Home video game console generations
It has been suggested that this article be merged into History of video game consoles. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2023. |
In the video game industry, the market for home video game consoles has frequently been segmented into generations, grouping consoles that are considered to have shared in a competitive marketspace. Since the first home consoles in 1972, there have been nine defined home console generations.
A new console generation typically has occurred approximately every five years, in keeping pace with Moore's law for technology, though more recent generations have had extended periods due to the use of console revisions rather than completely new designs. Not all home consoles are defined as part of these generations; only those considered to be significant competitive consoles are classed into generations, and systems such as microconsoles are often omitted from these generations.
Background and origins
Like most consumer electronics, home video game consoles are developed based on improving the features offered by an earlier product with advances made by newer technology. For video game consoles, these improvements typically occur every five years, following a Moore's law progression where a rough aggregate measure of processing power doubles every 18 months or increases ten-fold after five years.[1][2][3] This cyclic market has resulted in an industry-wide adoption of the razorblade model in selling consoles at minimal profit margin while making revenue from the sale of games produced for that console, and then transitioning users to the next console model at the fifth year as the successor console enters the market. This approach incorporates planned obsolescence into the products to continue to bring consumers towards purchasing the newer models.[4]
Because of the industry dynamics, many console manufacturers release their new consoles in roughly the same time period, with their consoles typically offering similar processing power and capabilities as their competitors. This systematic market has created the nature of console generations, categorizing the primary consoles into these segmented time periods that represent consoles with similar capabilities and which shared the same competitive space. Like consoles, these generations typically start five years after its prior one, though may have long tails as popular consoles remain viable well beyond five years.[5][6]
The use of the generation label came after the start of the 21st century as console technology started to mature, with the terminology applied retroactively to earlier consoles. However, no exact definition and delineation of console generations was consistently developed in the industry or academic literature since that point. Some schemes have been based on direct market data (including a seminal work published in an
Console generation timeline
For purposes of organization, the generations described here and subsequent pages maintain the Wikipedia breakdown of generation, generally breaking consoles apart by technology features whenever possible and with other consoles released in that same period incorporated within that same generation, and starting with the Odyssey and Pong-style home consoles as the first generation, an approach that has generally been adopted and extended by video game journalism.[15][16] In this approach the generation "starts" with the release of the first console considered to have those features, and considered to end with the known last discontinuation of a console in that generation. For example, the third generation is considered to end in 2003 with the formal discontinuation of the Nintendo Entertainment System that year. This can create years with overlaps between multiple generations, as shown.
This approach uses the concepts of
Later console generations are based on groupings of release dates rather than common hardware as base hardware configurations between consoles have greatly diverged, generally following trends in generation definition given by video game and mainstream journalism. Handheld consoles and other gaming systems and innovations are frequently grouped within the release years associated with the home console generations; for example the growth of digital distribution is associated with the seventh generation.[6][19]
Console generation overview
The following table provides an overview of the major hardware technical specifications of the consoles of each major generations by central processor unit (CPU), graphics processor unit (GPU), memory, game media, and other features.[7]
Generation | Time period | Primary consoles | CPU | GPU | Memory | Game media | Other common features |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First | 1972–1980 | — | — | custom printed circuit boards | |||
Second | 1976–1992 | 8-bit, 1–2 MHz, (Intellivision 16-bit) | — | 2–16 KB | Game cartridges | ||
Third ("8-bit generation") |
1983–2003 | 8-bit, 2–4 MHz | — | 3–24 KB | Game cartridges | ||
Fourth ("16-bit generation") |
1987–2004 | 8-bit and 16-bit, 4–8 MHz | — | 8–128 KB | Game cartridges | CD-ROM add-ons | |
Fifth ("32-bit generation") |
1993–2006 | 32 and 64-bit, 12–100 MHz | — | 2–4.5 MB | Game cartridges, Optical media | ||
Sixth | 1998–2013 | 32 and 64-bit, 200–733 MHz | 100–233 MHz | 16–64 MB | Optical media | Online connectivity Confluence with common personal computer hardware | |
Seventh | 2005–2017 | 32 and 64-bit, 729 MHz–3.3 GHz | 243–550 MHz | 88–512 MB | Optical media, digital distribution | Internet services, motion controls, HD resolutions | |
Eighth | 2012–present | 32 and 64-bit, 1.0–2.3 GHz | 307–1172 MHz | 2–12 GB | Game cartridges, Optical media, digital distribution | Internet services, 4K resolution | |
Ninth | 2020–present | 64-bit, 3.5–3.8 GHz | 1565–2233 MHz | 10–16 GB | Optical media, digital distribution | Internet services, motion controls, 8K resolution, SSD internal memory caching
|
History
The development of video game consoles primarily follows the history of video gaming in the North American and Japanese markets. Few other markets saw any significant console development on their own, such as in Europe where personal computers tended to be favored alongside imports of video game consoles. The clones of video game consoles in less-developed markets like China and Russia are not considered here.
First generation (1972–1980)
The first generation of home consoles were generally limited to
The first home console was the
The Japanese market for gaming consoles followed a similar path at this point. Nintendo had already been a business partner with Magnavox by 1971 and helped to design the early light guns for the console. Dedicated home game consoles in Japan appeared in 1975 with Epoch Co.'s TV Tennis Electrotennis, which it had made in partnership with Magnavox as well. As in the United States, numerous clones of these dedicated consoles began to appear, most made by the large television manufacturers like Toshiba and Sharp, and these games would be called TV geemu or terebi geemu (TV game) as the designation for "video games" in Japan.[26] Nintendo became a major player when Mitsubishi, having lost their manufacturer Systek due to bankruptcy, turned to the company to help continue to build their Color TV-Game line, which went on to sell about 1.5 million units across five different units between 1977 and 1980.[26][27][28]
Console[note 1] | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Magnavox Odyssey | — | 1972 | — | — | 350,000[29] |
Home Pong series
|
— | 1975 | — | — | 200,000[30] |
TV Tennis Electrotennis | 1975 | — | — | — | 10,000 |
Coleco Telstar | — | 1976 | — | — | 1,000,000 |
Color TV-Game | 1977 | — | — | 1980 | 1,500,000[note 2] |
Second generation (1976–1992)
The second generation of home consoles was distinguished by the introduction of the
With the introduction of cartridge-based consoles came the need to develop a wide array of games for them. Atari was one of the forefronts in development for its Atari 2600. Atari marketed the console across multiple regions including into Japan,
At the same time, Atari has been acquired by
For the most part, the 1983 crash signaled the end of this generation as Nintendo's introduction of the Famicom the same year brought the start of the third generation. When Nintendo brought the Famicom to North America under the name "Nintendo Entertainment System", it helped to revitalize the industry, and Atari, now owned by Jack Tramiel, pushed on sales of the previously successful Atari 2600 under new branding to keep the company afloat for many more years while he transitioned the company more towards the personal computer market.[38] The Atari 2600 stayed in production until 1992, marking the end of the second generation.[39]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Fairchild Channel F | 1977 | 1976 | — | 1983 | 250,000 |
Atari 2600 | 1983 | 1977 | 1978 | 1992 | 30,000,000 |
Magnavox Odyssey²
|
1982 | 1979 | 1978 | 1984 | 2,000,000 |
Intellivision | 1982 | 1980 | 1982 | 1990 | 3,000,000 |
ColecoVision | — | 1982 | 1983 | 1985 | 2,000,000 |
Atari 5200 | — | 1982 | — | 1984 | 1,400,000 |
Third generation (1983–2003)
Frequently called the "8-bit generation", the third generation's consoles used 8-bit processors, which allowed up to five bits of color (25 or 32 colors), five audio channels, and more advanced graphics capability including sprites and tiles rather than block-based graphics of the second generation. Further, the third console saw the market dominance shift from the United States to Japan as a result of the 1983 crash.[40]
Both the Sega SG-1000 and the Nintendo Famicom launched near simultaneously in Japan in 1983.[41] The Famicom, after some initial technical recalls, soon gained traction and became the best selling console in Japan by the end of 1984.[42] By that point Nintendo wanted to bring the console to North America but recognized the faults that the video game crash had caused. It took several steps to redesign the console to make it look less like a game console and rebranded it as the "Nintendo Entertainment System" (NES) for North America to avoid the "video game" label stigma.[43][44] The company also wanted to avoid the loss of publishing control that had occurred both in North America as well as in Asia after the Famicom's release, and created a lockout system that required all game cartridges to be manufactured by Nintendo to include a special chip. If this chip was not present, the console would fail to play the game. This further gave Nintendo direct control on the titles published for the system, rejecting those it felt were too mature.[45][46] The NES launched in North America in 1985, and helped to revitalize the video game market there.[47]
Sega attempted to compete with the NES with its own Master System, released later in 1985 in both the US and Japan, but did not gain traction to compete. Similarly, Atari's attempts to compete with the NES via the Atari 7800 in 1987 failed to knock the NES from its dominant position.[48] The NES remained in production until 2003, when it was discontinued along with its successor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.[49]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Famicom/NES | 1983 | 1985 | 1986 | 2003 | 61,910,000 |
Mark III/Master System | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1996 | 13,000,000 |
Atari 7800 | — | 1986 | 1987 | 1992 | 3,770,000 |
Atari XEGS | — | 1987 | 1987 | 1992 | 100,000 |
Fourth generation (1987–2004)
The fourth generation of consoles, also known as the "16-bit generation", further advanced core console technology with 16-bit processors, improving the available graphics and audio capabilities of games.[50]
During this generation, the technology costs of using optical discs in the form of CD-ROMs has dropped sufficiently to make them desirable to be used for shipping computer software, including for video games for personal computers. CD-ROMs offered more storage space than game cartridges and could allow for full-motion video and other detailed audio-video works to be used in games.[7] Console manufacturers adapted by creating hardware add-ons to their consoles that could read and play CD-ROMs, including NEC's TurboGrafx-CD add-on (as well as the integrated TurboDuo system) in 1988, and the Sega CD add-on for the Genesis in 1991, and the Neo Geo CD in 1994. Costs of these add-ons were generally high, nearing the same price as the console itself, and with the introduction of disc-based consoles in the fifth generation starting in 1993, these fell by the wayside.[7] Nintendo had initially worked with Sony to develop a similar add-on for the SNES, the Super NES CD-ROM, but just before its introduction, business relationships between Nintendo and Sony broke down, and Sony would take its idea on to develop the fifth generation PlayStation.[55] Additionally, Philips attempted to enter the market with a dedicated CD-ROM format, the CD-i, also released in 1990, that included other uses for the CD-ROM media beyond video games but the console never gained traction.[56]
The fourth generation had a long tail that overlapped with the fifth generation, with the SNES's discontinuation in 2003 marking the end of the generation.[49] To keep their console competitive with the new fifth generation ones, Nintendo took to the use of coprocessors manufactured into the game cartridges to enhance the capabilities of the SNES. This included the Super FX chip, which was first used in the game Star Fox in 1993, generally considered one of the first games to use real-time polygon-based 3D rendering on consoles.[50]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 | 1987 | 1989 | 1989 | 1994 | 5,800,000 |
Mega Drive/Genesis | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1997 | 30,750,000 |
Neo Geo | 1990 | 1991 | 1994 | 1997 | 980,000 |
Super Famicom/Super NES | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 2003 | 49,100,000 |
Sega CD/Mega-CD | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1996 | 2,240,000 |
CD-i
|
1992 | 1991 | 1992 | 1998 | 1,000,000 |
Neo Geo CD | 1994 | 1996 | 1994 | 1997 | 570,000 |
Fifth generation (1993–2006)
During this time home computers gained greater prominence as a way of playing video games. The video game console industry nonetheless continued to thrive alongside home computers, due to the advantages of much lower prices, easier portability, circuitry specifically dedicated towards video games, the ability to be played on a television set (which PCs of the time could not do in most cases), and intensive first party software support from manufacturers who were essentially banking their entire future on their consoles.[57]
Besides the shift to 32-bit processors, the fifth generation of consoles also saw most companies excluding Nintendo shift to dedicated optical media formats instead of game cartridges, given their lower cost of production and higher storage capacity.[58] Initial consoles of the fifth generation attempted to capitalize on the potential power of CD-ROMs, which included the Amiga CD32, 3DO and the Atari Jaguar in 1993.[59] However, early in the cycle, these systems were far more expensive than existing fourth-generation models and has much smaller game libraries.[7] Further, Nintendo's use of co-processors in late SNES games further kept the SNES as one of the best selling systems over new fifth generation ones.[7]
Two of the key consoles of the fifth generation were introduced in 1995: the
Nintendo released their next console, the Nintendo 64 in late 1996. Unlike other fifth generation units, it still used game cartridges, as Nintendo believed the load-time advantages of cartridges over CD-ROMs was still essential, as well as their ability to continue to use lockout mechanisms to protect copyrights.[61][62] The system also included support for memory cards as well, and Nintendo developed a strong library of first-party titles for the game, including Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that helped to drive its sales. While the Nintendo 64 did not match the PlayStation's sales, it kept Nintendo a key competitor in the home console market alongside Sony and Sega.[7]
As with the transition from the fourth to fifth generation, the fifth generation has a long overlap with the sixth console generation, with the PlayStation remaining in production until 2005.[63]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
FM Towns Marty | 1993 | — | — | 1995 | 45,000 |
Amiga CD32 | — | 1994 | 1993 | 1994 | 100,000 |
Atari Jaguar | 1994 | 1993 | 1994 | 1996 | 250,000 |
3DO | 1994 | 1993 | 1994 | 1996 | 2,000,000 |
PC-FX | 1994 | — | — | 1998 | 400,000 |
Sega 32X | 1994 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 665,000 |
Sega Saturn | 1994 | 1995 | 1995 | 2000 | 9,260,000 |
PlayStation | 1994 | 1995 | 1995 | 2005 | 102,490,000 |
Nintendo 64 | 1996 | 1996 | 1997 | 2002 | 32,930,000 |
Apple Pippin
|
1996 | 1996 | — | 1997 | 42,000 |
Sixth generation (1998–2013)
By the sixth generation, console technology began to catch up to performance of personal computers of the time, and the use of bits as their selling point fell by the wayside. The console manufactures focused on the individual strengths of their game libraries as marketing instead. The consoles of the sixth generation saw further adoption of optical media, expanding into the DVD format for even greater data storage capacity, additional internal storage solutions to function as memory cards, as well as adding support either directly or through add-ons to connect to the Internet for online gameplay.[64] Consoles began to move towards a convergence of features of other electronic living room devices and moving away from single-feature systems.[65]
By this point, there were only three major players in the market: Sega, Sony, and Nintendo. Sega got an early lead with the Dreamcast first released in Japan in 1998.[66] It was the first home console to include a modem to allow players to connect to the Sega network and play online games.[7] However, Sega found several technical issues that had to be resolved before its Western launch in 1999.[67][68][69] Though its Western release was more successful than in Japan,[70] the console was soon outperformed by Sony's PlayStation 2 released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 was the first console to add support for DVD playback in addition to CD-ROM, as well as maintaining backward compatibility with games from the PlayStation library, which helped to draw consumers that remained on the long-tail of the PlayStation.[7] While other consoles of the sixth generation had not anticipated this step, the PlayStation 2's introduction of backwards compatibility became a major design consideration of future generations.[71] Along with a strong game library, the PlayStation 2 went on to sell 155 million units before it was discontinued in 2013,[72] and as of 2020[update], remains the best selling home console of all time.[73][74] Unable to compete with Sony, Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in 2001 and left the hardware market, instead focusing on its software properties.[7] Nintendo's entry in the sixth generation was the GameCube in 2001, its first system to use optical discs based on the miniDVD format. A special Game Boy Player attachment allowed the GameCube to use any of the GameBoy cartridges as well, and adapters were available to allow the console to connect to the Internet via broadband or modem.
At this point
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Dreamcast | 1998 | 1999 | 1999 | 2001 | 9,130,000 |
PlayStation 2 | 2000 | 2000 | 2000 | 2013 | 155,000,000 |
GameCube | 2001 | 2001 | 2002 | 2007 | 21,740,000 |
Xbox | 2002 | 2001 | 2002 | 2009 | 24,000,000 |
Seventh generation (2005–2017)
Video game consoles had become an important part of the global IT infrastructure by the mid-2000s. It was estimated that video game consoles represented 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power in the year 2007.[76]
By the seventh generation, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo had all developed consoles designed to interface with the Internet, adding networking support for either wired and wireless connections, online services to support multiplayer games, digital storefronts for digital purchases of games, and both internal storage and support for external storage on the console for these games. These consoles also added support for digital television resolutions through
Microsoft entered the seventh generation first with the
Sony's
Nintendo introduced the Wii in 2006 around the same time as the PlayStation 3. Nintendo lacked the same manufacturing capabilities and relationships with major hardware supplies as Sony and Microsoft,[81] and to compete, diverged on a feature-for-feature approach and instead developed the Wii around the novel use of motion controls in the Wii Remote. This "blue ocean strategy", releasing a product where there was no competition, was considered part of the unit's success,[82] and which drove Microsoft and Sony to develop their own motion control accessors to compete. Nintendo provided various online services that the Wii could connect too, including the Virtual Console where players could purchase emulated games from Nintendo's past consoles as well as games for the Wii. The Wii used regular sized DVDs for its game medium but also directly supported GameCube discs. The Wii was generally considered a surprising success that many developers had initially overlooked.[83][84][85] Based on the success of the Wii Remote controller, both Microsoft and Sony released similar motion detection controllers for their consoles. Microsoft introduced the Kinect motion controller device for the Xbox 360, which served as both a camera, microphone, and motion sensor for numerous games. Sony released the PlayStation Move, a system consisting of a camera and lit handheld controllers, which worked with its PlayStation 3.
The seventh generation concluded with the discontinuation of the PlayStation 3 in 2017.[86]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Xbox 360 | 2005 | 2005 | 2005 | 2016 | 84,700,000 |
PlayStation 3 | 2006 | 2006 | 2007 | 2017 | 87,400,000 |
Wii | 2006 | 2006 | 2006 | 2017 | 101,630,000 |
Eighth generation (2012–present)
Aside from the usual hardware enhancements, consoles of the eighth generation focus on further integration with other media and increased connectivity.
The Wii U, introduced in 2012, was considered by Nintendo to be a successor to the Wii but geared to more serious players. The console supported backward compatibility with the Wii, including its motion controls, and introduced the Wii U GamePad, a tablet/controller hybrid that acted as a second screen. Nintendo further refined its network offerings to develop the Nintendo Network service to combine storefront and online connectivity services. The Wii U did not sell as well as Nintendo had planned, as they found people mistook the GamePad to be a tablet they could take with them away from the console, and the console struggled to draw the third-party developers as the Wii had.[90]
Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One came out in 2013. Both were similar improvements over the previous generation's respective consoles, providing more computational power to support up to 60 frames per seconds at 1080p resolutions for some games. Each unit also saw a similar set of revisions and repackaging to develop high- and low-end cost versions. In the case of the Xbox One, the console's initially launch had included the Kinect device but this became highly controversial in terms of potential privacy violations and lack of developer support, and by its mid-generation refresh, the Kinect had been dropped and discontinued as a game device.[91]
Later in the eighth generation, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch in 2017.[92] The Switch is considered the first hybrid game console. It uses a special CPU/GPU combination that can run at different clock frequencies depending on how it is used. It can be placed into a special docking unit that is hooked to a television and a permanent power supply, allowing faster clock frequencies to be used to be played at higher resolutions and frame rates, and thus more comparable to a home console. Alternatively, it can be removed and used either with the attached Joy-Con controllers as a handheld unit, or can be even played as a tablet-like system via its touchscreen. In these modes, the CPU/GPU run at lower clock speeds to conserve battery power, and the graphics are not as robust as in the docked version. A larger suite of online services was added through the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, including several free NES and SNES titles, replacing the past Virtual Console system. The Switch was designed to address many of the hardware and marketing faults around the Wii U's launch, and has become one of the company's fastest-selling consoles after the Wii.[93] Development of the Switch began early in the eighth generation once the Wii U was seen as a commercial failure, and thus was released midway through the eighth generation and considered then a competitor to the PS4 and Xbox One. Once the next-generation consoles were introduced in 2020, the Switch was also seen to be in competition with both. As such, the Switch is considered both an eighth and ninth generation console.[94][95][96]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
Wii U | 2012 | 2012 | 2012 | 2017 | 13,560,000 |
Nintendo Switch | 2017 | 2017 | 2017 | Active | 139,360,000[97] As of Dec. 31, 2023 |
PlayStation 4 | 2014 | 2013 | 2013 | Active | 117,200,000[98] As of March. 31, 2022 |
Xbox One | 2014 | 2013 | 2013 | 2020 | 51,000,000[99] |
Ninth generation (2020–present)
Both Microsoft and Sony released successors to their home consoles in November 2020. Both console families target 4K and 8K resolution televisions at high frame rates, support for real-time ray tracing rendering, and the use of high-performance solid-state drives (SSD) as internal high-speed memory, the latter feature greatly decreasing loading times and allowing game content to be delivered much faster than when reading from optical disc or standard hard drives, thus making open world games, for example, appear seamless.
Microsoft released the fourth generation of Xbox with the Xbox Series X and Series S on November 10, 2020. The Series X has a base performance target of 60 frames per second at 4K resolution to be four times as powerful as the Xbox One X. One of Microsoft's goals with both units was to assure backward compatibility with all games supported by the Xbox One, including those original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles that are backward compatible with the Xbox One, allowing the Xbox Series X and Series S to support four generations of games.[100][101]
Sony's PlayStation 5 was released on November 12, 2020, and also is a similar performance boost over the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 5 uses a custom SSD solution with much higher input/output rates comparable to RAM chip speeds, significantly improving rendering and data streaming speeds. The chip architecture is comparable to the PlayStation 4, allowing backwards compatible with most of the PlayStation 4 library while select games will need chip timing tweaking to make them compatible.[102][103]
Console | Introduced | Discontinued | Units Sold | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Japan | North America | Europe | |||
PlayStation 5 | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | Active | 17,300,000 As of Dec. 31, 2021 |
Xbox Series X and Series S | 2020 | 2020 | 2020 | Active | 12,000,000 (est.) As of Dec. 31, 2021 |
Sales comparison
Below is a timeline of each generation with the top three home video consoles of each generation based on worldwide sales. For a complete list of home video consoles released in each generation please see the respective article of each generation. For a comparable table for handheld consoles, see here.
# |
Current | A current-generation console being manufactured and sold on the market. |
† |
First place | Home console with the highest sales of its generation. |
‡ |
Second place | Home console with the second highest sales of its generation. |
◁ |
Third place | Home console with the third highest sales of its generation. |
Remaining places | Manufacturer released a home console but it was not one of the top three best-selling home consoles of its generation. | |
No entry | Manufacturer did not release a home console. |
Manufacturer | Generation | Ref(s) | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First (1972–1980) |
Second (1976–1992) |
Third (1983–2003) |
Fourth (1987–2004) |
Fifth (1993–2006) |
Sixth (1998–2013) |
Seventh (2005–2017) |
Eighth (2012–present) |
Ninth (2020–present) | ||
Atari | Home Pong (150,000) |
Atari 2600 † (30 million)[note 1] |
Atari 7800 ◁ (1 million)[note 2] |
Atari Jaguar (250,000) |
[note 3] | |||||
Coleco | Telstar (1 million) |
ColecoVision ◁ (2+ million) |
[note 4] | |||||||
Nintendo | Color TV-Game series (1.5 million) |
NES † (61.91 million) |
Super NES † (49.1 million) |
Nintendo 64 ‡ (32.93 million) |
GameCube ◁ (21.74 million) |
Wii † (101.63 million) |
Nintendo Switch † # (122.55 million)[97][note 5] |
[note 6] | ||
Magnavox / Philips |
Odyssey (330,000) |
Odyssey² (2 million) |
Videopac + G7400 (N/A) |
CD-i (570,000) |
[note 7] | |||||
Mattel Electronics
|
Intellivision ‡ (3+ million) |
[note 8] | ||||||||
Sega | Master System ‡ (10–13 million)[note 9] |
Sega Genesis ‡ (33.75 million) |
Sega Saturn ◁ (9.26 million) |
Dreamcast (9.13 million) |
[note 10] | |||||
NEC | TurboGrafx-16 ◁ (10 million) |
PC-FX (100,000) |
[note 11] | |||||||
Sony | PlayStation † (102.49 million) |
PlayStation 2 † (>155 million) |
PlayStation 3 ‡ (>87.4 million) |
PlayStation 4 ‡ # (117.2 million) |
PlayStation 5 † # (17.3 million) |
[note 12] | ||||
Microsoft | Xbox ‡ (>24 million) |
Xbox 360 ◁ (>84 million) |
Xbox One ◁ # (est. 46.9 million) |
Xbox Series X/S ‡ # (est. 12 million) |
[note 13] |
> Final sales are greater than the reported figure. See notes.
Notes
- ^ The Atari 2600 sold 30 million units during its life-cycle. Atari also released a second home console during the second generation known as the Atari 5200 which sold 1 million units.
- ^ The Atari 7800 sold 1 million units. Atari also released the Atari XEGS during the third generation which sold 100,000 units.
- ^ Home Pong sold 150,000 units.[104][105] Atari 2600 sold 30 million,[106] Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 sold 1 million units each[107][108] Atari XEGS sold 100,000 units,[109] and the Atari Jaguar sold 250,000 units.[110]
- ^
- Telestar: Coleco launched Telstar in 1976 and sold a million. Production and delivery issues, and dedicated consoles being replaced by electronic handheld games dramatically reduced sales in 1977. Over a million Telstars were scrapped in 1978, and it cost Coleco $22.3 million that year[111]—almost bankrupting the company.[112]
- ColecoVision:The ColecoVision reached 2 million units sold by the spring of 1984. Console quarterly sales dramatically decreased at this time, but it continued to sell modestly[113][111] with most inventory gone by October 1985.[114]
- ^ As of December 2022 the Nintendo Switch has sold 122.55 million units.[115] Nintendo also released the Wii U during the eighth generation which sold 13.56 million units during its lifecycle.[115]
- ^ Color TV-Game series sold 3 million units.[27] NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii sales figures.[116] Wii U and Switch sales figures.[115]
- ^ Intellivision sold 3 million units.[120]
- ^ The Sega Master System sold 10–13 million units. Sega also released the SG-1000 during the third generation which sold 160,000 units.
- ^
- Master System: 10–13 million, not including recent Brazil sales figures.[121][122] Screen Digest wrote in a 1995 publication that the Master System's active installed user base in Western Europe peaked at 6.25 million in 1993. Those countries that peaked are France at 1.6 million, Germany at 700 thousand, the Netherlands at 200 thousand, Spain at 550 thousand, the United Kingdom at 1.35 million, and other Western European countries at 1.4 million. However, Belgium peaked in 1991 with 600 thousand, and Italy in 1992 with 400 thousand. Thus it is estimated approximately 6.8 million units were purchased in this part of Europe.[123] 1 million were sold in Japan as of 1986.[124] 2 million were sold in the United States.[125] 8 million were sold by Tectoy in Brazil as of 2016.[126]
- Sega Genesis: 30.75 million sold by Sega worldwide as of March 1996,Tec Toy sold 3 million in Brazil,[129][130] and Majesco Entertainment projected it would sell 1.5 million in the United States.[131]
- Sega Saturn: 9.26 million units sold.[128]
- Dreamcast: 9.13 million units sold.[128][132][133][134]
- ^ The TurboGrafx-16 was designed by Hudson and manufactured and marketed by NEC.[135] The TurboGrafx-16 managed to sell 10 million units.[136] The PC-FX sold less than 100,000 after a year on sale.[137]
- ^ PlayStation: Sony corporate data reports 102.49 million units sold as of March 31, 2007.[138] Sony stopped divulging individual platform sales starting with 2012 fiscal reports,[139][140] and continues to sporadically.[141] PlayStation 2: 155 million units sold as of March 31, 2012.[74] It was discontinued worldwide on January 4, 2013.[142] PlayStation 3: Sony corporate data reports 87.4 million sold as of March 31, 2017.[74] PS3 shipments to Japanese retailers, the last country Sony was selling units to, ceased by May.[143] PlayStation 4: Sony corporate data reports 114.9 million units sold as of December 31, 2020.[74] PlayStation 5: Sony corporate data reports 4.5 million units sold as of December 31, 2020.[74]
- ^ Xbox: More than 24 million units sold as of May 10, 2006.[144]
Xbox 360: Sold 84 million as of June 2014.[145] Production ended in 2016.[146]
Xbox One: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled at a December 3, 2014, shareholder presentation that 10 million units were sold.[147] Microsoft announced in October 2015 that individual platform sales in their fiscal reports will no longer be disclosed.
The company shifted focus to the amount of active users on Xbox Live as its "primary metric of success".[148] International Data Corporation estimated 46.9 million sold worldwide through the second quarter of 2019.[149]Xbox Series X/S: Ampere Anylytics estimated about 2.8 million units sold as of the end of 2020.[150]
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