Historical game sales data can be hard to come by, so I was quite interested to see NPD analyst Mat Piscatella tweet a series of all-time best-seller lists for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Game Boy Color over the weekend. Some of these might surprise you!
The game industry’s sales numbers have historically been much more closed-off than those of other industries. While it’s easy to find the box office numbers from films, for example, U.S. game sales data is locked up behind a very expensive subscription to the NPD Group’s reports.
The charts tweeted by Piscatella aren’t totally complete—they rank games by dollar sales instead of unit sales, and they don’t have the exact numbers, just a comparative ranking. But it’s still valuable information. Here’s the data:
PlayStation
Crash Bandicoot
Gran Turismo
Final Fantasy VII
Gran Turismo 2
Crash Bandicoot: Warped
Tekken 3
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Metal Gear Solid
Crash Bandicoot 2
Driver
Well, I guess Crash Bandicoot was really popular. Shame they couldn’t get one of them onto the PlayStation Classic. Also: Driver
Nintendo 64
Super Mario 64
Goldeneye 007
Mario Kart 64
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Pokemon Stadium
Donkey Kong 64
Star Fox 64
Super Smash Bros.
Diddy Kong Racing
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
I knew Goldeneye was popular, but the second-best-selling game in the U.S.? Amazing. Also, look at Shadows of the Empire kicking ass there at #10.
Sega Saturn
Madden NFL 97
Nights Into Dreams
Virtua Fighter 2
Daytona USA
Virtua Cop
Tomb Raider
Sega Rally Championship
Sonic 3D Blast
World Series Baseball
Panzer Dragoon
Madden being the biggest Saturn game in the U.S. might strike you as strange, but remember that the Genesis was the premier system for the sports genre, and some percentage of those players were bound to move on to the next Sega system for their Madden fix.
Sega Dreamcast
NFL 2K
NFL 2K1
Sonic Adventure
NBA 2K
NBA 2K1
Crazy Taxi
Soul Calibur
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
Shenmue
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Speaking of Sega and sports…
Game Boy Color
Pokemon Silver
Pokemon Gold
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
Pokemon Pinball
Pokemon Crystal
Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX
Donkey Kong Country
Pokemon Trading Card Game
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
The final platform Piscatella ran the numbers on was Game Boy Color. No surprise that it’s shot through with every Pokemon game for the short-lived platform, plus Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. The dark horse here is clearly the Yu-Gi-Oh game. Also, a “better luck next time” to Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, which we must assume is a very close #11.
