Regularly my feed gets filled with the whole, Nintendo didn't save gaming thing, and someone always parades out the fact that the Master System outsold the NES in Europe.
This is factual, but also draws into question the European taste in 8-bit gaming. Not a killer arguement.
Globally the NES sold ~61.91 million units. The Master System sold 10 to 13 million units worldwide.
We can talk about EU vs US but let's be real here -- the NES absolutely positively owned the generation and the Master System, while awesome, did not really come close.
Absolutely. The argument that people are trying to make is that the big crash in the 80s only hit in the US, and only hit console side of things, so Nintendo didn't save gaming it just saved US console gaming. I can get behind that to a degree.
But then the whole Europe and the master system thing comes out. They can point to exclusives practices all they want, but at the end of the day, the master system's library is paltry. If the SMS is a measure of console gamings success in Europe then maybe Nintendo should have saved Europe too
Quick visit to Perplexity:
Globally, the NES sold approximately 61.91 million units. The Master System sold between 10 to 13 million units worldwide.
The Master System was very cool, but it never came close.
