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RoboCop
RoboCop (1988)
subdirectory_arrow_right RoboCop (Game), RoboCop (Game), RoboCop (Game)
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Ocean's home computer ports of RoboCop were some of the decade's best-selling home computer games in the United Kingdom. The ZX Spectrum version specifically managed to remain in the higher ends of the console's sales charts from December 1988 to as late as February 1991, while the home computer ports in general were able to top the UK's all-format charts for a record-setting 36 consecutive weeks until August 1989.
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Console Difference, General, Record, Sales
person Salnax calendar_month November 11, 2024
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New Computer Express Issue #7 (24 December 1988) (page 3 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/NH2021_New_Computer_Express_Issue007.pdf/page/n1/mode/2up

New Computer Express Issue #44 (9 September 1989) (page 3 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/NH2021_New_Computer_Express_Issue044.pdf/page/n2/mode/1up

Computer Video Games Issue #98 (January 1999) (page 8 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/cvg-magazine-098/page/n7/mode/2up

Your Sinclair Issue #56 (August 1990):
https://web.archive.org/web/20070701223341/http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/articles/completeguidetoshootemups2.htm

Your Sinclair Issue #62 (February 1991) (page 23 in the magazine):
https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/magazines/pages/your-sinclair/62/23

RetroGamer article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170202002640/http://www.retrogamer.net/retro_games80/the-making-of-robocop/
Virtua Racing
Virtua Racing (1992)
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The Genesis version of Virtua Racing is the only licensed game for the system to use the Sega Virtua Processor. Similar to the SNES's Super FX chip used in games such as Star Fox, the SVP greatly improved the Genesis's ability to render large numbers of polygons. Due to the extra hardware, Virtua Racing cost $99.95 at launch, making it the most expensive mass-produced domestic Genesis cartridge.
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General, Sales, Technology, Version Difference
person Salnax calendar_month November 5, 2024
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Kien
Kien (2024)
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Kien was originally developed between 2002 and 2004 by AgeOfGames, a group of five Italian developers who had no prior experience making video games, aiming to be the first company in their country to develop a game for the Game Boy Advance. The game's release would end up being cancelled three separate times when multiple publishers picked up the game and then decided that releasing it would be too risky for sales. At the time, the game was completed and sent to gaming publications, with one known review appearing in the American magazine Nintendo Power in 2003. The game remained unreleased for over 20 years, but a prototype ROM of it did leak online at one point. Game designer Fabio Belsanti would be the only member of the game's original development team to remain at AgeOfGames, who had shifted to developing educational games to stay afloat. Eventually, with the rising popularity in retro games and lowered cost to produce GBA cartridges, AgeOfGames was able to release Kien in 2024 both digitally and on physical cartridges through retro game publisher Incube8 Games. The game's release garnered attention for it possibly having taken the record for the longest delayed video game release in history, surpassing Duke Nukem Forever and Beyond Good & Evil 2 by taking 22 years to release.
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Cancelled Release, Corporate Affairs, Development, Early Build, General, Leak, Magazine, Prototype, Real Life, Record, Release Date, Reviews, Sales
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month July 6, 2024
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Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy (2023)
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Hogwarts Legacy is notable for introducing the first transgender character in the Harry Potter franchise in the form of Sirona Ryan, the owner of the Three Broomsticks pub who outright tells the player that it took her classmates "a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard". This drew attention as the creator of the Harry Potter franchise, J.K. Rowling, has generated controversy over the years by making comments that many have criticized as transphobic. It is worth noting that while she would receive profits from the game's sales leading many fans to boycott the game, she had no involvement in its development. In regards to the inclusion, the developers stated:

"The team felt that it was very important to create a game that is representative of the rich and diverse world of Harry Potter as well as the groups of people who play games, which includes the LGBTQIA+ community. We have a diverse cast of characters that players will encounter throughout the game.”

However, after the character was revealed, several fans further complained that the name Sirona Ryan rendered the inclusion of a transgender character tone deaf and continued promoting the boycott. The name "Sirona" originates from the Celtic goddess of healing and rebirth and is symbolized with imagery of snakes (animals that shed their skin) and eggs (where many birds, fish and reptiles among other animals emerge from after incubating). Despite being a feminine name, they claimed to perceive it as a male-presenting name due to that variant of the name containing and potentially being shortened to "Sir", while also pointing out that the surname "Ryan" was a masculine name and an anglicized form that was used instead of the less common authentic Gaelic name "Riain". This set up the name to appear as an unintentional pun: "Sir Ryan". Despite these complaints, the boycott turned out to be a failure as Hogwarts Legacy became commercially successful, selling over 12 million copies in its first two weeks of release and going on to sell double that amount by the end of 2023.
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Adaptation, Backstory/Lore, Complaint, Development, First, General, LGBTQ+, Mistake, Politics, Real Life, Sales
person chocolatejr9 calendar_month June 5, 2024
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City Life DS
City Life DS (2008)
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In 2022, the English rock band Arctic Monkeys released a song titled "Sculptures of Anything Goes", featuring the following lyric in the last verse of the song:

"The simulation cartridge for City Life '09 is pretty tricky to come by."

This lyric became the subject of news articles when fans on the music lyrics website Genius initially determined that it was referencing the obscure Nintendo DS game City Life DS, which only released in France in 2008 and the United Kingdom in 2009, and did not sell as well as previous games in the City Life series. Fans theorized that the difficulty in finding a copy of the game referenced in the lyric stemmed from Nintendo eventually discontinuing the DS family of systems. They also cited the closure of the Nintendo 3DS/Wii U versions of the Nintendo eShop as another possibility, but this was unfounded as City Life DS was only officially released as a physical cartridge and not part of the Wii U Virtual Console's Nintendo DS library.

However, it was confirmed in an interview with the band's frontman Alex Turner by Rolling Stone Germany on the day the song released that the lyric was not about City Life DS. He attributed the lyric to the works of author David Foster Wallace, most likely as a reference to his book "Infinite Jest" where the characters consume entertainment in the form of cartridges, which could also be referring to Turner's growing struggle to appeal and relate to Arctic Monkeys' audience from their earlier years as their sound and image changed later on.
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Coincidence, Misconception, Music, Real Life, Reference, Sales, Suggested, Theory
person MehDeletingLater calendar_month May 6, 2024
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Platform: Virtual Boy
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In a 2011 Iwata Asks interview, Shigeru Miyamoto expressed discontent at the Virtual Boy being marketed as a video game console. He believed it was simply a novelty toy and that it succeeded in that field despite its commercial failure as a game console:

"It was the kind of toy to get you excited and make you think, 'This is what we can do now!' […] as just a fun toy, it's a big success if you break just 50,000 […] [Its] sales generated some buzz, and crossed 100,000, then 200,000, then 500,000-quite a good pattern […] [But] when you think of it as a gaming platform, it becomes a failure."
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Advertisement/Commercial, Complaint, General, Real Life, Sales
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month April 18, 2024
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Monopoly Go!
Monopoly Go! (2023)
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In Febuary 2024, Monopoly Go! achieved a significant milestone by officially surpassing $2 billion USD in lifetime revenue. Remarkably, this achievement occurred just ten months after the game's launch and a mere three months after reaching the $1 billion mark.
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General, Real Life, Sales
person ProtoSnake calendar_month March 16, 2024
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Bravely Default II
Bravely Default II (2021)
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Attachment In December 2021, the number of shipments and digital sales of Bravely Default II surpassed one million units across both the Nintendo Switch version (which alone had sold 950,000 copies in August) and the Steam version, making it the fastest-selling entry in the series. To celebrate this achievement, the official Bravely Default Twitter account shared commemorative artwork.
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Artwork/Illustration, Console Difference, General, Real Life, Sales, Social Media, Version Difference
person ProtoSnake calendar_month March 2, 2024
comment Comment (3) | Source
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Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (2005)
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In a 2005 interview with the game's producer Koji Igarashi published in the official Konami strategy guide, he explained the decision to change the series' title in the domestic Japanese market from "Castlevania" back to "Akumajo Dracula".

The title change to Castlevania in Japan initially occurred because the Akumajo Dracula games enjoyed a larger market share in Europe and America compared to Japan. Consequently, more reports and information about the games were available in those regions, and they were released there first. In the recent past, news from outside Japan was harder to access, but with the advent of the internet, Japanese users could now easily stay informed. However, there was a concern that Japanese players might not immediately recognize the equivalence between Castlevania and Akumajo Dracula, so the main title of the previous game Lament of Innocence was changed to Castlevania in Japan to address this.

Subsequently, for Curse of Darkness, the decision was made to revert to the original title because the team felt that the Castlevania name had become associated with trilogies, inadvertently making it challenging for fans to find information about the Akumajo Dracula titles. The team wanted to ensure clarity for Japanese fans and clear up any confusion among Akumajo Dracula fans about if Castlevania was supposed to be Akumajo Dracula.
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Development, Early Idea, General, Magazine, Name Change, Real Life, Regional Difference, Sales, Title
person ProtoSnake calendar_month February 17, 2024
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Pikmin 4
Pikmin 4 (2023)
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Attachment During the pre-release to Pikmin 4, many fans of the franchise were upset that the game did not recieve a larger marketing push from Nintendo, given its spotty sales history. In response, a large swathe of Pikmin fans took to the PixelStar service (which allows individuals to cheaply buy temporary advertising space that would usually be reserved for wealthy corporations in Times Square in New York City) to display Pikmin memes and fan art as a form of unsanctioned advertising. The total amount of money spent by Pikmin fans was estimated by MeriStation USA to be $300 minimum.

Pikmin 4 would end up becoming the best selling installment of the Pikmin franchise. This result most likely has much more to do with the popularity of the Nintendo Switch relative to the GameCube and Wii U, but given how major an advertising space like Times Square is, it isn't completely impossible that the PixelStar advertising could have contributed to the game's sales.
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Advertisement/Commercial, Fan Works, Meme, Real Life, Sales
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month January 15, 2024
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Company: Nintendo
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Despite Nintendo's current image as a family-friendly company, their initial success came from ties to organized crime. When the company was founded in 1889, hanafuda, which Nintendo manufactured cards for, was becoming increasingly controversial due to it being one of few betting games not covered by the Japanese Empire's anti-gambling laws, resulting in it becoming popular among the yakuza. While other companies were slowly exiting the hanafuda business as a result, founder Fusajiro Yamauchi pressed on, resulting in Nintendo becoming the country's most successful playing card manufacturer thanks mostly to strong sales among gang members.
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Corporate Affairs, General, Legal Affairs, Real Life, Sales
person VinchVolt calendar_month December 5, 2023
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De Blob 2
De Blob 2 (2011)
subdirectory_arrow_right de Blob (Collection)
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Attachment A TV adaptation of the de Blob franchise was in production around 2010 to be aired on the SyFy TV channel on a new children's block, which would've used Blob in its branding. This deal got so far that SyFy Kids' logo was included on trailers and promotional items for de Blob 2. Due to the sequel's underperformance, the cartoon would be cancelled, and given Blob's prevalence in preliminary branding and the lack of knowledge on what other series were being planned if any, the cartoon's cancellation likely also led to the SyFy Kids block being cancelled too. SyFy Kids would later be revived in 2013, but airing on the Asian and South African versions of KidsCo with a lineup almost entirely comprised of reruns and syndicated programming.
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Cancelled Release, Merchandise, Multimedia Adaptation, Opening Logo, Sales, Theory, Unreleased Content
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 29, 2023
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de Blob show Lost Media Wiki article:
https://lostmediawiki.com/De_Blob_(lost_production_material_of_cancelled_animated_series_based_on_THQ_video_game_series;_2010)

de Blob 2 launch trailer with SyFy Kids logo at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x08LfvcAIjs

de Blob 2 merchandise with SyFy Kids logo:
https://twitter.com/gleemZGTAF/status/1141989424227471361

SyFy Kids revival article:
https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2013072028906/syfy-kids-to-land-in-asia-and-south-africa.html
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Famicom (Platform)
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When the Super Famicom first launched in Japan, it was so hard to get that Nintendo had to hold a lottery for which employees would get a Super Famicom. Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the Mario series, and Yuji Horii, creator of the Dragon Quest series, claimed that they were each only able to get one.
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General, Real Life, Sales
person Kirby Inhales Jotaro calendar_month November 29, 2023
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Yakuza 1&2 HD Edition
Yakuza 1&2 HD Edition (2012)
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In 2012, an HD compilation of the first two Yakuza games was ported to the Wii U. This port of the games performed so poorly that it sold less than 2000 copies in its first week of release, likely due to the fact that both games were already ported to the PlayStation 3 where more players already owned it. However, series producer Toshihiro Nagoshi stated that this port of the game was not done to generate sales, but as an "experiment" to see how people would respond to the games being on the Wii U.
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Console Difference, Development, General, Real Life, Sales, Theory
person Kirby Inhales Jotaro calendar_month November 27, 2023
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Platform: 64DD
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Attachment Nintendo planned to release the 64DD in North America and even manufactured test units with fully translated BIOSes and functional region locking. However, the idea was ultimately dropped due to the add-on's low sales in Japan. Concrete proof of these plans wouldn't become public until 2016, when YouTuber Jason Lindsey (a.k.a. MetalJesusRocks) found a surviving test unit and verified its legitimacy with former Nintendo of America employee Mark DeLoura.
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Cancelled Release, Early Idea, Leak, Peripheral, Prototype, Real Life, Regional Difference, Sales
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 22, 2023
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Platform: PlayStation 2
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Complaint, Magazine, Male/Female Gender, Real Life, Sales
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 22, 2023
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Doom
Doom (1993)
subdirectory_arrow_right Chex Quest (Game)
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Chex Quest was based on the engine of Doom. The engine could be officially licensed thanks to the game technically not making a profit of its own as a free game, only profit for the food company General Mills, and the release of Quake rendering the old Doom engine obsolete.
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Asset Reuse, Copyright, Corporate Affairs, Development, Sales
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 17, 2023
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uDraw Studio
uDraw Studio (2010)
subdirectory_arrow_right uDraw Studio: Instant Artist (Game), THQ (Company), Play THQ (Company)
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The bankruptcy of THQ is often pinned on the uDraw peripheral for the Wii - this is not completely true, as the Wii version of the uDraw was highly successful. However, the HD versions of the uDraw, released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, were a killing blow to the company (even if not the sole cause of it's bankruptcy), as it was heavily overproduced compared to the size of the audience for casual games on those platforms and an even lower amount of uDraw-supported titles on those platforms relative to the Wii. Supposedly, the HD uDraw was greenlit by THQ's family division, PlayTHQ, without proper permission from the main branch of the company without even knowing what games could or would be made on the hardware.
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Controls, Corporate Affairs, Peripheral, Sales
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 16, 2023
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Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
subdirectory_arrow_right Sega Master System/Mark III (Platform)
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There are two different candidates for the video game console with the longest lifespan, from official introduction to discontinuation, and which one holds the distinction depends on one's metrics.

In terms of support from its original developer, the longest-lasting video game console is the Famicom, the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System. The Famicom was introduced in 1983 and remained on store shelves until 2003, lasting twenty years on the market.

However, when counting support from third party manufacturers, the distinction instead goes to the Sega Master System. While Sega incrementally discontinued the device between 1991 and 1994 depending on the region, Brazilian manufacturer Tectoy received a license from Sega to continue manufacturing clones of the Master System due to its high popularity in Brazil. These clone consoles continue to be manufactured in the present day, decades after the original Master System's launch in 1985.
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Real Life, Record, Sales
person VinchVolt calendar_month November 10, 2023
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IGN South Africa article:
https://za.ign.com/ps4/64636/feature/the-5-longest-console-lifespans

Archived page from Sega of Japan's website clarifying the launch year of the Master System:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140716112819/http://sega.jp/fb/segahard/mk3/
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity (2018)
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In Axie Infinity, a play-to-earn NFT game revolving around breeding, training, and selling axolotl-like creatures called Axies for real money, more experienced players will rent out their Axies to less experienced players in exchange for a portion of the less experienced player's later profits. This feature contains heavy similarities to sharecropping, a real-life practice often described by its use in the United States from the Reconstruction era into the mid-20th century as a post-abolition equivalent to slavery. Due to many of the low level players taking loans coming from low-income countries such as the Philippines and Brazil, Axie Infinity has been described by some analysts as "digital colonialism".
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Complaint, Politics, Real Life, Regional Difference, Sales, Similarities
person Rocko & Heffer calendar_month November 6, 2023
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