Short reviews of all games I have for a system: Saturn

[jerry coeurl]

Yeah, I've never seen an Out Run 2 cab myself. I see Initial D all over the place, and the Cruis'n games. Pretty much any arcade that's currently in operation seems to have both of those series covered. At least in the US.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

I see Outrun 2 machines more than I see Initial D machines. I can't remember ever really seeing an Initial D machine in person to be honest.

[jerry coeurl]

Well, maybe it's a regional thing. Southern California and Oregon (or Portland, at least) seem to have the Initial D cabs on lock down.

[Thenewguy]

How much space does the Initial D cab take up? the Outrun 2 cabinet is pretty big, all the ones around here have you sitting in a plastic 2-seater car for each screen (and the car moves about), and they have two cars linked to each other (I think its actually Outrun 2 SP to be honest).

[Team Andromeda]

Well, maybe in Japan, and worldwide, but in the UK the Initial D anime is a non-entity, I just went through all the local arcades and there wasn't even any machines, Outrun 2 on the other hand was in at least three separate parlours.

I don't think Inital D was officially released world wide by SEGA and the UK Arcade sector is tiny, compare to Asia.
Anyone that been bothered to check SEGA full set of results over the these last few years would have see the likes of UFO catcher, Initial D, Virtual Fighter 4,5, Border Break , Quest of D, Shining Force Cross have been responsible for SEGA posting profits , the likes of Out Run 2 just didn't figure that much .

I think SEGA best performing coin up in Europe this last decade has been World Club Champion Football or what ever it was called in Europe

[A Black Falcon]

Hmm, Initial D... I've probably seen one of those arcade machines sometime, but they're certainly not common (in the northeast, I mean). As for Outrun 2, I've seen that a few times. Played it in the arcades once or twice.

Also on the note of racing games, I've got the free time for now, so I'm working on another list. It's well along (because it's shorter, in part), but it's a bit different from the last two -- it's a PC racing games list. I have a good 750 PC games, reviewing everything seemed a bit too overwhelming... so instead, just one genre. It's one I've liked a lot over the years. I've been going back and playing a bunch of games some more for this one, so it'll probably take another day or two to finish.

I really REALLY find it hard to believe that Cruis'n even as a series is the highest grossing Arcade racing series worldwide. I'd like to see the data on that one rather than a blurb in an award. I highly doubt they did much research especially since some sales numbers aren't complete public knowledge. When all the Cruis'in games and spin offs are added up they probably do come out to be more than Daytona USA. But I bet you that Daytona USA has brought in more money to Arcade owners than Cruis'in USA has. Cruis'in USA may have been a good money maker back in the 90's. Daytona USA on the other and was and still is a good money maker to this day.

It'd be nice if we had the numbers to be able to do that direct comparison. But you're still wrong of course about ongoing success; the F&TF games show how the Cruis'n formula is still quite successful.

Daytona USA is still popular and played in Arcades. If I have to go to Dave and Busters on a Saturday night and take a picture of the crowd around Daytona USA I will if that's what needs to be done to prove to you that the game still makes money after 20 years. Before I mentioned that 65,000 number all of your arguments were on personal experience in this thread. Why can't my experiences across the country in different kinds of arcades count?

Given how few Dave & Busters there are in the US -- and how few other arcades on that scale/with modern games there are outside of Southern California, too -- I think that you're working from a very small sample size there. That is not representative of the average American arcade game location, not by a longshot.

And digging around old news articles from 1994 and 1995 we can see that Daytona USA was not only popular, but a smash hit. One article mentioned that Sega had sold around 33,000 Model 2 boards in 1994. Considering that there weren't many Model 2 games out in 1994, and that a large majority of the Model 2 games you still see around today are Daytona USA, I'd say a large majority of those 33,000 units were Daytona USA machines. And that's just for one year, it most certainly sold for a few more years. Going off that info I'd say Daytona USA was right up there with Cruis'in USA in popularity if not more popular.[/quote]
Those are some pretty good sales, sure. But Daytona USA wasn't the only Model 2 game, you know, so those aren't all Daytona machines. Also, how long was it sold for new? Wouldn't most of the machines have sold earlier on? But yeah, sure, Daytona probably is right up there with Cruis'n USA. We just don't know which one is in first, and which is in second.

And I bet if you added up all the Saturn releases, the PC releases, the Dreamcast release and the XBLA/PSN release you'd get close to if not more than 3 million. The original Saturn port we know sold at least 500,000 as an article from 1996 during the 3 Free games promotion states that 500,000 Saturns were sold with that bundle. Which means at least 500,000 copies of the original Daytona USA for the Saturn made it into consumers hands.

I doubt that. Virtua Fighter 2 is the only Saturn game that sold a million copies, after all. Perhaps Daytona USA plus CCE plus CE all added together are a million -- and sure, that's quite possible -- but still, that leaves several million to go. The Dreamcast version, as a late, 2001 DC release, surely didn't sell amazingly. And as for the PS3 PSN and X360 XBLA releases, we don't usually hear about downloadable game sales, but from what I have heard, selling millions is very, very rare. The chances that PS3/360 Daytona sold like 1.5 million copies, or something, to get it over 3 million -- and that's using optimistic Saturn plus DC sales guesses too -- is remote at best, I think. Sorry.

Here is, step by step, a direct breakdown of a series of spinning kicks by jacky and pai which demonstrates exactly how virtua fighter operates in 3D. These specific moves are from VF2, but a similar situation can absolutely exist in any VF game. This is from an overhead view, with black stuff representing things at medium height, blue stuff representing stuff at low height, and red stuff representing stuff at high height. Green represents collision.

http://i.imgur.com/pyN8k.png
Step one: jacky on the left, Pai on the right. Both are facing each other. Pai executes a standing grab, which pulls jacky forward and positions herself to his side.

http://i.imgur.com/cPIC3.png
step two: it's important now to show each character's stance in relation to each other, as indicated by the small circles within their body. Jacky executes his spinning roundhouse.

http://i.imgur.com/teCql.png
Step three: Jacky begins by kicking his back leg out down low first.

http://i.imgur.com/vXTMd.png
Step four: Jacky brings his leg around in frame 2. The bottom half of his leg still hits low, but the tip of his foot hits high.

http://i.imgur.com/a71Fa.png
Step Five: Pai drops down, while Jacky's leg is extended high. It completely goes over Pai's head. Pai executes her crouching spinning kick.

http://i.imgur.com/mGOGv.png
Step six: Pai's front leg extends forward. Her reach isn't long enough to hit jacky's back leg, and it all hits low since she's crouching.

http://i.imgur.com/JrvQ1.png
Step 7: Pai pivots counter clockwise low. Her leg sweeps Jacky's front leg, which is anchored down because he's finishing his pivot with that leg. Collision is detected, and jacky falls to the ground.

Completely in 3D. This is 3D fighting - in all 3 axis. Collision isn't bound to 2 axis, and it matters in all directions. I will now break down the usefulness of side stepping in Toshinden in my next post.

I thought about dropping this because it's obvious that we're never going to agree, but meh, I'll give it one more post.

I know I've said it before, but I simply believe that you are using the wrong basis for determining if racing games are more 2.5d or more 3d. It's not about the action buttons, it's about the movement controls. The movement controls. And those games do not have true 3d movement. It really is that simple. What you're talking about is something else. Having some 3d movement in the attacks is fine, but that's not the same thing as being able to move around in 3d! Your comparison here (I'm just quoting one, but I'm referring to both) is interesting, certainly, but misses the point, I think.

And also, you keep conveniently ignoring (without any reference, either) how I've never said that the games are entirely 2.5d. I said mostly 2.5d. I made the difference between VF and SFIV and such very clear. And yet you keep acting like I'm calling VF the same as anything else 2.5d, or something. That's false, and quite annoying. I guess your response is that it's entirely 3d, but without 3d movement, that just is not true. And don't say "you don't understand because you haven't played it enough". Sure, I haven't memorized those moves, but I can see the movement controls just fine. Basically you're determining whether a game is 3d or not based on how the fighters move while you attack eachother, while I think that how the player directly moves the character around is what matters. (Oh, and seriously, that stuff about hitboxes and attack directions is interesting, but doesn't really affect the topic. I'm sure there are plenty of 2.5d platformers with 3d hitboxes, but does that make them 3d platformers? Of course not! Klonoa isn't 3d just because you can attack into the screen and such as well as forward and backward... that's not how you determine 2.5d versus 3d. And Goemon's Great Adventure isn't a 3d platformer either just because it has isometric 3d towns and branching paths in the stages. The main game levels have you moving along 2d planes, and that's what determines it. Enemies sometimes come at you from all four directions, but that just makes it a 2.5d game with some 3d elements.)

Maybe VF and co. play a bit more 3d if you're very good at the games, which I certainly am not... but still, that's just stuff with the attack buttons, not the movement commands. Like I remember DOA (which as I've said I did play quite a bit on the PS1, and liked a lot), there was this one button that did an attack that moved in 3d a bit, but 95% plus of the gameplay was on a 2.5d plane, and that's certainly what determines the primary category.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

It'd be nice if we had the numbers to be able to do that direct comparison. But you're still wrong of course about ongoing success; the F&TF games show how the Cruis'n formula is still quite successful.

The concept maybe, not the franchise or the original game.

Given how few Dave & Busters there are in the US -- and how few other arcades on that scale/with modern games there are outside of Southern California, too -- I think that you're working from a very small sample size there. That is not representative of the average American arcade game location, not by a longshot.

There are almost 60 Dave and Busters in the US. Most are concentrated along the East cost, Midwest, and Southwest United States. The only really sparse areas for them are the deep south (Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) and the Northwest. Most if not all Locations have a 6-8 Cabinet Daytona USA set up. The game is even listed on their Featured games page. They do have one Fast and the Furious game listed under Drivers, but it's not a featured one. Meaning it's not at all locations. Not a Single Cruis'in game is listed either.

Those are some pretty good sales, sure. But Daytona USA wasn't the only Model 2 game, you know, so those aren't all Daytona machines. Also, how long was it sold for new? Wouldn't most of the machines have sold earlier on? But yeah, sure, Daytona probably is right up there with Cruis'n USA. We just don't know which one is in first, and which is in second.

I'm well aware of that, I touched on it in the very post you quoted. Daytona came out in 1993 in Japan and 1994 in the US. It was the one out the longest when that article was published. The only other major ones out at that time were Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter 2. Neither of which had been out nearly as long as Daytona. So it's rather safe to say a good number of those were Daytona USA machines. In fact the article itself mentions that Daytona USA was the top selling one of them all.

I doubt that. Virtua Fighter 2 is the only Saturn game that sold a million copies, after all. Perhaps Daytona USA plus CCE plus CE all added together are a million -- and sure, that's quite possible -- but still, that leaves several million to go. The Dreamcast version, as a late, 2001 DC release, surely didn't sell amazingly. And as for the PS3 PSN and X360 XBLA releases, we don't usually hear about downloadable game sales, but from what I have heard, selling millions is very, very rare. The chances that PS3/360 Daytona sold like 1.5 million copies, or something, to get it over 3 million -- and that's using optimistic Saturn plus DC sales guesses too -- is remote at best, I think. Sorry.

Based on what Wikipedia says yes, Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn game to sell 1 million copies. However from articles of the time we know the original Daytona USA on the Saturn in the US alone sold at least 500,000 copies. And we know it had to have sold more than that in the US. It was published that when Sega released the 3 Free games bundle that they sold 500,000 Saturns in that Holiday season. Considering this bundle went on for quite a while I'd say at least 1 million copies of that bundle were sold considering that roughly 3 million Saturns were sold in the US give or take. And considering that we know the individual releases also sold I'd say the Original Saturn port of Daytona USA must have sold over 1 million copies. Throw in Championship Circuit Edition and the other regions and I'd say it's safe to assume that when we add up the Saturn releases, the PC releases, the Dreamcast Release, the XBLA and PSN release and the original Arcade release that at least 3 million copies were sold when you're all said and done.

Just because Wikipedia only lists Virtua Fighter 2 as a Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies doesn't mean it's necessarily the only one. Again we don't have a nice clean list that tells us everything. But going off what was published in articles form the time period I think it's safe to say Daytona USA and probably Virtua cop sold close to or over 1 million copies. Especially when you see how common these titles are.

[A Black Falcon]

The concept maybe, not the franchise or the original game.

Um, yes, the franchise and the original game were extremely successful... you even proved that yourself, with that 65,000 number (for the franchise). And the first game certainly was very successful.

There are almost 60 Dave and Busters in the US. Most are concentrated along the East cost, Midwest, and Southwest United States. The only really sparse areas for them are the deep south (Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) and the Northwest. Most if not all Locations have a 6-8 Cabinet Daytona USA set up. The game is even listed on their Featured games page. They do have one Fast and the Furious game listed under Drivers, but it's not a featured one. Meaning it's not at all locations. Not a Single Cruis'in game is listed either.

60 sites is a pretty small number. Surely you know that. Also, gameplay-wise, if they have F&TF they don't need Cruis'n too. Also, how do you know what games they all have? Do they all have exactly the same games or something? If that website list is the games that every single store has and they're all the same, then they all should have two of the F&TF games, because two are listed in the racing category on their stite's page (F&TF, and F&TF Super Bikes).

I'm well aware of that, I touched on it in the very post you quoted. Daytona came out in 1993 in Japan and 1994 in the US. It was the one out the longest when that article was published. The only other major ones out at that time were Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter 2. Neither of which had been out nearly as long as Daytona. So it's rather safe to say a good number of those were Daytona USA machines. In fact the article itself mentions that Daytona USA was the top selling one of them all.

Sure, most probably are. But there's no way to compare Daytona to Cruis'n USA directly when we don't know enough about the sales of either game to say for sure which sold better.

Based on what Wikipedia says yes, Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn game to sell 1 million copies. However from articles of the time we know the original Daytona USA on the Saturn in the US alone sold at least 500,000 copies. And we know it had to have sold more than that in the US. It was published that when Sega released the 3 Free games bundle that they sold 500,000 Saturns in that Holiday season. Considering this bundle went on for quite a while I'd say at least 1 million copies of that bundle were sold considering that roughly 3 million Saturns were sold in the US give or take. And considering that we know the individual releases also sold I'd say the Original Saturn port of Daytona USA must have sold over 1 million copies. Throw in Championship Circuit Edition and the other regions and I'd say it's safe to assume that when we add up the Saturn releases, the PC releases, the Dreamcast Release, the XBLA and PSN release and the original Arcade release that at least 3 million copies were sold when you're all said and done.

Just because Wikipedia only lists Virtua Fighter 2 as a Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies doesn't mean it's necessarily the only one. Again we don't have a nice clean list that tells us everything. But going off what was published in articles form the time period I think it's safe to say Daytona USA and probably Virtua cop sold close to or over 1 million copies. Especially when you see how common these titles are.

... Wait, so you're trying to say that we should ignore everything and just make up our own numbers if we dislike what we hear? Seriously? That's absurd! Those Wikipedia numbers are based on actual known facts. If Saturn Daytona had sold a million copies, I'm sure we'd known it. Sega would not have kept that quiet. So no, you can't just go making up facts just because you think actual known history (that VF2 is the only million-seller Saturn game) was wrong. It's not wrong just because you say so. That's not how things work...

Remember, the Saturn only sold about 2 to 2.5 million systems in the US, and only 9.5 million worldwide. And it faded fast in the US, too. VF2 was a million seller because it was a massive hit in Japan. It's pretty well known that there were no other Saturn million sellers. Clearly Daytona must have been not as successful there, at least on Saturn, because yeah, that bundle sold alright (half a million in the US is good, for the Saturn!).

No, as I said, I do see it as possible that Daytona USA, plus the bundled version, plus Daytona USA CCE, plus Daytona CE, plus Daytona USA CCE Netlink Edition, all added together, might be a million or more; sure, that's possible. I have no idea if it's true, of course, but it's entirely possible. But a multi-million seller, when no individual release sold a million and only the first version sold really well (thanks to bundling, early release, etc.)? Of course not.

As for the PC, Dreamcast, PS3, and 360, releases, those just aren't as large numbers each, I don't think. I know it's a lot of platforms, but I don't think it'd be enough sales to make up a multi million unit gap... not when none of those versions were big hits. The PC version is the big unknown, though; I have no clue how that sold. It's possible to make guesstimates for the other three console releases, but the PC? No idea.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Where did I make up numbers? I'm taking an educated guess based on the reported numbers in articles form the time. One article states that the bundle of Daytona USA and the Saturn in the US ALONE sold 500,000 in it's first few months on the market. That's not including Europe and it's not including Japan where the Saturn was much more popular. Nor is it including the individual release or the later versions or later sales for that bundle. So it's not a stretch to assume that it sold even more than that number since it's only mentioning a portion of that games total sales for a specific region. I'm not saying make up numbers, I'm saying use your freaking head based on what's reported from the time period. I'd say it would be a reasonable estimate to say the Saturn port of Daytona sold close to if not more than 1 million copies based on how common it is and the reported sales data we do have.

It's not well known that there were no other Saturn million sellers, it's just that no others were reported. There's a big difference. Virtua Fighter 2 is the only reported one(that we know of) and Wikipedia and the rest of the internet ran with that to say that it's the only one that did sell over 1 million. The Saturn actually sold quite well in it's first year on the market as many news articles from the time show. Start digging up newspaper articles from the time period. You may be surprised at the Saturns reported sales in it's first year. The Saturn's commonly quoted history is a complete crapshoot at times. One or two people wrote some poorly researched books/articles on it and those have since become gospel that everyone quotes and a lot of it is quite wrong. All one has to do to prove it is look at articles from the time period.

And the XBLA release was the 2nd most Downloaded title the week of it's release and was still in the top 10 weeks later.

For an arcade chain like Dave and Busters 60 isn't that small of a number. That's enough to have 1 in each state. Sure it's pathetic in terms of Wal-Mart or a fast food chain but for a specialty chain that's a decent number. Every Dave and Busters has Daytona USA. It's listed under featured games. Those are the ones they advertise having and make the most money on having. They are the ones you will find at every location if I remember correctly. The other ones are games they usually have not all locations have them. For example the one near me doesn't have the Fast and the Furious super bikes. The Wikipedia article even touches on this saying all locations have 6-8 Daytona USA cabinets linked up.

And Dave and Busters is just one popular example. Daytona USA is still prominent in Amusement park Arcades and large Arcades throughout the country. You'd have to be in a pretty pathetic arcade for it to have Cruis'in but not Daytona USA. You keep saying I'm in the small sample size and my personal experience doesn't count, but have you ever stopped to consider that you may be in that boat? I've been in Arcades across the entire easter states in the past 5-10 years. Daytona was prominent in all of them. I'm sure there are other people here who can back me up on this and tell you that the game is still quite popular and easy to find in arcades.

[j_factor]

Based on what Wikipedia says yes, Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn game to sell 1 million copies. However from articles of the time we know the original Daytona USA on the Saturn in the US alone sold at least 500,000 copies. And we know it had to have sold more than that in the US. It was published that when Sega released the 3 Free games bundle that they sold 500,000 Saturns in that Holiday season. Considering this bundle went on for quite a while I'd say at least 1 million copies of that bundle were sold considering that roughly 3 million Saturns were sold in the US give or take. And considering that we know the individual releases also sold I'd say the Original Saturn port of Daytona USA must have sold over 1 million copies.

Let's back up a sec. Saturn sold approximately 2 million units in the US. It may be slightly over, but it was definitely very close to 2 mil. That 500,000 number is actually units sold for December 1996 only. (Yes, that's right, a fourth of the system's total sales were in one month. It sold quite well for a brief period of time, it was not consistently bad.) The 3 Free Games pack started November 18 and lasted until May 31. Saturn sold approximately 600k for Q1 1997. Therefore, the 3 Free Games pack itself sold over a million in the US alone.

Here's the thing: "3 Free Games" was counted as its own release. Its sales were not counted for its constituent games.

Throw in Championship Circuit Edition and the other regions and I'd say it's safe to assume that when we add up the Saturn releases, the PC releases, the Dreamcast Release, the XBLA and PSN release and the original Arcade release that at least 3 million copies were sold when you're all said and done.

I'm not so sure about that. The PC version of Daytona USA was a flop. And even though the arcade release was massive, unit sales of an arcade game is not going to be a large number. CCE and the DC version did okay at best. If the whole series sold 3 million, it's just barely that.

Just because Wikipedia only lists Virtua Fighter 2 as a Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies doesn't mean it's necessarily the only one. Again we don't have a nice clean list that tells us everything. But going off what was published in articles form the time period I think it's safe to say Daytona USA and probably Virtua cop sold close to or over 1 million copies. Especially when you see how common these titles are.

Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies in Japan alone, not worldwide.

edit:

The Saturn actually sold quite well in it's first year on the market as many news articles from the time show. Start digging up newspaper articles from the time period. You may be surprised at the Saturns reported sales in it's first year.

You are mistaken. Saturn sold a paltry total of 400,000 units from its pre-launch to the end of 1995. It's the system's second year that was a success. Its first year was crap.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Let's back up a sec. Saturn sold approximately 2 million units in the US. It may be slightly over, but it was definitely very close to 2 mil. That 500,000 number is actually units sold for December 1996 only. (Yes, that's right, a fourth of the system's total sales were in one month. It sold quite well for a brief period of time, it was not consistently bad.) The 3 Free Games pack started November 18 and lasted until May 31. Saturn sold approximately 600k for Q1 1997. Therefore, the 3 Free Games pack itself sold over a million in the US alone.

Here's the thing: "3 Free Games" was counted as its own release. Its sales were not counted for its constituent games.



I'm not so sure about that. The PC version of Daytona USA was a flop. And even though the arcade release was massive, unit sales of an arcade game is not going to be a large number. CCE and the DC version did okay at best. If the whole series sold 3 million, it's just barely that.



Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies in Japan alone, not worldwide.

edit:



You are mistaken. Saturn sold a paltry total of 400,000 units from its pre-launch to the end of 1995. It's the system's second year that was a success. Its first year was crap.

My bad, I was looking at a 96 article for those sales. But still, considering for one region we have the 3 free games bundle effectively pushing over 1 million copies of Daytona USA into Saturn owners hands I'd say if we throw in other regions and the other versions of the game on all systems that we'd get close to 3 million total. Not to mention the home ports of Daytona are at the disadvantage of being on systems that didn't sell well.

[A Black Falcon]

Let's back up a sec. Saturn sold approximately 2 million units in the US. It may be slightly over, but it was definitely very close to 2 mil. That 500,000 number is actually units sold for December 1996 only. (Yes, that's right, a fourth of the system's total sales were in one month. It sold quite well for a brief period of time, it was not consistently bad.) The 3 Free Games pack started November 18 and lasted until May 31. Saturn sold approximately 600k for Q1 1997. Therefore, the 3 Free Games pack itself sold over a million in the US alone.

Here's the thing: "3 Free Games" was counted as its own release. Its sales were not counted for its constituent games.

Oh it is? That's interesting. And those sales are large too. But did anything else on the system (other than VF2) sell in remotely those numbers?

I'm not so sure about that. The PC version of Daytona USA was a flop. And even though the arcade release was massive, unit sales of an arcade game is not going to be a large number. CCE and the DC version did okay at best. If the whole series sold 3 million, it's just barely that.

The PC version sold badly? Okay, that makes it much easier to say that 3 million for all Daytona ports combined is an extremely, extremely unlikely number, then.

Virtua Fighter 2 was the only Saturn title to sell over 1 million copies in Japan alone, not worldwide.

Oh, really? But did anything other than the 3-in-1 pack sell a million outside of Japan? I'd be surprised if anything did...

You are mistaken. Saturn sold a paltry total of 400,000 units from its pre-launch to the end of 1995. It's the system's second year that was a success. Its first year was crap.

Yeah, the first year was atrocious. The PS1 easily outsold the Saturn in 1995 despite being on the market 3-4 months less. The second year was better, but still, the Saturn was absolutely buried by the N64 and PS1... that 500,000 in December 1996 was probably well below what the PS1 and N64 sold that month, I'll bet?

My bad, I was looking at a 96 article for those sales. But still, considering for one region we have the 3 free games bundle effectively pushing over 1 million copies of Daytona USA into Saturn owners hands I'd say if we throw in other regions and the other versions of the game on all systems that we'd get close to 3 million total. Not to mention the home ports of Daytona are at the disadvantage of being on systems that didn't sell well.

But the other versions didn't sell very much. CCE, CE, DC, PS3/360, PC? None of those sold all that much. Calling all of those combined a million would probably be an over-estimation. Adding up the sales of a bunch of games with average to mediocre sales won't get you to millions. The 3-in-1 selling over a million helps for sure, but seriously, adding up the other releases, all of them... you'd need two million more to get past the Cruis'n series! I don't see that happening. Not nearly enough.

[j_factor]

Oh it is? That's interesting. And those sales are large too. But did anything else on the system (other than VF2) sell in remotely those numbers?

No, not really. I don't have complete numbers or anything but Saturn sales were always very spread out. It was the polar opposite of the N64 which always had one game that was selling great at any given moment.

The PC version sold badly? Okay, that makes it much easier to say that 3 million for all Daytona ports combined is an extremely, extremely unlikely number, then.

Well, none of Sega's PC games from that time period were ever huge blockbusters. Even then, though, Daytona did badly. The first Daytona USA for PC was pathetic. Worse than the Saturn version, and it didn't come out until 1996. Daytona USA Deluxe was better, but it's basically just CCE. It came off as exceptionally lightweight for a late '97 PC release, and went straight to the bargain bins.

Oh, really? But did anything other than the 3-in-1 pack sell a million outside of Japan? I'd be surprised if anything did...

YA RLY. Virtua Fighter 2 sold 1.7 million copies in Japan. Kind of weird that not a single game sold betwen 1 million and 1.7 million, but whatever. Certainly, nothing other than the 3 pack sold a million in the US. You're not going to get million sellers on a 2 million installed user base. I'm pretty sure Super Mario 64 had sold a million copies at the point that N64 had sold two million systems, but there was no Saturn game with that kind of status.

A better question is, did any Saturn games, aside from VF2 and excluding the 3 game pack, sell over a million in combined worldwide sales? That I don't know, but I don't think so. Generally speaking, the Saturn games that did the best here were not popular in Japan (Bug, Tomb Raider, Sonic 3D, etc.) and a lot of the most popular games in Japan weren't even translated (Sakura Wars, Grandia, Tokimeki Memorial, etc). That works against it. But, I can imagine a Saturn game selling pretty close to a million in Japan, and total sales outside Japan putting it over the top.

Yeah, the first year was atrocious. The PS1 easily outsold the Saturn in 1995 despite being on the market 3-4 months less. The second year was better, but still, the Saturn was absolutely buried by the N64 and PS1... that 500,000 in December 1996 was probably well below what the PS1 and N64 sold that month, I'll bet?

Yes, that 500k was still a third place number. Still, it was definitely nothing to sneeze at, and some people were proclaiming the first true three-way console race. Bernie Stolar made sure to prove them wrong, though.

But the other versions didn't sell very much. CCE, CE, DC, PS3/360, PC? None of those sold all that much. Calling all of those combined a million would probably be an over-estimation. Adding up the sales of a bunch of games with average to mediocre sales won't get you to millions. The 3-in-1 selling over a million helps for sure, but seriously, adding up the other releases, all of them... you'd need two million more to get past the Cruis'n series! I don't see that happening. Not nearly enough.

It's hard to say. They don't release numbers for XBLA but #2 has got to be pretty decent.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

We know 1 million sold in the US alone, according to VGCharts about 550,000 were sold in Japan. So that's 1.5 million right there. As for the December 1996 sales if I remember correctly Sega actually came out on top that holiday season thanks in part to the N64 not having enough killer apps and the PS1 having a production shortage.

As for games that we know sold over 1 million copies worldwide there are these three:

Virtua Fighter
Virtua Fighter 2
Sega Rally Championship.

Now here's where we run into some issues. Going off of sites like VG Charts we see there were many other games that sold well but we are missing data. For example it has 550,000 for Daytona USA's sales in Japan. We know 1 Million more units were sold in the US and more must have sold in Europe. So we can safely say Daytona USA is another million+ seller for the Saturn worldwide. Virtua Cop and Fighters Megamix are other titles that have over 500,000 in Japan. Again we know at least 500,000 copies of Virtua cop must have made their way into consumers hands in the US and we don't have Europes sales, so that's another we can add to the list 1 million + sales list. Fighters Megamix was a late release but I'd bet it was again pretty high up there.

The problem with a lot of this is that we just don't have the sales data for that era that's as detailed as what we have today. I'd say with the information provided here that it would be a rather safe assumption to say that the total worldwide sales for all the Daytona titles on the Saturn would probably add up to around 2 million, maybe more. I'm guessing the sales for the original port in Europe, and the sales of CCE as well as the prior individual US release would get us up to or above 2 million. So the wild card here is Dreamcast and the XBLA release. So Dreamcast and XBLA need to make up about 1 million or less sales. Dreamcast might have around 1 million worldwide considering it's a very common title, but it still might be a stretch. For the game to get this close to Cruis'in on less popular systems is really saying something though. If Daytona USA was released on more popular systems would Cruisin' still possibly have more home sales?

[j_factor]

I didn't think to check VG Chartz. Their numbers are off for new releases, but I'm sure they got their 90s Japan sales figures straight from a good source. Japanese sales are pretty well-tracked. Ok, so, Daytona USA. These numbers courtesy of my ass.

1.1 mil US pack-ins
550k Japan sales
~100k non-pack-in US sales
~100k rest of the world
~100k PC releases (both versions, worldwide, combined)
140k CE Japan
~100k CCE US (incl. Netlink Edition)
~100k CCE rest of the world
~80k US Dreamcast (an old Usenet post stated 70,276)
~80k JP Dreamcast (doesn't appear on the Japan top 100 of 2001 list, and the game at the bottom of that list sold 114k)
~80k rest of the world DC
~50k arcade units
~10k Daytona USA 2
~10k Super GT/Scud Race
plus 500 copies for the R-Zone

That gives us 2.6 million total, and that's probably a bit high. I wonder how much the XBLA/PSN release sold. I know for US XBLA it was #2 the first week and #7 the second week, but I have no idea of even a ballpark of how many sales that would translate to. If combined worldwide sales exceeds half a million for XBLA and PSN, I think we can say the series hit 3 million or damn near it. I have no barometer whatsoever for how many units a "popular" download game sells, so that's a very big 'if'.

If Daytona USA was released on more popular systems would Cruisin' still possibly have more home sales?

Absolutely not.