I have. If we go on 8-bit sales, the ZX Spectrum was king in the UK; only the Master System came close (and that was miles off) The NES didn't match the MS sales in the UK, much less come close to the total sales of the ZX Spectrum.
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Was the NES actually obscure in the UK?
- Thread starter HomokHarcos
- Start date
I have. If we go on 8-bit sales, the ZX Spectrum was king in the UK; only the Master System came close (and that was miles off) The NES didn't match the MS sales in the UK, much less come close to the total sales of the ZX Spectrum.
Rare, by themselves, developed 7% of the entire US NES Library.
47 games by my count!
how many of those were versions of Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune lmao
that's insane. what a number.
Being a lifelong, obsessive middle-aged gamer living in the UK. It's not data but until you offered some it was better than nothing. Also you have people in this very thread saying exactly the same thing.
I'm not contesting your findings, merely offering observations -and hoping to shed some light- on a puzzle that doesn't make sense.
I didn't actually say this. What I meant was that SNES and Game Boy were both much more popular than the NES was.
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Fair enough. I posted earlier in the thread about similar experiences in Australia. I've met people who were stunned the PS1 outsold the N64 here because in their town the N64 was ubiquitous and the multiplayer had a somewhat viral effect.
Until the internet we were all in local bubbles. And then once we found the internet we made new bubbles (eg Sega and Nintendo forums). Even 'central' sources of info like Wikipedia are regularly wrong on stuff like this due to mistakes and agendas. See that time the Dreamcast was widely understood to have sold millions more than Sega actually manufactured.
I was surprised by the data myself, I'd always assumed the SNES was a step up over the NES in the UK, it seems like it was actually a step back in market share.
i wouldn't be too surprised if import shops made good coin off of the Saturn simply because of the high amount of games that never got localized that had huge mainstream appeal. here in the states, even Electronics Boutique & Babbage's were selling Japanese Saturn games and the action replay 4-in-1s.
reminds me of the posts in the PSMini announcement thread where people were shocked that people had nostalgia for the PSOne and thought kids/teens only played multiplayer on N64.
Endless saturn fighters and shmups in CeX in the UK. None of the big stores stocked import games though.
I don't think NES was that popular in Spain either. People either had a Spectrum (there was a big market of domestic developed games here) or a Master System/ Mega Drive at the time.
Super Nintendo and Game Boy did catch on and were hugely successful after that , but I can't remember a single kid from back then with a NES. As a matter of fact, I didn't get to play many NES games until they were re released in gba/ds/gc or whatever
Super Nintendo and Game Boy did catch on and were hugely successful after that , but I can't remember a single kid from back then with a NES. As a matter of fact, I didn't get to play many NES games until they were re released in gba/ds/gc or whatever
I'm 33 and started gaming on an atari at my nans before we got a c64.
From my own anecdotal experience, most people had a Nes over MS but most then had a Mega Drive over a Snes.
I did end up picking up the other consoles after a few years but it wasn't until MD that Sega took over.
From my own anecdotal experience, most people had a Nes over MS but most then had a Mega Drive over a Snes.
I did end up picking up the other consoles after a few years but it wasn't until MD that Sega took over.
The SNES, and especially it's games were hugely expensive compared to Megadrive and especially compared to 16 bit computers, the Atari ST and Amiga. This is completely from memory but I think the SNES didn't launch in the UK until Spring/Summer 1992. It also launched with I believe 3 titles, each of which cost 50 quid each. I remember Street Fighter 2 costing something ridiculous like 65 quid when it launched in the UK. I don't think either the Megadrive or SNES were anywhere near as popular as the ST or Amiga.
Both in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, computers were extremely popular in the UK, not least because piracy was rampant. Game tapes/disks were regularly exchanged in the playground. This simply didn't happen with the consoles.
Bear in mind that this is from the viewpoint of a 10-18 year old. More affluent adults may have been more into console gaming, but from a kids perspective, home computers ruled.
not surprising. same here-- just the game store chains carried imports.
No, I mean not even the chains. CeX at the time was a tiny second hand games store with a couple of locations, which also sold import games. The only proper dedicated games store, at least in my area was electronic boutique who also did not sell import games. If you wanted import games your choices were to go mail order from one of the magazine adverts, go to CeX, or an independently owned store.
for some reason i thought CeX was a bigger chain because I remember seeing quite a few of them in the UK a few years ago. i guess they used to not be though?
I did. I wasn't even called Baldy because Steve Jarrat was baldy prime.
NES did not get much attention until the TMNT pack-in. By that time more or less Megadrive was here and the snes soon after.
In the 90's CEX was just about 2 locations in London and heavily import focused. Good times.
Yup
Rathbone place store was amazing back then. Before CEX sold their soul to dvds
I was the only person I know that had a SNES ( previously everyone had aa meg drive )
They sold the games for £65 25 years ago so around £135 in today's money.
The first real Nintendo device that was huge here was the Gameboy.
I guess I was playing Atari ST when the NES was in its prime
They sold the games for £65 25 years ago so around £135 in today's money.
The first real Nintendo device that was huge here was the Gameboy.
I guess I was playing Atari ST when the NES was in its prime
That's not strictly true on the SNES front. They were £40-£60 normally. £65 was very rare, £60 was uncommon and £50 was pretty common.
They were generally more expensive then MD games though
Maybe in the city where more than one so sold them , but certainly not in small town UK. We used to go into Beatties every day at lunch and there wasn't a SNES game under £60.
Blast Corps was the only game I ever bought for it with my own money and it took forever for me to save.
Note even if they were closer to 50 that's still over £100 in today's money
I didn't know anyone with a NES. Around that time it seemed like everyone had a ZX Spectrum, then a Commodore 64, then a split between Amiga and ST (and a few BBC Micro), then SNES.
Ah. I wasn't in the city, but the local town had an argos, index, smiths and boots, and one slightly further had a future zone.
And yeah, prices were still nuts. I bought a NES when it was in its twilight and got most of my games from pawn shops like cash convertors. Then did the same for the SNES, when it was being sold with Super Mario World and Super Mario All Stars on one cart for cheaps
Are you telling me you don't want to go into a CEX now and buy a load of dirty second hand dvds?????
I was the only one in a group of friends who had a NES, most were Master System owners and then most moved onto the Mega Drive when that released (which i went for over the SNES, some friends went for the SNES). It was sort of a niche console the NES, it had some good games available which many didn't seem to play at the time.
Used to go in there quite often when I moved to London to buy second hand N64 games. It's like night and day what that place has become now.
I'm just slightly too young to be around at the NES time, but around time of SNES and Mega Drive, everyone had a Sega for sure. My friend had a SNES and I thought he was the coolest person ever because I didn't know anyone else with one whereas like 20+ people I knew in school had Segas.
I feel like this is the best explanation as to why nobody really remembers -at least among the core gamer demographic- the NES having a significant presence in the UK despite it selling competitively. Most likely it was a good low cost alternative late in its life with a solid library, by which time it was overshadowed by the Mega Drive and 16bit computers making waves (despite them both being quite old themselves at that point). It would be interesting to see how well NES sold during the '80s in the UK.
edit: Wow, it really was down to TMNT
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/08/teenage_mutant_hero_turtles_helped_to_save_nes
I do remember Boots (back when they sold games) of all places having a very prominent NES display in '87-'88, so Nintendo did make a decent push with NES's launch here. The early '90s was NES's peak era of exposure though- Toy's R Us was always healthily stocked with NES stuff. Woolies, Toymaster, WHSmith etc were the same. I will say that for the Master System's greater overall popularity in the UK over the NES, the NES did manage to handily outlive it, regardless of its delayed successor.
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It's often claimed that it was but the console and games were available in all the usual stores and catalogues, there were successful magazines dedicated to Nintendo, and the Mario, Zelda and Captain N cartoons were on TV. Obscure is not the word.
The Master System and Spectrum were more popular but outside of the Wii, Nintendo has never had the most popular console in the U.K.
The Master System and Spectrum were more popular but outside of the Wii, Nintendo has never had the most popular console in the U.K.
On which TV channel? I don't remember any Nintendo related TV programmes in the 80s.
It was on ITV - Hey, Hey, It's Saturday! back when TV-AM was still a thing
Yep it's often worth pointing out to our US compatriots that in the UK there was no videogame crash, it was a boom.
I had never heard of it until early 1987 when my brother borrowed his mates US NES and brought it home with Super Mario Bros, Ghosts 'n Goblins and Kung-Fu Master to say i was blown away was an understatement!!!. Up to that point i was just playing our family's Amstrad CPC and playing the C64 and ZX Spectrum around mates houses (8 bit micros were super popular in the UK)
I was soo bummed the day my brother had to take the NES back to his mate but got my own that very Christmas, after that i introduced it to my mates and one by one they all go one, im not being big headed but i defo think i was the catalyst for people in my middle school hearing about and getting a NES
But yeah more kids had a Master System, just seemed to be in more retailers and advertised more than what the NES was but that could be down to Mattel having the distribution rights for the first few years in the UK until Nintendo took over the reins, think Mattel only sold the NES to certain retailers but when Nintendo took over it did seem to be better distributed and advertised. I had a Mattel NES
I was soo bummed the day my brother had to take the NES back to his mate but got my own that very Christmas, after that i introduced it to my mates and one by one they all go one, im not being big headed but i defo think i was the catalyst for people in my middle school hearing about and getting a NES
But yeah more kids had a Master System, just seemed to be in more retailers and advertised more than what the NES was but that could be down to Mattel having the distribution rights for the first few years in the UK until Nintendo took over the reins, think Mattel only sold the NES to certain retailers but when Nintendo took over it did seem to be better distributed and advertised. I had a Mattel NES
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Yeah I was into my ST 90-92 and would probably have been a bit old for Saturday am tv.
This is exactly how it was. I used to see ads for the Master System and Nes in magazines but no-one I knew had one. Too expensive, especially when there was always someone at school with a tape-to-tape. To put it in perspective, you were considered quite posh if you had a floppy disc drive!
That all changed with the 16-bit consoles. Mega Drive in particular was huge, trading on its name in the arcades which were still popular back then.
True, although it's also worth noting that the North American crash wasn't for computer gaming either. There were tons of excellent computer games during the mid '80s. It's just that a lot of people weirdly refused to call them video games back then. The C64 was more successful in NA than it would appear from gaming message boards today.
Yeah I remember reading about it in the multiformat magazines but as the closing words of this article in ACE say, "You're better off with a computer." And yep I had an Amiga BATMAN PACK for xmas 89 and loved it to bits.
https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-01/page/n17
https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-01/page/n17
I know it was wrong. But it was great swapping pirated Amiga disc's at school the way we used to swap Panini football stickers.
That's a good point. My first console was a Dragon 32. Which no one seems to have heard of. I also only managed to stop calling everything 'computer games' a few years ago. Vidyas is easier.
As someone who didn't grow up in this era, I find it really interesting hearing how the NES (and consoles in general) were never that successful over here primarily due to cost, and that even on home computers tapes were preferred instead of cartridges because they were cheap despite being seemingly so much worse in pretty much every way.
Yet today it seams like people are completely fine with paying hundreds or even thousands on electronic devices and £50+ on games. The concept of renting *any* electronic device or media seams to have completely gone out fashion (except for Internet streaming, I guess?). Did people simply not have as much disposable income back in the 80's? Always assumed the opposite was the case compared to now.
Regardless I guess there's been a pretty big cultural change in the way people see value in fairly pricy electronics -
I was watching a video a while ago that mentioned how in the early days of VHS people would rent the players rather simply buying one outright because it was cheaper, which is a bit weird to think about.
Yet today it seams like people are completely fine with paying hundreds or even thousands on electronic devices and £50+ on games. The concept of renting *any* electronic device or media seams to have completely gone out fashion (except for Internet streaming, I guess?). Did people simply not have as much disposable income back in the 80's? Always assumed the opposite was the case compared to now.
Regardless I guess there's been a pretty big cultural change in the way people see value in fairly pricy electronics -
I was watching a video a while ago that mentioned how in the early days of VHS people would rent the players rather simply buying one outright because it was cheaper, which is a bit weird to think about.
There were some great,GREAT Speccy games from Spanish developers. I think Dynamic was a Spanish developer? All UK males of a certain age would remember their "Game Over" title that Imagine released over here.
You have to search for the italian one, for Mattel version
Wow. Hamleys, Jenners, Selfridges, Harrods, Gloucester Toy Shop, Arding & Hobbs, John Farnon, Willis Ludlow... Those aren't chains, those are basically individual shops. Can you imagine any of the big three having to pad out their adverts that way nowadays?Was it this one?
It's going to be utterly dependent on where you are in the country & what economic background you were back then. Mind this is the time of Thatcher. There were people doing really well, and lots of people doing really poorly.
I don't think it did, UK did not even get the dogbone nes. Master Sustem was still getting hames in 96 due to the gact that ot was the entry level machine to owning "a Sega" and developers got a 2 for 1 when they made Game Gear titles.