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Sega Games and Consoles Sales figures

TheBigO² - Apr 30, 2025

TheBigO²

Saturday at 2:44 PM

	Danthrax said:

To be fair the Nintendo 64 launched about 1,5 years later than the Sega Saturn. If you look at them launch alligned in the first year, second year ... sales are more or less the same despite the N64 being way cheaper at launch, 25.000 Yen vs 44.800 Yen, and quickly getting discounted pretty heavily. Both consoles only got supported for barely for 4 years in Japan anyway.
The N64 managed to have more million sellers in Japan, 9¹ vs 1, cause of the huge difference in how many games were released for each system. N64 got 198, the Sega Saturn 1.057 in Japan.
¹ Mario Kart 64, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Party 2, Mario Tennis, Donkey Kong 64, Pocket Monsters Stadium (didn't get released in the west, we ended up getting Pocket Monsters Stadium 2 as Pokémon Stadium) and Pocket Monsters Stadium Gold & Silver aka Pokémon Stadium 2

Still the real battle for console sales supremacy during those years was between the Nintendo Gameboy + Gameboy Colour and the Playstation 1. Until the release of Pokemon in Feburary 1996 the Gameboy was pretty dead sales wise but thanks to word-of-mouth and the big multi media push with stuff like the Anime Pokemon would turn into a huge phenomen in Japan by late 1996 and single-handedly revive the Gameboy.

	Danthrax said:

Thanks!

To go back to the overall console war between the Sega Saturn and the Playstation 1 in Japan. It only really lasted from Novemeber 1994 to Late 1996 since even before the release of FF7 the gap in units sales had already grown to 600.000 units.
What most people also forget is that in 1995 the SNES was still by far the dominating console. SNES Console sales weren't terribly far behind the PS1 and Saturn during 1995² but more importantly game sales were still far bigger on SNES than on either PS1 or Saturn.
Of the 7 games released that year that sold more than a million copies in Japan, 6 were released on the SNES³.
By 1996 the winds of change were starting to blow with only 3 of the 7 games released that year being on SNES but even then only 2 were on PS1. The Playstation Peak Years in Japan ended up being from early 1997 until mid 2001, so more so during the Years of the Dreamcast and after Sega Saturn's market relevancy in Japan was already over .

² from April 1994 to March 1995 the SNES sold 2.650.000 consoles in Japan, from April 1995 to March 1996 the SNES sold 1.780.000 consoles in Japan and from April 1996 to March 1997 the SNES sold 620.000 consoles in Japan
³ Derby Stallion 3 , Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, Romancing SaGa 3, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Dragon Quest 6. Virtua Fighter 2 would be the first game released for a non-Nintendo console to sell more than a million in Japan ending 12 years of total Nintendo domination.
Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country 3 and Dragon Quest 3 SNES
I did a pretty big writeup on Playstation games s...

		TheBigO²	Sunday at 11:33 AM
		Since I just covered the PS1 vs Saturn (vs N64) in Japan I might as well cover Mega Drive vs PC Engine in Japan as well. The issue is that the last sales figures Famitsu provided for the PC Engine's CD Addon include the PC Engine Duo, which combines the PC Engine and the CD Addon into a standalone console, so it isn't a 1-to-1 comparison with the Mega CD, since the Mega CD needs a Mega Drive to function. Since its usable standalone the sales of the PC Engine Duo should be added to the overall sales of the PC Engine in my opinion. The last time Famitsu gave us seperate numbers, in May 1993, the standalone usuable PC Engine Duo had sold 600.000 and the CD Addon, that need a PC Engine to function, had sold 900.000. This means the ratio was 1 PC Engine Duo for every 2,5 CD Addons sold. So of the overall 1.920.000 sold by the end of March 1996 of the PC Engine's CD Addon about 768.000 should be PC Engine Duo's. The PC Engine (including the standalone functioning PC Engine Duo) had sold 4.688.000¹ consoles by the end of March 1996 in Japan. The PC Engine's CD Addon (not including the TurboDuo) had sold 1.152.000 by the end of March 1996 in Japan. ¹ the PC Engine alone had sold 3.920.000 consoles. vs. The Mega Drive had sold 3.580.000 consoles by the end of March 1996 in Japan. The Mega CD had sold 400.000 by the end of March 1996 in Japan. Source as pictures in the attached files.

Danthrax

Monday at 12:32 PM

	TheBigO² said:

I Excel spreadsheeted it up with the numbers in your post:

Do we not have any shipment numbers for the PS1 in Japan before January 1997? It would help to identify about when its sales took off into the stratosphere.

TheBigO²

Monday at 12:53 PM

	Danthrax said:

Damn thanks. Sorry to tell you I just added a bunch of new numbers for the Saturn.

Here are the Playstation numbers from the japanese Wikipedia page for the PS1. They mostly use old Sony press releases as their source. Sadly after December 1999 we would only get one last update for the PS1's sales in Japan in 2004 and that wasn't just the sales in Japan but the sales in Asia overall, so countries like China and South Korea included, thou I think Asia only contributed something like 1.500.000 to that figure max:

1994
December 3 - 100,000 units on the first day

1995
Week 4 of May - 1 million units in Japan

1996
August 31 3.5 million in Japan
October 31 Japan: 4 million
November 30 Japan: 4.2 million

1997
January 8 - Japan: 5 million units
February 14 - Japan: 5.6 million
May 31 - Japan: 7.5 million
August 26 Japan: 8.5 million
December 31 - Japan: 10 million units

1998
February 5 - Japan: 10.65 million
August 21 - Japan: 13 million
December 21 - Japan: 14.25 million
December 2, 1999 - Japan: 16.77 million

May 18, 2004 - Japan and Asia: 20.72 million units, 100 million units worldwide

March 31, 2005 - 102.49 million units worldwide

Also overall Nintendo 64 Console shippment numbers in Japan:
Release on June 23, 1996, Launch Price 25.000 Yen
End of June 1996: 500.000
March 1997: 2.030.000 (+1.530.000), console Price reduced to 16.800 Yen without tax
End of September 1997: 2.470.000 (+440.000)
March 1998: 3.140.000 (+670.000)
July 1998: console Price reduced to 14.000 Yen without tax
March 1999: 4.350.000 (+1.210.000)
March 2000: 5.290.000 (+940.000)
March 2001: 5.490.000 (+200.000)
March 2002: 5.540.000 (+50.000)

Danthrax

Monday at 1:03 PM

I found some PS1 shipment numbers on this archived Sony website... https://web.archive.org/web/20090323233937/http://...

PlayStation® Cumulative Production Shipments of Hardware (Unit: million)


0.30	-	-	0.30
1.00	-	-	1.00
2.00	0.80	0.60	3.40
2.50	1.00	0.80	4.30
2.70	1.30	1.00	5.00
4.20	3.45	2.35	10.00
6.50	4.00	3.00	13.50
7.90	5.40	4.30	17.60
8.50	6.40	5.10	20.00
8.60	7.80	6.10	22.50
10.05	10.35	7.80	28.20
10.65	10.75	8.60	30.00
11.51	11.67	9.64	32.82
12.61	12.99	11.72	37.32
13.00	14.30	12.70	40.00
13.15	16.07	13.92	43.14
14.25	19.35	16.40	50.00
14.71	19.48	16.51	50.70
15.26	20.62	18.54	54.42
16.04	21.53	20.83	58.40
16.63	23.74	24.84	65.21
16.77	25.94	27.33	70.04
17.28	26.39	28.15	71.82
17.40	27.11	28.41	72.92
17.40	27.69	28.46	73.55
17.93	28.65	29.34	75.92
18.22	30.30	31.09	79.61
18.46	31.46	32.31	82.23
18.79	32.90	33.75	85.44
18.90	33.90	35.46	88.26
19.07	34.19	36.03	89.29
19.13	34.28	36.07	89.48
19.20	34.32	36.11	39.63
19.39	34.70	36.21	90.30
19.60	35.80	36.80	92.20
19.85	37.27	38.10	95.22
20.09	37.54	38.78	96.41
20.19	37.91	39.14	97.24
20.32	38.58	39.30	98.20
20.51	39.18	39.53	99.22
20.62	39.49	39.61	99.72
20.72	39.67	39.61	100.00
20.77	39.91	39.61	100.29
20.95	40.19	39.75	100.89
21.13	40.78	39.82	101.73
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
21.59	40.78	40.12	102.49
(4.19)	(12.70)	(11.26)	(28.15)

[td]Japan*[/td]
[td]North America[/td]
[td]Europe[/td]
[td]Worldwide[/td] [td]1994[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]1995[/td] [td]May 4th week[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]1996[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]May 15[/td] [td]November 30[/td] [td]1997[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]August 20[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]1998[/td] [td]February 5[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]August 21[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 21[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]1999[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 2[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2000[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2001[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2002[/td] [td]January 31[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2003[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2004[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]May 18[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2005[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2006[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td]June 30[/td] [td]September 30[/td] [td]December 31[/td] [td]2007[/td] [td]March 31[/td] [td](PS one® only)[/td]
*Figures for Japan include shipments to Asian countries and regions including South Korea.

TheBigO²

Monday at 1:07 PM

	Danthrax said:

The issue with those is, as the note at the bottoms says,: *Figures for Japan include shipments to Asian countries and regions including South Korea.
So its not just the figures for Japan.

		Danthrax	Monday at 1:31 PM
		Updated chart:

TheBigO²

Today at 2:46 PM

	Danthrax said:

	TheBigO² said:

I went back and compared the press release shipment numbers I posted previously and the website timeline shipment numbers.
Either the shipment numbers given in the press releases always included the whole of Asia not just Japan (and Sony lied about that) or Sony just added the shipment numbers for Asia at some point late in the website timeline but still said that the early shipment numbers from the timeline included Asia even if they were only for Japan.

Even as late as Feburary 13, 2002 they still said the 19.13 million shipment number was only for Japan even tough in the official website timeline the January 31, 2002 shipment number of 19.13 million supposedly includes Asia as well.
Sony only started selling the PS1 in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in December 1996, in South Korea in March 1997 and in December 1997 in Taiwan so the numbers before December 1996 are automatically Japan only.

		Danthrax	Today at 3:47 PM
		A confusion situation...