Quantity of produced/sold MSX cartridges?

Scribe (390)

24-09-2018, 11:38

Hello MSX community,
I wonder if there is information available about the number of cartridges that were produced / sold (Japan, Europe, world wide). Especially of interest are Konami catridges, of course.

Are there any reliable sources for this information?
I am surely not the first to ask this...

By cklayman

Champion (294)

25-09-2018, 13:49

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game#List_of_highest-gr... and similar pages have some information. I personally have "30,000 units" stuck in my head for either Metal Gear or Vampire Killer but cannot confirm this.

By defdanny

Scribe (390)

25-09-2018, 15:06

Hello cklayman, interesting link, but on the linked page only sold units of arcade game automats are listed.
I would like to have more MSX specific numbers.

By cklayman

Champion (294)

25-09-2018, 17:03

Sorry, I meant to give an example only, there might be similar pages for MSX alone (which I think I have seen). Also I guess the numbers listed could serve as "caps", i.e. higher limits on the number of units sold.

By Pentarou

Hero (517)

25-09-2018, 18:36

The numbers from that Wikipedia page are mostly bogus. Just read the "sources" from where they got pulled: it's full of conflicting information, unreliable and blatantly wrong info.
Since some of the biggest game makers (Konami, Namco ) are publicly traded companies, there should be annual fiscal performance reports where the sales numbers are listed, however good luck finding info about 30+ years ago...

By defdanny

Scribe (390)

02-10-2018, 16:55

Hi Pentarou,
interesting idea to look for the fiscal reports. Sadly, on the KONAMI website you can only find the last 5-6 years.
Information on that from the 80ies is hard to find, I suppose.