Dreamcast had to fight the PS2 and the PS2 was the cheapest dvd player you could get at a time that mattered, you could play all of your old PS1 games and every huge PlayStation franchise was getting a sequel on it. It just plain was a better offering to most people.
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I thought it was that the Saturn did well in Japan mostly thanks to Virtua Fighter 1 & 2 being a big deal in arcades. Then when FFVII came out, the PSX took over and the Saturnâs sales kinda dropped off. So it ended up doing pretty good for a Sega console, but nowhere near PSX level in sales.
Iâm probably getting this info from some potentially poorly researched YT video I saw years ago though
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the PSX outsold the Saturn by more than 3x in japan, 20 million units vs 5.8 million units
The Saturn outsold the N64 (by about 250k units) but there was a massive gap in popularity between those two and the PSX
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Oh yeah PS1 stomped everything, and yeah @GherkinForce actually I was just reading something yesterday or today that was citing FF7 as the big crusher; it sold almost 5 million copies in Japan alone (where the Saturn sold 5.8 million units, and the PS1 19.4). Nothing else on PS1 to that point had come close to that huge figure.
https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/PlayStation#Japan
On Saturn, the top two sellers in Japan were VF2 (1.7m) and VF/VFRemix (1.5m); the other Saturn game to reach 1m sales in Japan was Grandiaâwhich came to PS1 later but didnât make the top chart there.
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thinking about how back when Twilight Princess was revealed, how Matt Casamassina from IGN was convinced that the gameâs story was going to be a riff on the film Ladyhawke (because Link turns into a wolf), to the point where several questions in this prerelease interview he did were about that theory:
https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Interview:IGN_May_18th_2005_(Aonuma)
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these should give context, PS1 had overtaken the saturn in 1996 and utterly trounced it in 97 and 98. those 2 years in particular hold the record for the most units sold by a single playstation, and 1997 is like a top 5 year for sony despite the PS1 being the only hardware they had at the time
as for the saturn, the answer is virtua fighter, VF2 sold more than tekken 3 despite the 3x gap in install base
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Thatâs really interesting about Tekken 3, I hadnât noticed before that it sold relatively weakly in Japan compared to elsewhereâ8.3m sales worldwide but just 1.4m of those in Japan; I tend to think T3 was one of the elements that helped dampen the already-screwy US launch of the Dreamcast (with its weeks-after-launch VF3tb), for instance.
Although, but that time 3D was no longer so fresh and shiny in and of itself, so maybe 3tb would have been less of a blockbuster anyway.
Iâd been thinking that okay VF was big for the Saturn in Japan but even if you, say, took away VF2âs 1.7m number from the Saturnâs Japanese unit sales it still wouldâve been their highest selling console ever in Japan (List of best-selling game consoles by region - Wikipedia)âbut I suppose console sales donât work that simply; VF1 sold 1:1 with the console at launch in Japan (Virtua Fighter (video game) - Wikipedia) (where it wasnât a pack-in, unlike in the States), so that would have helped establish the console on a firm footing for future success there.
1.4m is nothing to scoff at, T3 was the last fighting game to sell over 1m units in japan until sf6. only the super famicom ports of sf2, vf2, t3 and now sf6 have sold that much
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Jeez, thatâs a really interesting stat, both for T3 and SF6.
One million is also like 1% of the population here. America has 3x more people.
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For 35 years whenever Amuro Ray shows up in a Super Robot Wars game he has a rotating selection of spirits. However heâs never had the âAccelâ spirit, which can be used to move an additional 2 spaces, because, as fast as he is, his life has been defined by the moment when he wasnât fast enough.
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Thereâs only 2 genres of games now: Survivor Likes and Friendslop. They are priced to sell by volume and hopefully get picked up by the steam algorithm. Negative reviews all point to there being not much in them, but people respond that theyâre cheaper than going to the movies and get more time out of them than one. That is also about 5 million dollars in sales after steam takes itâs cut.
This is also a pretty big rebuff to AAAâs obsession with high-gloss eSports like titles. People want multiplayer games but do not want to have to train, for hours, only to lose to someone with no job and no life, and spend hours learning the meta, etc etc.
Itâs probably not healthy that two genres of games are the only thing that can break through on Steam. Itâs also probably not healthy that gamers have stats like playercounts and review numbers at their fingertips so they can declare a game a flop.
I feel like this is a direct result of how Steam operates, itâs hard to find niche games on there even if you select the most niche racing game it suggests GTA V as another âracingâ game.
I have just now opened on steam, clicked on âcasual gamesâ and was presented with a Balatro-like themed off scratch off lottery tickets someone please end this madness
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âA Japanese video game sales database | Niche Barrier archives Famitsu, COMG! and Amazon.co.jp sales data. Your research starts here.â
Japan video game sales chart totals including current Amazon.co.jp top 100, and going back to Famicom.
Looking at their yearly charts, itâs startling to see how Nintendo has just about totally dominated since 2006. And the explosion of sales figures starting in 1992, the Super Famicomâs 2nd year.
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Per nichebarrier^, Japan chart sales totals for T&E Soft SFC, SAT, PS2, & NDS golf games (none of their MD, 3DO, N64, PS1 or VB golf games charted), chronological release:
New 3D Golf Simulation: Harukanaru Augusta (SFC) 130K
New 3D Golf Simulation: Pebble Beach no Hatou (SFC) 70K
New 3D Golf Simulation: Waialae no Kiseki (SFC) 8K
New 3D Golf Simulation: Devilâs Course (SFC) 4K
Masters: Harukanaru Augusta 2 (SFC) 62K
Pebble Beach Golf Links: Stadler ni Chousen (SAT) 16K
Masters: Harukanaru Augusta 3 (SAT) 18K
Masters New: Harukanaru Augusta 3 (SFC) 8K
The Hyper Golf: Devilâs Course (SAT) didnât chart
Pebble Beach no Hatou New: Tournament Edition (SFC) didnât chart
Waialae no Kiseki: Extra 36 Holes (SAT) didnât chart
Jun Classic C.C. & Rope Club (SAT) didnât chart
Golf Paradise (PS2) 161K
Golf Paradise DX (PS2) didnât chart
Disney Golf Classic (PS2) 5K
Otona no DS Golf (NDS) 19K
Pebble Beach Golf Links (SAT), a Saturn US launch title, did 51K in the US - https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Sega_Saturn. Their other US golf games donât appear to have charted.
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Oh hey that #7 is mentioned in its Wikipedia article : ) Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics - Wikipedia
You know, I completely spaced on checking US N64 sales. Jeepers. Or 3DO. And I canât find one for Virtual Boy. But yep thereâs N64 Waialae at 404K US salesâand 1M worldwide, woo. Good catch! ; DDD https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Nintendo_64 What a miss by me. ; D Ironically, that one did not come out in Japan. SoâŚin theory the other 600K sales are EU? But it isnât listed there. So uh hm.
Best I could find for 3DO is this forum post https://forums.atariage.com/topic/324535-3do-software-sales-found-platinum-and-gold-best-sellers-as-of-end-of-1995/ , whose link my virus checker insists I do not click. But in the body of the post they note the titles with over 100K sold, and guess whatâs there:
True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links (3DO)
So at least 100K for that one.
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And about 7 years later, most people had to!
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would love to find out if (edit on: legendary SB-lore poster, edit off) benren ( 
) ever upgraded⌠another thing i am thinking a lot about, whoaaaa :galaxybrain:
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if you were upgrading your computer monitor to LCD in 2005, thatâs a level of goofing up I cannot begin to imagine
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