Bite-Sized Game History: Exploring the US’s Best-Selling Games from the 1990s to Now

Using data from The NPD Group’s vast archive, Mat Piscatella recently shared some historical data on the best-selling video games from the 1990s to today.

Tracking the weekend box office results has become something of a spectator sport for moviegoers of all stripes since the lists were introduced in the early 1980s. Arguing about the financial merits of Star Wars, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Titanic, and Avatar became just as important as discussing each film’s critical reception.

You won’t find this sort of organized ranking of moneymakers in the video game industry, but the closest analogue would have to be the monthly Best-Seller Lists published by The NPD Group. However, the proprietary nature of this report means that the picture will always be incomplete.

Using data from the analyst firm’s vast archive, Mat Piscatella recently tried to pull back the curtain a little bit by sharing the list of best-selling games on several legacy consoles (the Saturn, the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, and the Dreamcast) and a nearly defunct handheld (the Vita). He also examined the best-selling games through September 2018 on two modern consoles (the PS4 and Xbox One) and published a list of the top-selling titles for each year from 1995 to 2017.

It’s a very interesting collection of information, and the lists provide our best window yet into what games were considered popular in the United States in the 1990s and into today.

You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.

The PS4 and Xbox One are two very similar machines, and aside from a few first-party exclusives, their game libraries are almost identical. This comparison is further borne out with the NPD’s sales data, which shows Grand Theft Auto V on top for both platforms, followed by four games in the Call of Duty franchise, Battlefield 1, and Star Wars: Battlefront:

The Vita was Sony’s second swing at creating a console-like experience on a handheld, and these big games dominate its list of best-sellers. Uncharted: Golden Abyss leads the way, and it’s followed by several games that started out as (or stayed) exclusive to the handheld:

Going back in time, Sega’s Saturn launched the fifth console generation in 1995, and Madden NFL 97 became the platform’s best-selling game. But it was Sega’s stable of arcade conversions (Virtua Fighter 2, Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, Sega Rally Championship) and “cult” classics (Nights Into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon) that filled out the majority of the top ten:

Crash Bandicoot, Gran Turismo, and Final Fantasy VII are the three games most synonymous with the original PlayStation, so it’s not at all surprising to see they’re also the platform’s best-selling titles. Metal Gear Solid is in there too, as is the first game in the Driver series:

It could be argued that Nintendo produced their strongest first-party lineup during the Nintendo 64’s heyday, and that’s extremely evident in the NPD’s list of best-selling games. All ten titles were published by the consolemaker (even Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire), but most fans were sold on the system by the groundbreaking Super Mario 64:

Pokemon may have started its story on the original Game Boy, but the Game Boy Color entries were just as popular. Pokemon Gold (#2) and Pokemon Silver (#1) are on top, and they were followed by three more games in the franchise:

Sega sold off its stable of sports simulations in 2005, but the 2K series is a major part of why the Dreamcast is so fondly remembered. That why it’s NFL 2K, and not Sonic Adventure, at the top:

Finally, Piscatella examines the best-selling games by year, and the consistency is remarkable.

The Nintendo 64’s loyal fanbase ensured that the console’s best-selling game of the year was also the overall best-selling game of the year from 1996-2000. That was followed by a six-year streak where the latest entry in the Madden series traded off with Grand Theft Auto sequels as the top game. And the short-lived music game fad propelled Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Rock Band to the top of the chart in 2007 and 2008.

Since then, video game fans have answered the Call of Duty in huge numbers (aside from Grand Theft Auto V‘s entry in 2013):

That’s all for now, but hopefully Piscatella posts more historical sales data from the NPD’s archives, because this is a corner of the game industry that we don’t get to see very often.

Author: VGC | John

John Scalzo has been writing about video games since 2001, and he co-founded Warp Zoned in 2011. Growing out of his interest in game history, the launch of Video Game Canon followed in 2017.