Last year around this time, The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella shared some historical sales charts of the “Best-Selling Games in the US” from a wide variety of modern and classic platforms (including the Saturn, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and more).
Perhaps this means it’ll become a regular thing, as Piscatella popped up earlier today with another batch of charts, this time slicing the data from a few “obscure” corners of the industry.
Anyone have an obscure sales ranking chart they'd like to see?
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 25, 2019
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Taking requests from his Twitter followers, Piscatella’s research pointed him towards Nokia’s ill-fated N-Gage handheld, as well as popular third-party games on Nintendo platforms, and RPGs on the PlayStation. Finally, one person wanted to see the sales chart from the (sort of) uneventful February 1996.
All four charts offered plenty of surprises, which you can see for yourself in this edition of Bite-Sized Game History…
You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.
Piscatella started this trip down memory lane with a look at the first gaming-focused cell phone, the Nokia N-Gage. While mobile gaming is a multi-billion dollar business today, it was still a fairly niche hobby in 2003.
When you combine that with some rather baffling design choices (the N-Gage required players to remove the battery to swap game cartridges), it’s no wonder the handheld flopped. And let’s not forget “Sidetalking” to answer a call.
But what was the N-Gage’s best-selling game? According to Piscatella, it was Sega’s Sonic N (which wasn’t an original game, but rather a port of Sonic Advance):
Twitter user @ExareGames asked for the best-selling games on Nokia N-Gage. Perfect first question. The best-selling game on the Nokia N-Gage is Sonic N. Today I learned about an N-Gage game named Sonic N. pic.twitter.com/buwvTuuByP
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 25, 2019
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Nintendo’s consoles have been treated as delivery mechanisms for the consolemaker’s self-published games going all the way back to the Nintendo 64. So one of Piscatella’s followers wanted to know, what was the best-selling third party game on each Nintendo platform?
The results ranged from the unsurprising (Activision’s Guitar Hero: World Tour on the Wii) to the surprising (Sega’s Sonic Adventure 2 on the GameCube) to the I’m-not-sure-this-should-count (Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle on the Switch):
Twitter user @meyerpi0 asked for the best-selling third party game on each Nintendo platform.
Console $:
N64 – WCW/NWO Revenge
NGC – Sonic Adventure 2
Wii – Guitar Hero World Tour
Wii U – LEGO Dimensions
Switch – Mario & Rabbids: Kingdom Battle(Didn't expect these tbh)
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 25, 2019
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February 1996 is a very important time in video game history. During that month, Nintendo debuted one of the biggest franchises ever with the launch of Pokemon Red and Blue… in Japan.
It would take more than two years for the colorful RPG to make its way to the US, so Piscatella’s friends at The NPD Group wound up looking at a very different slate of best-selling games during the month. Would Pokemon have been able to overpower the combined might of Mortal Kombat 3 (at #2), Mortal Kombat II (at #8), Street Fighter Alpha (at #4), and Killer Instinct (at #10)? I guess we’ll never know, but there was more than just fighting games in the Top 10:
Twitter user @MrBrawl96 asked for the best-selling games of February, 1996. Donkey Kong Country 2 was the best-selling game of that month. It ended up being the #3 best-selling game of 1996, behind Super Mario 64 and Madden NFL 97. pic.twitter.com/0kPv4ZbUiN
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 25, 2019
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The PlayStation was off to a great start by February 1996, and while the console had amassed a growing catalog of games in its first six months, it was still finding its footing with consumers. Eventually, the PlayStation platform would cement its legacy as the home to dozens of great RPGs, but which ones sold the best?
You’ll definitely find Final Fantasy VII (at #1), Final Fantasy VIII (at #2), and Final Fantasy IX (at #3) on this list, but the rest of the Top 10 might be a bit more surprising:
Last one for now… Twitter user @brilltweet asked about the best-selling RPGs on the original PlayStation.
Final Fantasy VII is the best-selling RPG on PlayStation 1, and was the platform's 3rd best-selling game overall. Crash Bandicoot and Gran Turismo Racing were 1 and 2. pic.twitter.com/bItbQ4rqBl
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 25, 2019
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Thanks to Mat Piscatella for once again giving everyone this tiny peak at The NPD Group’s vast treasure trove of sales data. Hopefully we’ll get another of these very informative threads very soon.