5th January 2008, 6:32 PM
Because it's perhaps vaguely interesting. And I spent the time to calculate those percentages, so why not post it here too? :)
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...ost9171519
NES
Japan: 19.35m
America: 34.00m
Other: 8.56m
SNES
Japan: 17.17m (11% decline from previous gen)
America: 23.35m (31% decline from previous gen)
Other: 8.58m (0.002% increase from previous gen)
N64
Japan: 5.5m (69% decline from previous gen)
America: 20.6m (12% decline from previous gen)
Other: 6.75m (21.3% decline from previous gen)
GC
Japan: 4m (27% decline from previous gen)
America: 12.8m (38% decline from previous gen)
Other: 4.8m (29% decline from previous gen)
That really shows how huge the SNES-to-N64 collapse was in Japan. No other transition comes even close, though overall sales decline every time but one. It's also interesting how much Sega hurt Nintendo in the 16-bit race, while in Europe Nintendo was flat... though I think Sega's European sales were definitely above Nintendo's.
In the US, the N64 was actually Nintendo's biggest success of its post-NES consoles by this reckoning, given that it ended up with only a 12% decline while the SNES and GC both dropped over 30% from their predecessors. Of course that doesn't tell the whole story, given that 23 million was enough for the SNES to win the US while 20 million put the N64 at half of the PSX's ~40 million sold in the US, but that looks pretty good compared to the GC's 38% decline competing against a system that again sold over 40 million. Even so though, with 62% of its worldwide sales in the US, the GC was much more successful here than anywhere else.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.p...ost9171519
NES
Japan: 19.35m
America: 34.00m
Other: 8.56m
SNES
Japan: 17.17m (11% decline from previous gen)
America: 23.35m (31% decline from previous gen)
Other: 8.58m (0.002% increase from previous gen)
N64
Japan: 5.5m (69% decline from previous gen)
America: 20.6m (12% decline from previous gen)
Other: 6.75m (21.3% decline from previous gen)
GC
Japan: 4m (27% decline from previous gen)
America: 12.8m (38% decline from previous gen)
Other: 4.8m (29% decline from previous gen)
That really shows how huge the SNES-to-N64 collapse was in Japan. No other transition comes even close, though overall sales decline every time but one. It's also interesting how much Sega hurt Nintendo in the 16-bit race, while in Europe Nintendo was flat... though I think Sega's European sales were definitely above Nintendo's.
In the US, the N64 was actually Nintendo's biggest success of its post-NES consoles by this reckoning, given that it ended up with only a 12% decline while the SNES and GC both dropped over 30% from their predecessors. Of course that doesn't tell the whole story, given that 23 million was enough for the SNES to win the US while 20 million put the N64 at half of the PSX's ~40 million sold in the US, but that looks pretty good compared to the GC's 38% decline competing against a system that again sold over 40 million. Even so though, with 62% of its worldwide sales in the US, the GC was much more successful here than anywhere else.