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.