I understand why these companies risk included all these pirated games. Never underestimate the appeal of ready-to-go games to Joe Average / the casual gamer.
I always remember dealing with a return of a Game Boy Color back in the day. The chap complained that he didn't realise you had to buy games separately and that it was a complete rip-off when he could get a 250-in-1 brick game machine out of the Sunday paper for £29.99...
@GravyThief You're not wrong about the SNES. I put an admittedly long post above pointing out the issues with some of those figures; there's no way the NES and Master System outsold the SNES in the UK.
The SNES figure is from Screen Digest in March 1995 and isn't total sales at all, it's their "active installed base estimate" for 1994. So firstly: it's from 1994, only two years into the SNES's six year life in the UK. And secondly: it's only the active installed base. It doesn't include people who are not actively using their systems, i.e. people who have already moved on, or parents buying one and sticking it in a cupboard ready for Christmas or a birthday.
There aren't any official figures, but most estimates typically place total SNES sales at around 1.7 million, vs 4 million for the Mega Drive. Sega trounced Nintendo way more so in the 16-bit generation than in the 8-bit!
As someone who works in data analysis it's worth adding a bit of context to those SNES and SMS figures, which both come from the same 1995 Screen Digest source. For one thing; they're estimated active installed base, not total installed base. What this means is that when looking at the complete source material you find that rather than continue to build up the numbers actually decrease in the years towards the end of a console's life - the point at which fewer owners are actively using them. So the total sales would be higher for both systems.
Ultimately I'd take issue with the social media claim the SMS beat the SNES. Screen Digest's SNES 1,050,000 figure is for the 1994 active installed base, only two years into the console's life in the UK. By the time the system disappeared from catalogues in 1998 it had four more years of sales under it's belt, so more active users coming in, and of course more dropping off. Also consider the document shows it took the SNES only two years to get to 1 million active users whereas it shows the Master System took four.
It's very easy to "prove" almost anything you'd want when cherry-picking from the figures. The Screen Digest document also shows the NES and Master System were neck and neck on 1.1 million active UK users in 1992, both outperforming the Mega Drive with its 1.0 million, something I think would probably surprise most people. Bear in mind this was only for one year though. The 8-bit installed bases drop off a cliff as the decade continues, whilst the 16-bit figures climb higher.
I'm not trying to diminish the Master System's achievement in the UK by any means; it did phenomenally well here! But it's so easy to prove almost anything by being selective with the facts.
Like my maths teacher used to say "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics!" 😂
This resistance to UK English doesn't surprise me at all. In a previous job the company I was working for tried to break into the US market. The fact that an update to our business software with a US English option was six months away was a deal breaker for many potential US clients. Sales were called off over a handful of words in the UI with slightly different spellings, such as "labour" instead of "labor" and "despatch" instead of "dispatch"...
Comments 5
Re: You Can Now Play One Of Nintendo's Most Outrageous Games In English, With This AI-Free Fan Translation
Sounds like this is one well worth getting the FDS down from on top of the wardrobe for. 😀
Re: Entertainment Software Association Requests U.S. Trade Investigate Anbernic's 'Superfake' Handheld Emulator Market
I understand why these companies risk included all these pirated games. Never underestimate the appeal of ready-to-go games to Joe Average / the casual gamer.
I always remember dealing with a return of a Game Boy Color back in the day. The chap complained that he didn't realise you had to buy games separately and that it was a complete rip-off when he could get a 250-in-1 brick game machine out of the Sunday paper for £29.99...
Re: The Master System's Popularity In The UK Is Still Surprising Some People
@GravyThief You're not wrong about the SNES. I put an admittedly long post above pointing out the issues with some of those figures; there's no way the NES and Master System outsold the SNES in the UK.
The SNES figure is from Screen Digest in March 1995 and isn't total sales at all, it's their "active installed base estimate" for 1994. So firstly: it's from 1994, only two years into the SNES's six year life in the UK. And secondly: it's only the active installed base. It doesn't include people who are not actively using their systems, i.e. people who have already moved on, or parents buying one and sticking it in a cupboard ready for Christmas or a birthday.
There aren't any official figures, but most estimates typically place total SNES sales at around 1.7 million, vs 4 million for the Mega Drive. Sega trounced Nintendo way more so in the 16-bit generation than in the 8-bit!
Re: The Master System's Popularity In The UK Is Still Surprising Some People
As someone who works in data analysis it's worth adding a bit of context to those SNES and SMS figures, which both come from the same 1995 Screen Digest source. For one thing; they're estimated active installed base, not total installed base. What this means is that when looking at the complete source material you find that rather than continue to build up the numbers actually decrease in the years towards the end of a console's life - the point at which fewer owners are actively using them. So the total sales would be higher for both systems.
Ultimately I'd take issue with the social media claim the SMS beat the SNES. Screen Digest's SNES 1,050,000 figure is for the 1994 active installed base, only two years into the console's life in the UK. By the time the system disappeared from catalogues in 1998 it had four more years of sales under it's belt, so more active users coming in, and of course more dropping off. Also consider the document shows it took the SNES only two years to get to 1 million active users whereas it shows the Master System took four.
It's very easy to "prove" almost anything you'd want when cherry-picking from the figures. The Screen Digest document also shows the NES and Master System were neck and neck on 1.1 million active UK users in 1992, both outperforming the Mega Drive with its 1.0 million, something I think would probably surprise most people. Bear in mind this was only for one year though. The 8-bit installed bases drop off a cliff as the decade continues, whilst the 16-bit figures climb higher.
I'm not trying to diminish the Master System's achievement in the UK by any means; it did phenomenally well here! But it's so easy to prove almost anything by being selective with the facts.
Like my maths teacher used to say "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics!" 😂
Re: "They Really Hated It" - The Battle To Get British English Into Dragon Quest VIII
This resistance to UK English doesn't surprise me at all. In a previous job the company I was working for tried to break into the US market. The fact that an update to our business software with a US English option was six months away was a deal breaker for many potential US clients. Sales were called off over a handful of words in the UI with slightly different spellings, such as "labour" instead of "labor" and "despatch" instead of "dispatch"...