But I have played both Giana Sisters and Mario Super Mario Bros and I'm from Germany...
It was obviously a clone like Wacky Wheels to Mario Kart but still... I liked it
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People need to stop thinking that the UK market represents Europe
- Thread starter Stairouais
- Start date
But I have played both Giana Sisters and Mario Super Mario Bros and I'm from Germany...
It was obviously a clone like Wacky Wheels to Mario Kart but still... I liked it
You are quote correct here man, we're all just speaking from memory. Which is why it's weird that Dench is being kinda aggressive about it. Maybe he was a Sega kid, they always were a bit rougher round the edges... (and their houses smelled weird)
As a person from the UK. SNES was massive here. Competition between up the SNES and Genesis was neck and neck and no one cares for other systems.
As for the generation before SNES I was way too young to remember much but I remember my cousin who owned a Commodore 64, a friend who owned a NES and another friend who owned a Amiga and a family friend who owned a Master System. But for sure SNES, Gameboy were massive successes and Nintendo mindshare was part of my childhood.
As for the generation before SNES I was way too young to remember much but I remember my cousin who owned a Commodore 64, a friend who owned a NES and another friend who owned a Amiga and a family friend who owned a Master System. But for sure SNES, Gameboy were massive successes and Nintendo mindshare was part of my childhood.
It's not unknown, that's absurd. But I certainly can't be bothered to look through old scans of MCV to find physical proof.
Perhaps you will find that a useful way to spend your day though.
It was (is) popular in Spain too, I remember most of my friends having a computer. Usually it was the dad's computer which was used for this though. PC fútbol (an early 90s football manager) was HUGE here.
If anyone's interested in getting a taste of what was happening in the UK in the 80s, here is the UK games chart from 30 years ago
SNES released in the UK on August 1991. Maybe people are right when it comes to NES. With SNES and Gameboy I disagree, those were huge. N64 was also but obviously PS1 was destroying it but it was the 2nd most popular console. Then of course DS and Wii were massive.
If anyone's interested in getting a taste of what was happening in the UK in the 80s, here is the UK games chart from 30 years ago
The vast majority of these games, if not nearly all of them save for the Mircopose games would have been coded in the UK as well (albeit that some of them were conversions of US or Japanese games on other systems e.g. Bubble Bobble)
I've done it before. The numbers are Europe wide. At least all the numbers I can find save for the one figure I mentioned earlier. I'm happy to admit that I'm wrong if someone produces the source but I'm hardly going to repeat an exercise I have already carried out purely to defeat my own position. The onus is on you.
You say that people should stop saying the UK market represents Europe, but then go on to generalise gamers in the UK as all playing Fifa.
Been fighting against this for years, especially on the old place. It's very common.
I remember an American podcast saying all of Europe drives on the left.
Also, I don't watch or listen to many US podcasts etc, but most of the time it's embarrassing how uninformed they are on the rest of the world in general. It's a nasty bubble.
There have never been UK specific figures, you'd have to go through the charts and see what they imply about hardware sales - just as we do today.
Why you think you're right I can't imagine though, it's common knowledge that Sega were always the dominant brand in the UK. But if you want to pretend otherwise based on your schoolyard experiences that's up to you.
They had a presence in Sweden for sure. But we were basically Nintendo country. Until the PS1, now we're Sony-Land :P
I had never heard of the Giana Sisters until about the last ten years and I am 35 and from the UK!
I will say that the NES was just part of many options when I was growing up though, I personally had a Master System and a Spectrum 48k.
I will say that the NES was just part of many options when I was growing up though, I personally had a Master System and a Spectrum 48k.
SNES released in the UK in 1992. And Megadrive had already built up a strong following before its launch. Both SNES and Megadrive also had strong competition from the Amiga at the time of course, and lesser competition from Atari ST. And then there was the CD32 (lol)
I remember Mario being huge on both the Gameboy and the SNES in the UK though, but again this was the early 90s. In the 80s, Mario really wasn't a thing at all in the UK, with Jet Set Willy, Monty Mole and Chuckie Egg being more famous.
I love looking at these, oh how things have changed. Alan Sugar isn't getting much representation on that chart though with only one entry.If anyone's interested in getting a taste of what was happening in the UK in the 80s, here is the UK games chart from 30 years ago
Common knowledge that appears to be completely unsubstantiated. My position is that we don't know and the evidence for that is that there is no evidence. Your position is that "the SNES was easily eclipsed by the Mega Drive" - and yet the only way you can support this statement is by reference to 'common knowledge' and nostalgia levels which you have somehow measured. It seems to me that you don't have any actual evidence for your claim and yet you insist it is true all the same. And you say that I'm the one with the 'schoolyard' preferences showing...
I am not sure if this is only a Spain thing or happened in other countries too. But I remember a lot of NES clones back in the day. They were even sold at legit shops, it was not a black market thing. And they were very popular, so I think official sales for NES were severely impacted and are not fully representative of the potential market of Nintendo in Spain.
Here's a another chart from November 1984, just for fun
Jaz Rignall (former writer for pretty much every British games magazine in the 80s and 90s) sometimes posts these on twitter (@jazrignall) if you want more
These are really cool, but before NES release though.
Gameboy totally kickstarted Nintendo in Europe from my perspective, yeah the NES existed but I only knew two kids who had em. The hype for the Gameboy was unbelievable. I still remember the day the first kid turned up at school with one, we all gathered round and demanded to play it. Everyone had one for christmas that year. (Except a few Atari ST kids who went and bought LYNXes, the fools!)
I ended up getting consoles because the Amiga just didn't evolve to compete, I bought an A1200 in the hope of renewed excitement but it didn't satisfy the gaming hunger and inevitably a Megadrive and later a SNEZ was purchased.
SNEZ SNEZ SNEZ.
I ended up getting consoles because the Amiga just didn't evolve to compete, I bought an A1200 in the hope of renewed excitement but it didn't satisfy the gaming hunger and inevitably a Megadrive and later a SNEZ was purchased.
SNEZ SNEZ SNEZ.
That's right... I'm still waging a console war for a company that doesn't make hardware anymore, and for a console I never owned (I had an Amiga not a SNES or Mega Drive).
There is no empirical evidence, as you have been told multiple times by now. If you want to be contrary about it then more fool you.
I remember being an Amiga house at first (this was late '80s, early '90s) but I got a SNES and Gameboy in the early '90s and was a Nintendo fanboy, as most of my friends were. I remember the N64 being a huge deal. Disclaimer: was a RAF brat so lived in communities with lots of Europeans and Americans - I've since met a lot of people my age who growing up were Megadrive kids or didn't really get into gaming until the PSX.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles_by_region Master System sold 1.35 million in the UK, Megadrive sold 2.1 million, NES 1.1 million and SNES 1.05 million
Source is the March 1995 issue of Screen Digest
OP is offensive. I lived in Europe and owned an Amiga before a NES, and it certainly wasn't trash.
And Sega was bigger than Nintendo in most European countries in the early 16 bit days, that changed near the end.
And Sega was bigger than Nintendo in most European countries in the early 16 bit days, that changed near the end.
NES and SNES were fairly popular, but IIRC the Master System and Mega Drive slightly outsold them both in Europe. Commodore and Amiga were also relatively popular here in Norway, but catered to an older market than Nintendo and Sega did. I think Atari did OK too here, but Spectrum was never really a thing AFAIK.
I know, just posting it for the nostalgia and for people to see what the UK games scene was like at that time
Yes that's the one source I mentioned. Annoyingly you can't actually read it (you used to be able to ) but, IIRC that's total sales to the end of 1994. You can see how that is unreliable when the N64 didn't launch until 1997. That's three years sales missing. The Mega Drive had been on the market for twice as long as the SNES by that stage, for several year unopposed in the 16bit console sphere, so it is not surprising that the SNES had some catching up to do. What we don't know is how many were sold in 1996 and particularly in 1995 when you imagine the SNES would have been at its peak.
Yeah that's cool. I just didn't want people to see that and think NES was available in UK then but getting wrecked :) NES was about 6 yrs late in the UK.
Gonna have to follow that twitter, I love stuff like this.
Fixed.
Many debates are based on chart positions rather than numbers.
It's history, go look into it.
It looks like the old console war still rages.
Nes was a success in Europe, and a big one. I live in Italy (31 years old) and at the time (1989-1992) a lot of my friends had NES too.
But it's true that Sony changed everything here.
There is a "pre" and "post-playstation" gaming market in Europe.
Nintendo started to open a lot of national divisions, and to translate games, only after Psx's success (2000-2001).
For example, Ocarina of Time PAL edition only had english and french (not sure about german) and in Italy was distributed by a big toy company called Gig.
But it's true that Sony changed everything here.
There is a "pre" and "post-playstation" gaming market in Europe.
Nintendo started to open a lot of national divisions, and to translate games, only after Psx's success (2000-2001).
For example, Ocarina of Time PAL edition only had english and french (not sure about german) and in Italy was distributed by a big toy company called Gig.
Thanks for the advice. Show me a source that for total sales and I will. Why would anyone put any store in a figure that was published mid-way through the lifetime of the product? Surely that's self-evidently asinine is it not?
Well , us Europeans could talk into our native language on this forum ,but i doubt this would solve anything . XD
If anything media should be focusing more on the D-A-CH market. Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The Playstation thing is true. From Americans you sometimes hear that parents called everything a "Nintendo" even if it wasn't. In Germany that was usually a "Playstation", eventhough it was an Xbox or Gamecube or whatever.
There seems to be an EA internal report referenced here https://www./threads/retro-sales-age-thread.981407/page-2#post-153404783 that says the final install base in the UK was Megadrive 4 million, SNES 1.7 Million, unfortunately the links are broken and seems a bit out of whack with the screen digest numbers (which I believe are from gfk chart-track). My anecdotal recollection of the time as a SNES owner myself was that the Megadrive continued to sell well and had very cheap bundles well into the Saturn/PSX/N64 era, whereas all my SNES friends quickly moved on to Playstation shortly after it launched.
EDIT: According to this chart, there weren't enough SNES and Megadrive sales combined to make up for the advantage the Megadrive had at the end of '94, even if you assume every 16 bit sale was a SNES and Megadrive sold 0 https://www./proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FUdx2asj.jpg%2522%255Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FUdx2asj.jpg&hash=5c2fe3863e64f86337a10030e30a426a
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What makes you say that? I think a good number of games will not be on the Europe list in that case because of censorship in Germany.
Oh yes. And it will be even more capital-er once they're out of the EU.
"A good number"?
I don't even remember the last game that wasn't sold in Germany and was popular elsewhere. What are you talking about?
Can't remember exactly, but a year or two ago there was some mmo in development I was looking forward to. They were releasing globally except for like 14 countries. Among those were Germany and Austria. Maybe it's not much but if you are going to base stats on a country that censors particular games or parts of games you won't have a fair representation imo.
Isn't Peer Schneider from Germany or was he born in the USA?
In Germany, the C64 and Amiga were really succesful in the 1980s. The NES had not much impact in Germany, but the SNES and Mega Drive (Genesis) were quite popular.
German parents rather bought their kids a PC than a console because you can use a PC for homework, too. But I guess most kids used their PCs only for games and not for school matters. ;-)
Eh, that's not really true in France, many people still refer to consoles as "nintendoes" here.
OK now that thread is full of the good stuff. I think those EA estimates are maybe a little high but the Charttrack chart looks pretty conclusive and covers the entire period and I cannot dispute your logic so point cheerfully conceded.
Neogaf looks very different!
The last AAA game that wasn't released in Germany is Dying Light in January 2015. Even the newest Mortal Kombat game can be bought everywhere without any problems.
Oh boy, this is might get too off-topic, but it also kind of fits the headline lol
Germany doesn't censor any parts of games, game developers and publishers do it themselves, sometimes for no reason. The only thing that might be a problem is Nazi symbolism and mostly because no publisher is willing to go to court over it.
I can't remember a big game not being released in Germany in the last 10 years or so (outside of rights issues like Football Manager).
edit: Oh, Dying Light is actually a more recent example, didn't know that.