Top arcade and home games in Japan and the US
John Leo
Famicom Tsushin, and the information was gathered 10/13/89.
Here are the top 15 arcade games in Japan. The first column is the
rank for this time, the second is the rank two weeks ago, and the last
column is the number of points. Others have mentioned that Area 88 is
called "UN Squadron" in the US.
1 5 Super Monaco Grand Prix Sega 1574
2 3 Tetris Sega 1219
3 2 Winning Run Namco 1117
4 6 Flashpoint Sega 1081
5 1 Area 88 Capcom 1001
6 4 Mah Jongg Summer Story Video System 970
7 9 Super Volleyball Video System 866
8 8 Final Lap Namco 851
9 14 Operation Thunderbolt Taito 786
10 10 World Stadium '89 Namco 652
11 -- Aqua Jack (?) Taito 613
12 7 Vorfeed (?) Taito 534
13 -- Sky Adventure SNK 422
14 13 Hard Drivin' Atari 366
15 12 Dirt Fox (?) Namco 234
Here are selections from the top 30 home games (according to sales).
I've included all the Gameboy, PC Engine (Turbographx-16), and
Megadrive (Genesis) games, as these are either out in the US now or
should soon be. I've also included a couple interesting Famicom
(Nintendo) games. Rankings are given for two weeks before, and a
month before. Points aren't given for games 21-30.
Notes: The BPS Tetris isn't the same as the Nintendo NES Tetris, but
it seems somewhat similar. "Daimakaimura" is "Ghouls and Ghosts" in
the US. "Momotarodensetsu" is a Japanese children's story so this
game might not make it to the US. "Sokoban" is I believe one of the
two new puzzle games for the Gameboy. "Bloody Wolf"'s full name is
"Narazu monosentoubutai BLOODYWOLF." "Gunhed" is "Blazing Lazers."
Some other games as well might have different names in the US.
News flash: NEC is coming out with an upgraded PC Engine called "PC
Engine SuperGraphx" by the end of November. "Ghouls and Ghosts" will
be one of the first games available for it. I'll post more information
about it soon.
1 1 6 Tetris Gameboy Nintendo 3211
2 4 2 MOTHER Famicom Nintendo 2434
5 3 4 Tetris Famicom BPS 1312
7 8 15 Shanghai Gameboy HAL 985
8 12 -- Odyne (?) PC Engine Namco 763
9 19 20 Final Lap Tsuin (?) PC Engine Namco 688
12 9 7 Super Mario Brothers 3 Famicom Nintendo 477
13 new Super Momotarodensetsu PC Engine Hudson 418
14 16 10 Daimakaimura Megadrive Sega (Capcom) 331
15 20 -- Monster Lair PC Engine Hudson 301
18 7 8 Super Marioland Gameboy Nintendo 188
19 17 -- Mickey Mouse Gameboy Kemco 171
21 15 -- Sokoban Gameboy Pony-Canon
22 new Motocross Maniacs Gameboy Pony-Canon
24 13 -- F1 Dream PC Engine NEC Avenue
25 21 -- Bloody Wolf PC Engine Data East
26 28 21 Gunhed PC Engine Hudson
28 23 11 Alleyway Gameboy Nintendo
It's strange that the only Megadrive game in the top 30 is "Ghouls and
Ghosts," but it has managed to stay there for a while. The PC Engine
games are starting to have some staying power in the top 30.
Here are the top 10 home games in the US.
1 1 Game Boy with Tetris Nintendo
2 2 Dragon Warrior Nintendo (Enix)
3 3 Game Boy Super Mario Land Nintendo
4 - Legend of Zelda Nintendo
5 9 Super Mario Brothers 2 Nintendo (Fuji-TV)
6 4 Strider Capcom
7 6 Ninja Gaiden Tecmo
8 7 Gameboy Tennis Nintendo
9 - Faxanadu Nintendo (Falcom)
10 - Tecmo Bowl Tecmo
Shumi wa nandesuka, sensei. `/ / | | John Leo
--- Oreka? Benkyou o oshierukoto dayo. | --|-- l...@tds.lcs.mit.edu
Iyanaseikaku desune. \ / --| / . | / /| l...@athena.mit.edu
--- Omae no shumi wa nandayo. -| / | / / |
Benkyou o osowarukoto desu. --| \/ \/ / \| (Kazoku Geemu)
John Leo
Cambridge, carries "Famicom Tsushin," so I may be able to report on
what's new in Japan more often now. I thought this issue (number 22,
October 27, 1989) wasn't very interesting at first, but it turns out
there's a lot of news in it. I'll post more general items later, but
the big news is the new PC Engine is due to be released in Japan late
November.
The name is "PC Engine SuperGraphx," so I wonder if they were
influenced by the US "Turbographx" name. I'm not sure if this is the
"PC Engine II" that was supposed to come out, but I assume it is. My
Japanese isn't very good, so I'm not able to read much of the article
without a lot of work; nonetheless I noticed a couple typos, so I
wonder if this article was rushed off at the last minute. It's four
pages long and features pictures of the machine from various angles,
specifications, comparisons with other machines, pictures of three
games, comments by 10 companies about whether they'd make games for
it, etc. I can try to figure out more if people are interested, but
here's what I can tell so far: The machine looks much bigger
(30x25x7cm) than the PC Engine, and is probably around the size of the
Turbographx-16, although it doesn't look like the latter either. It
has a switch so that you can play normal PC Engine games, and comes
with a Nintendo-style controller (save that there are two
three-position switches above the I and II buttons; I'm not sure what
these are for).
When the system is released three games will come out at the same
time, two by Hudson (a flight game and a hack-and-slash game), and
"Daimakaimura," otherwise known as "Ghouls and Ghosts." This is
listed as being by "NEC Avenue," so I assume Capcom is doing the same
thing it did with Sega and not bringing the game out themselves. From
the screen shots, the graphics look better than the PC-Engine
graphics, and possibly even better than the Megadrive (Genesis)
graphics. It will be interesting to see how the two implemenations of
that game compare.
One thing I don't quite understand is what is supposed to be better
about the PC Engine SG. They list comparisons to the other machines
and the PC Engine SG doesn't seem very different from the PC Engine at
all. In fact the resolution as listed is even worse than the original
PC Engine! This is listed twice so I assume it's not a typo. The
only real improvements seem to be in the number of sprites allowed and
in the amount of RAM: the SG has 32K more main RAM and 128K more
video RAM than the PC Engine. Perhaps there are other differences as well.
Here is the comparison chart. I'm not sure exactly what the "sounds"
are, and they may be inaccurate. (?) indicates something I can't read
because I forgot to bring a kanji dictionary. Note that the Super
Famicom is due to be released late August, 1990.
Machine CPU Colors Resolution Sprites Sound Price (yen)
Famicom 6502 52 256 x 216 64 3 PSG, 14800
1 noise.
Super Famicom not known 32768 512 x 224 128 PCM, noise, not set
(16 bit) sampler,
stereo (?).
Megadrive 68000 512 320 x 224 64 3 PSG, noise, 21000
6 FM, 1 PCM.
PC Engine custom 512 320 x 224 64 6 (?), 24800
Hu6502 2-6 noise.
PC Engine SG custom 512 256 x 216 128 6 (?), 39800
Hu6502 2-6 noise.
Mike Yang
> and comes
> with a Nintendo-style controller (save that there are two
> three-position switches above the I and II buttons; I'm not sure what
> these are for).
These are probably the same switches that the TG-16 controllers have.
They set the repeat-interval for the buttons so that you can
"auto-fire" at different rates while holding down the buttons.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Yang Western Software Laboratory Digital Equipment Corporation
mi...@wsl.dec.com decwrl!mikey 415/853-6677