The european market (with real pieces of History inside)

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Originally Posted by Phantar

when the crash reached Europe

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It would also be interesting to learn more about the state of the industry in Europe whilst the crash was going on in America.

From what someone was saying (may have been 108stars) there was no 2600 popularity in Germany in the first place until the mid to late 80s, meaning that there wasn't a video game market to crash. I know that Britain got the 2600 in the late 70s, but am not sure about many of the other European countries, obviously the crash couldn't have happened in countries whos videogame industry hadn't even gotten started yet.

There was certainly no crash in Britain, and the very idea of there being a crash in Britain is to be honest totally ludicrous, 1982-1985 was actually a huge boom period for videogames in Britain, the like of which had never been seen before or since.

It proves harder to get any numbers on Atari Computers as I thought. Maybe I'll talk to a colleague of mine (who works for Germany's oldes still existing Computer magazine), whether he could look up sales numbers on the Atari in the archives.

I found some sort of Top Ten on Home computers in Germany in 1984:

When the year started, Atari was actually more or less in first place with most computers sold overall (you'll see three Atari models in the Top 10), though the most popular model was the Commodore 64:

1. Commodore 64
2. Atari 600 XL
3. Commodore VC 20
4. Colour Genie
5. Dragon 32
6. Sinclair ZX81
7. Atari 400
8. Atari 800 XL
9. TI 99/4A
10. Spectravideo SV-318/328

after six months, Atari and Commodore were kinda locked in a dead heat:The Atari 400 dropped out, but the 600XL and 800XL gained momentum. That was shortly before Jack Tramiel took over.

1. Commodore 64
2. Atari 800 XL
3. Atari 600 XL
4. Commodore VC 20
5. Laser 210
6. Eaca Colour Genie
7. ZX Spectrum
8. VZ 200
9. Spectravideo SV-318/328
10.TI 99/4A

But then, it seem, problems in the US finally caught up with the German market as well: At the end of the year, after the Cristmas sales, Commodore was now firmly locked at the top, and Atari had to make place for the Sinclair Spectrum, only staying in midfield.

1. Commodore 64
2. Commodore VC 20
3. ZX Spectrum
4. Triumph-Adler Alphatronic PC
5. Atari 600 XL
6. Atari 800 XL
7. Eaca Colour Genie
8. Sinclair ZX 81
9. Sharp 1500 A
10.Laser 210

In case you're wondering, the Alphatronic PC was a 8-bit computer based on the Z80, designed in Germany and widely spread in offices there during the 80s due to its software that was created specificly with the german office market in mind. It didn't stay for long though because the IBM PC took over in that field shortly thereafter.

Source (in German). It also claims that in 1984, there existed 300.000 Arcade cabinets in West Germany.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

It would also be interesting to learn more about the state of the industry in Europe whilst the crash was going on in America.

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I should have been more specific, with "The crash" I was referring to the downfall of Atari and the takeover by Jack Tramiel. After he arrived, not only did he massively restructure the American side of Atari computers, most of the staff in Germany got layed off, too.

In another Interview Klaus Ollmann states that Atari was controlling 85% of the video game market, but there was little in terms of competition: The Philips G7000 (the European version of the Odyssey 2) sold badly, and the Intellivision also wasn't that far spread in Germany. Mostly, this meant that gaming in Germany was more focused on the Commodore 64 (and later the Amiga 500).

Still, there WAS a console market in Germany between 1980 and 1984, and Atari was the biggest player. In 1983, the finals of the Centipede world championship were held in Germany, mostly because Atari believed that it would widen their appeal and increase the market there. (Souce also Klaus Ollmann)

Not really related to Europe, but it could be interesting:
sales numbers given by Nintendo:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...arch312006.jpg




The Amiga CD32 was released in both Europe and Canada, but not in the USA due to a legal ruling/judgement.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/5...onnection2.png

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Hey, what is the game on the pic?

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

Hey, what is the game on the pic?

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Its Get Dexter on the Amstrad

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Its Get Dexter on the Amstrad

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Looks cool! I have a soft spot for those isometric action-adventure games from 80's - early 90's.

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

Looks cool! I have a soft spot for those isometric action-adventure games from 80's - early 90's.

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Have you played Head over Heels? it takes a lot of practice (judging the jumps, and getting used to the enemy movement patterns takes time) but is a very, very impressive and well designed game for its era.

Batman (by the same people) is also very good.

I've actually played tons of those style of games, RARE's Knightlore was huge in many European countries and started off a mass of copy cats during the mid 80s.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Have you played Head over Heels? it takes a lot of practice (judging the jumps, and getting used to the enemy movement patterns takes time) but is a very, very impressive and well designed game for its era.

Batman (by the same people) is also very good.

I've actually played tons of those style of games, RARE's Knightlore was huge in many European countries and started off a mass of copy cats during the mid 80s.

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Yeah, I've had ZX Spectrum (both classic 48k and 128k), and Head over Heels was huge among speccy owners. I did like Alien 8 by Rare also :)
I wish games like this were made for 16-bit consoles :(

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

Yeah, I've had ZX Spectrum (both classic 48k and 128k), and Head over Heels was huge among speccy owners. I did like Alien 8 by Rare also :)

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I had trouble getting into the original RARE ones, I played them after HoH though which is probably the problem, their unstable speed does me in a bit, but I did manage to get into Knight Lore eventually, its cool, the design is quite different to Ritman's games.

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Originally Posted by Orchid87

I wish games like this were made for 16-bit consoles :(

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The closest I can think of is Equinox on the SNES, there's also Landstalker, and Light Crusader on Mega Drive which are kind of similar, and Cadaver on Amiga/Atari ST

But yeah, they kind of died out, there must've been like 40-50 made during the 8-bit era on computers.

Some mildly interesting scans about the consoles arriving in Britain

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/4249/dusttodustp.jpg

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1055/dust2x.jpg

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/2089/dust3.jpg

http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9523/dust4.jpg

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/4642/dust5.jpg

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/5972/dust6o.jpg

Maybe someone is interested in this: A german article from the Computer Magazine "Happy Computer" (later known as Power Play) about the Mega Drive from February 1989, about the "new" 16-bit console that was "recently" released in Japan. (Featuring Altered Beast and Space HArrier II)

http://www.kultpower.de/showartikel....php3%231989-03

Same Magazine, 5 months earlier: PC-Engine.

http://www.kultpower.de/showartikel....php3%231988-10

What's interesting is that the article seems to be more enthusaistic in its tonality about the PC-Engine than about the Mega Drive. Although they explicitly point out that the Mega Drive is more powerful. While the Mega Drive is stated to be impressive, the PC-Engine is hailed as "Ringing in a new age of videogaming".
(Also note the headlines: "Segas Videogame-Hit in 16-bit" vs. "Gaming in a new Dimension".)

/Edit: By the way, I particularly like the intro to the PC-Engine-article, as it kinda describes the gaming situation in Germany at the time:
"The Amiga is regarded to be the top-machine tor Gaming-Freaks. The new japanese console "PC-Engine", however, now challenges its Top-Position with first class-modules like "R-Type"."
(The R-Type series of Games was pretty popular on the Amiga home computers btw.)

For comparison, here's the intro for the Mega Drive:
"Sega has recently released its newest console in Japan. Two powerful processors, over 2.000 hardware sprites and 10-channel-stereosound provide gaming-power".

Sounds kinda different, doesn't it?

Sorry, I pass. My German is a bit rusty.
By the way, I've probably the same kind of articles, but in French. So ask me if you want me to post that (or other French articles).


I know a few other isometric adventure games released after Landstalker
_Gotzendiener on Super CD Rom
_Twinsen Odyssey/Little big adventure on PC and Playstation
_Dark savior on Saturn, but the game isn't in 2D (except for the characters).

Hmmm, Atari ST seems to be still trashing the Amiga in 1988 in Britain, and judging by the 130,000-140,000 UK instal base its selling roughly on par, or marginally greater than the Master System (the Atari ST does cost £300 more than Master System at this stage though)

It would be interesting to see what was going on in 1989-1990, these were the years when the 16-bit computer market started to really take off in Britain.

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/2830/atarist.jpg

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

The closest I can think of is Equinox on the SNES, there's also Landstalker, and Light Crusader on Mega Drive which are kind of similar, and Cadaver on Amiga/Atari ST

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Light Crusader gives me certain nostalgic vibes due to it's similar surrealistic atmosphere and european-looking style. It doesn't really look like a japanese game.

Something I miss about my ZX Spectrum days is how surreal the games were. British developers were really original back then, while this generation I rarely can distinguish UK-made game from the US-made. My absolute favorites were Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy by Matthew Smith.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Hmmm, Atari ST seems to be still trashing the Amiga in 1988 in Britain, and judging by the 130,000-140,000 UK instal base its selling roughly on par, or marginally greater than the Master System (the Atari ST does cost £300 more than Master System at this stage though)

It would be interesting to see what was going on in 1989-1990, these were the years when the 16-bit computer market started to really take off in Britain.

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The answer might be easier than you think: the Big success of the Amiga came with the Amiga 500, which only arrived in the 1987/1988 Season. Until then, the only Amiga available was the A1000 (released 1985), who was facing off against the 520ST (1985), 260ST (1986), 1040ST (1986) and the MegaST(1987). Only when Amiga countered in 1987 with the cheaper A500 and the more expensive but Workstation-like A2000 (which was manufactured in Germany by the way) in 1987 they were able to surpass Atari. It probably just took another Year to do so in Britain.

Here's some info about Denmark, from it we can see that the market there was Commodore orientated, software sales were extremely low, and piracy was rife, due to both ineffective laws, and high software prices

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4733/denmarkh.png

Yeah, piracy was pretty rampant in those days, and I believe that Software piracy played a part in the eventual end of the Amiga- and Atari-Computer era (well, coupled with the fact that they couldn't keep up with the easy upgradability of an IBM-Pc.)

I found a Top Ten of the most popular computer Games (determined by Reader poll) in Germany in 1988 that's indicative of the amount of piracy that was going on at the time. On First Place was "The Great Giana Sisters" - which is a Great Game, sure, but hardly anyone was able to BUY it, since it had to Be pulled from the shelves After a lawsuit from Nintendo (it was basically a copy of "super Mario Bros.")

The Second indication is that on 8th Place, readers had voted for a blacklisted Game (either Barbarian or Castle Wolfenstein given the Year - in Germany there's a blacklist of games deemed to be unsuitable for teenagers and children, some kind of "Video Nasties" list that also extends to Video Games). Since those Games couldn't be advertised or sold to minors and therefor most stores didn't stock them, the only way most gamers could get their hands on these titles was by copying them from others. Given the high popularity of those games, it stands to reason that they must've been copied quite a lot.

The same Chart also had a Top 5 of the most popular Games in the US and the uk at the Time by the Way. If anyone's interested, I'll post it here.

Back in the day, piracy was a way of life for most gamers in the computer market, probably more than today. Some of my friends and myself had an Atari ST, an Amiga or a CPC, but for many reasons, we didn't buy any game: cracked games were easier to find and to copy than original games.
About the the wish of the crackers to be recognized, they included a technical demo into most of cracked games. These technical demos were offen more impressive than the games, though it run on the same hardware.

I remember it took only half a hour to copy a simple disk (about 750 Ko on Atari ST). I guess piracy was one of the reasons which explains why there were so many compilations on sale.

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Originally Posted by Phantar

Maybe someone is interested in this: A german article from the Computer Magazine "Happy Computer" (later known as Power Play) about the Mega Drive from February 1989, about the "new" 16-bit console that was "recently" released in Japan. (Featuring Altered Beast and Space HArrier II)

http://www.kultpower.de/showartikel....php3%231989-03

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Video game porn. :shock:

Phantar, where you the one who posted that scan of an earlier (1994/5-ish) MAN!AC diagram showing the sales for Mega Drive vs. Super Nintendo vs. ...3DO? I remember someone posting it but can't find it.

Do you mean this one?


http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9...ndof1994sc.jpg

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Video game porn. :shock:

Phantar, where you the one who posted that scan of an earlier (1994/5-ish) MAN!AC diagram showing the sales for Mega Drive vs. Super Nintendo vs. ...3DO? I remember someone posting it but can't find it.

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If it was a Man!ac scan, I guess it was probably 108Stars.
But that's a nice infographic! Been looking for something like that for quite a while now...

Here's a small article on Dinamic, unfortunately the writer thinks he's Raymond Chandler writing a Philip Marlowe novel.

http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/6962/dinamic.png

http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/3796/dinamic2.png

Very interesting diagram.
So the 32X was sold more than the 3DO or the Jaguar! The Jaguar was released in Japan at the end of the year 1994 (november or december) but I think the sales were so awful that it wouldn't change this fact.

It sounds very strange to me that the sales of the Mega-CD in the UK were so bad. I've read 60000-70000 Mega-CD 1 were sold in Europe (UK and Italy only) from April to August 1993. So, if 30000-40000 of these machines were sold in the UK during this period, it means only 40000-50000 Mega-CD were sold from September 93 to november/december 94 in this country.
In the other countries, there were 1 Mega-CD for 10 Mega Drive, but in the UK, according to this graphic, it was 1 Mega-CD for 26 Mega Drive. I know the Mega-CD was really expensive in this country (much more than in France or in the USA), but I don't think that explains such a gap.

I'm surprised that you guys hadn't already seen that Man!ac scan, its been floating around these forums for years now, if I'd realised I would've posted it earlier.

The scan is up until the end of 1994, so its not total sales, and at least the British Mega Drive sales are also marginally undertracked (maybe by around 300,000 i'd estimate), so its possible that the Mega-CD sales were a little higher in reality too.

Mega Drive ended with 3 million sales in Britain, which I read in a newspaper article, figure attributed to SoE themselves (sure I posted this on Sega-16 somewhere before).

Mega Drive ended with 8 million total sales for Europe, Magazine article, figure attributed to SoE themselves.

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Rainbow Arts/Factor 5 article

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4311/rainbowarts.png

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2...inbowarts2.png

My English says I'm a noob! Thanks for the informations.

I've started to read Tilt (the first french magazine dedicated to VG), but as I said before, it doesn't look very interesting (maybe I've read the bad issues). They talked only about games, not about the market. I'll take some other issues, just in case.

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Originally Posted by youloute

I've started to read Tilt (the first french magazine dedicated to VG), but as I said before, it doesn't look very interesting (maybe I've read the bad issues). They talked only about games, not about the market. I'll take some other issues, just in case.

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If its anything like British magazines, it'll be painfully boring to read until ~1987

Still, just the review scores themselves should give you an idea of what the market was like in general, what systems were preffered at what times, which types of games were popular etc.

Fun fact of the day: the Master System was offen called "Sega" in France (the Nes was officially called Nintendo in Europe). Even in the commercials and the magazines, we said Sega instead of Master System, until 1992-93.

The slogan means "be kind, plug me in a Sega".



The PC Engine was imported in France since 1988, where many magazines offen talked about it. The machine was popular but Nec didn't want to release it in Europe, because it was too busy with the north american market. So, a few people decided to contact Nec in order to obtain the right to sell the PC engine themselves.
Nec agreed but said it will never support this market itself.
The SODIPENG company (SOciété DIstributrice de la Pc ENGine) was created in 1990, many advertising could be seen in french magazines and the consoles were modified in order to plug them in TVs. But the games were still in Japanese.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_5-XG_yE2vjY/S7...-Engine%5D.jpg
some other ads


A french website where you can download almost every TV shows aired in France:
http://www.abandonware-videos.org/index.php
On the left column called "Les émissions tv", I recommand you
_Mini-journal de P. Drevet => the first french TV show dedicated to VG. 1985
_Micro Kids => probably the most famous show. 1991 to 1997
_Imagina => european festival dedicated to the new technologies, with short 3D movies. 1981 to 2000.

On the column "Les autres vidéos":
_Publicités tv => a few advertising
_Cassettes VHS de promo => VHS which were given in various magazines or aired in some VG shops. There is a huge video of the 1996 E3, another about the 32X, Mega-CD and Mega Drive games.



Once again, a few informations not really related to the european market: the evolution of the demo scene

Quantity per machine:
http://www.kameli.net/~marq/all-by-platform.png

Evolution per machine year by year:
http://www.kameli.net/~marq/plat-and-year.png

http://bbs.demoscene.fr/blabla/evolu...e-la-demoscene

I think everybody here know the american version of Sonic CD has different music, composed by Spencer Nilsen instead of the tracks composed by Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata. I just discovered a similar case with Shinobi on Saturn.
Shinobi X is the european version of Shinobi Legions (USA) and Shin Shinobi Den (Japan). It was released months after the 2 other versions in order to create another music for the game. This version features tracks composed by Richard Jacques, one of the most famous Sega's composers (Sonic 3D on Saturn, Sonic R, Outrun 2, Head hunter...).

I've had Shinobi X on my ebay saved searches since I learned about the Jacques soundtrack. I haven't seen it once in six months!

I have the soundtrack (game rip).
=>Personal message for those who want a link.

I think that this source from late 1988 is a few months after the other one I posted earlier (wish I'd written the actual month down now instead of "1988")

It indicates that the two biggest Atari ST markets were Britain and France, and that Amiga was starting to make inroads in Britain late in 1988

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/331...tmarketbri.png

EDIT: The other one was from a september issue, shame I forgot to date this one too -___-

"There is no doubt that RA, now one of the most successful European software houses outside the UK, have the means to pursue these aims. Despite an air of secrecy, it's clear that they are already investigating the possibilities of dedicated hardware, CD-I, and other game media. Watch this space..."

That was, what, in 1988? How ironic: About at that time the core creative team of Rainbow Arts split up and went in order to form their own companies. Thomas Hertzler went to form Blue Byte in that year, a few years later Armin Gessert split to found Spellbound; and then Rainbow Arts was bought out by softgold in, what, I think 1994...

One wonders what went on behind closed doors over there...

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Do you mean this one?


http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/9...ndof1994sc.jpg

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Yeah, that's the one I meant. It's missing the second part listing the sources though.

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Originally Posted by youloute

Fun fact of the day: the Master System was offen called "Sega" in France (the Nes was officially called Nintendo in Europe). Even in the commercials and the magazines, we said Sega instead of Master System, until 1992-93.

The slogan means "be kind, plug me in a Sega".

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I think you will find the actual translation is:

"Do me a favour, plug me into a Sega"

As that was the slogan they used in the UK

Personal Computer Market Share: 1975-2005:

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2249/totalshare0.gif
(All figures in 1,000's of units)

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7007/totalshare5.gif


More here.

Those figures are for worldwide, and they're US focussed (the sales figures are for the world, but only machines which were popular in the US are mentioned)

Indeed, my intention was to bring a reference point in order to compare worldwide sales and european sales.

An article about the computer games sold with magazines in England during the 80es.
That reminds me Circus Lido on PC Engine: the game wasn't available in the VG shops, it was sold like a book. That's why a large quantity of copies were found years after the death of the machine.

you can watch french tv adds here:
http://www.ina.fr/recherche/recherch...iff&dirPub=asc
(it the television national archive service)