week once they come back from vacation.


If they aren't willing to give NES yearly shipments though it doesn't bode well for Sega, Atari, and the other early players.



People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.

When there are more laws, there are more criminals.

- Lao Tzu