The vagaries of ancient/unofficial sales figures

[Centrale]

I wanted to bring up a topic that is rather specific, but might have far-reaching implications. The general theme is the ongoing battle to write/re-write history in the games community. First, a tangent: Unfortunately even in recent years I've encountered a few toxic Nintendo fans who try to deny or otherwise minimize Sega's importance in the history of games. I'm not even particularly a Sonic fan, personally, but it's absurd to me when some of these individuals try to claim that Sonic is not an historically important game, or was never a well-made game, etc. It's like a schoolyard argument mentality that is taken to an unhealthy extreme. Ultimately it might be inconsequential, as game developers will readily praise the works of other game developers as inspirations (game knows game, indeed) - and these are just consumers blowing off steam. But as people who strive to appreciate and understand this medium as we grow older, people who deny the contributions of any company do so only at their own peril. It does nothing to tarnish Sega's legacy if there are haters who endeavor to speak ill of them. But it does threaten to leave them, and those who believe them, in something of a fog of ignorance.

Now on to the specific point of this... recently while reading Wikipedia articles about the Master System and the Atari 7800, I noticed a few mentions here and there that seemed to imply that the 7800 actually outsold the SMS. My immediate reaction is, "bullshit!" The 7800 is a cool console, but I can't believe that sold more units than the Master System. From what I can gather, this narrative has been constructed by misconstruing a fairly recent quote from someone who worked for Sega in the late 80s (possibly Tom Kalinske? I can't remember offhand) that essentially said, Sega's claim to have about 10% of the U.S. market share during the SMS era was in fact exaggerated. Well, maybe so. But that doesn't correlate to Atari having the remainder of the market share.

So my simple question is... how many units did the SMS sell? How many units did the Atari 7800 sell? The simple answer is... none of us know for sure! The companies involved either no longer exist, or even if they do, they have no reason to reveal any specific information to the general public.

Some might argue that the SMS sales figures are largely determined by its great success in Europe and Brazil. Still, and I realize this is purely anecdotal, I remember as a kid seeing a hell of a lot more shelf space at Toys R Us devoted to the Master System than to the 7800. More verifiably, though, we can easily see a lot more magazine pages from the era devoted to covering the SMS than the 7800.

So, at this point, my assertion is, as mentioned before - the 7800 outsold the Master System (in the U.S.? anywhere?) ? ... bullshit! However, I'm open-minded and would be interested in any proof or any anecdotal assertions that this was the case.

[omegamax]

I never seen or heard about the Atari 7800 here in Canada in the 80's,90's.When I was a kid the Master system and Nintendo were sold everywhere,I highly doubt the 7800 sold more than the master system.

[rupert]

The only sales info I have is this...

[Stan]

Wikipedia is such a crap site. It makes me laugh when people consistently refer to it as though it's a source of ultimate knowledge. I even know of professors who allow their students to CITE IT. What? Pathetic gathering of false scholarship is all it is. I even had a bit about the SMS in the US and how Tonka actually positively effected its sales after 1986, but it was deleted. I even had the info verified by John Sauer and Steve Hanawa...

[Centrale]

I think there are a lot of academically rigorous articles on Wikipedia... however, most video game enthusiasts do not fit the bill. They see it as just another front in their petty ongoing battles. Here's part of the problem: arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/users-treat-criticism-of-favorite-brands-as-threat-to-self-image/