Is Nintendo less popular in the UK?

I know that the UK has a lot less potential customers than say, America (the population diference being massive), but it seems, in general, that people over here are a lot less interested in Nintendo games. At boot sales, i can maybe only find one guy who sells nintendo games, and i'll be very lucky to find NES. But in America, NES games are littered at every stall. Were nintendo not popular that much back in the day for the UK, or is this all just some big co-incidence?

I had friends who had ZX Spectrum's, BBC Micro's, Commodore 64's while i had an Amstrad CPC. Then when the 90's came along i was on PC and friends had PC's and Amiga's, one friend had a Megadrive.

Aside from the GameBoy, no one i ever knew had a Nintendo.

That makes sense, i always see Sega Mega Drives at car boot sales. This is pretty sad though :(

That would explain why no one i know (who were alive then) had a nintendo... My friends dad had a Spectrum computer though and they're pretty damn awesome :)

Back in the day Nintendo were not really popular here at all. These days, with all the hype, and talk of Nintendo "saving the industry" and constant talk of Nintendo's games, and Nintendo's games alone (in regards to the 80s) you'd think otherwise, but its all really just marketing.

The month that Mario 3 was launched in the UK it was utterly, utterly crushed in sales by one of the Dizzy games (I think Magicland)

The computer market here was really strong, and established when the NES was released, NES got the reputation of being childish and mainly for kids, Master System gained more fans due to the popularity of the arcades in the UK during the 80s, Sega were a big name.

When the NES started turning up in UK stores, magazines were giving huge coverage to the 16-bit Amiga, and Atari ST computers, this was where the new gaming fans who had a lot of cash were going during this time in the UK, on top of that the UK magazines went absolutely crazy for the PC-Engine, which they had imported from Japan, virtually every magazine ran scores of PC-Engine reviews at the time, and people were clamouring to buy them, but after constant rumours over a period of years the system was never actually properly released here (there was just a crappy 3rd party attempt to bring it out with no advertising and little distribution). People in the UK really wanted the PC-Engine, not the NES, but sadly it never turned up.

NES later on gained a decent sized userbase of pre-pubescent boys, mainly on the back of Game Boy popularity (Game Boy was huge in the UK), and all the Nintendo themed cartoons that started turning up from the US (Mario, Zelda, Captain N).

Spectrum sold ~4 million (most of these were 1982-1985 though)

C64 sold ~4 million (most of these were mid to late 80s)

Amstrad sold ~2 million (mostly mid to late 80s)

Master System sold ~ 1.5 million (mostly late 80s and early 90s)

NES sold ~1 million (mostly late 80 and early 90s)

I've always thought of Nintendo as the Whiteboy/Japaneese side of console gaming (or in the 80s/90s, atleast.)

Yes. The UK is very, and I mean VERY anti-Nintendo.

Yes. The UK is very, and I mean VERY anti-Nintendo.

GSJones1994

As for carboot sales btw, they can be a very tricky thing, some of them will regularly have certain products, some of them rarely, if ever, will. But have a look at some where like say, Gotham Games, in Lincoln (my home town) and you'll see tons of NES games. It's all about where you go. Oh and ebay, a lot of them find there way to ebay. Back in the day we were a smaller market of course, so you are right that it's harder to find second hand copies of certain games here in the UK compared to the US, but we certainly weren't small, I can remember seeing Nintendo (and SEGA) every where.

Sega got into the European territory before Nintendo, and were able to gobble up a lot of support.  The Master System outsold the NES in the late eighties and early nineties.  The Genesis or Mega Drive was also more popular than the SNES.  Europe has always been a Sega and Sony territory.  Nintendo did not take off over there like in Japan or North America. 

I wouldn't say the UK was anti-nintendo...

Sega master systems and megadrives were more popular, and I believe they took off more in Europe than they did in America. But people were still interested in Nintendo all the same. Growing up in the 90's I remember that most of my friends only had one console per househand, and it was usually either a playstation 1, a sega, or a nintendo. I guess it just depended on your own personal preference. But back then -- at least for me -- people didn't really have multiple consoles until probably when the portable ones started to gain the limelight. A lot of people were buying Gameboys by the time they started to get released here.

There is still an interest for Nintendo there even today, but I think that the main consoles just gain more attention. Usually when it gets to about Christmastime is when you find all the DS advertisments and the Wii ones more than usual (as expected). I think it's just a case that people know what they want, and it's usually on another console. 

Erm, NO, no we're not. Nintendo has sold millions upon millions here and always has.penpusher

In the early days, no.

The NES was simply not popular with UK teenagers. Period. It was generally only popular with children born ~the mid 80s.

In the 80s, teenagers, and young adults were very, very into computers, consoles took ages to come back into vogue.

The only two NES games which ever managed to get into the UK monthly top 20 sales charts were Turtles, and Mario 3.

The figures I posted earlier are taken straight from statements made to gaming magazines, NES sold a little over 1 million total in the UK, this is why the games aren't everywhere, C64 sold 4 million in the UK, and was outselling it every year until the early 90s.

Note: 1 million hardware sales isn't actually bad for the UK, that's respectable, decent sales for here, NES was certainly not a sales failure.

Mega Drive was the 1st console here where mainstreamers of all ages swapped back to consoles en masse.

SNES sold fairly well here, it was something like a 60/40 split in favour of Mega Drive in the end.

But I agree that Britain being "very anti-Nintendo" is an exageration, there has always been very vocal Nintendo supporters in the UK, even during the NES days in certain demographics and age groups. Also, these days Nintendo support in the UK is much, much higher than it ever was in the 80s, these days most of the younger gamers think 80s UK gaming was all about Zelda and Mario, due to how much exposure Nintendo gives these games now.

In Europe, I think, Nintendo was more popular than Sega in West Germany, probably because they had theier European headquarters there, but I'm not sure.

Judging from this video by British podcaster Guru Larry, Nintendo got off on the wrong foot in the UK and maybe never really caught up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av30Qpjm7dM

Judging from this video by British podcaster Guru Larry, Nintendo got off on the wrong foot in the UK and maybe never really caught up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av30Qpjm7dMGaussRiemann

Ignore that guy, he seems to have no idea what he's talking about.

NES only sold in chemists?! wtf? £70 games? wtf?

I used to buy NES games from Woolworths, and Curry's

Right from launch NES was sold in Argos, Hamleys, Toys R Us & Harrods, as well as the big catalogues (like Grattans).

We didn't actually have any big, widespread dedicated gaming store in the UK in the 80s

Average price for NES games at launch was £20-£32, Master System tended to be £20-£25 (though to be fair SMS had the cards, like Hang-On, and Ghost House, which were certainly cheaper, I think they were closer to £13 - £15)

Both pictures from 1987, by 1989 I remember the NES being sold all over the place.

Nintendo didn't get coverage like this in Europe:

Amusing when you consider the title sponsor and the target audience for Sega.

Back in the day Nintendo were not really popular here at all. These days, with all the hype, and talk of Nintendo "saving the industry" and constant talk of Nintendo's games, and Nintendo's games alone (in regards to the 80s) you'd think otherwise, but its all really just marketing.

The month that Mario 3 was launched in the UK it was utterly, utterly crushed in sales by one of the Dizzy games (I think Magicland)

The computer market here was really strong, and established when the NES was released, NES got the reputation of being childish and mainly for kids, Master System gained more fans due to the popularity of the arcades in the UK during the 80s, Sega were a big name.

When the NES started turning up in UK stores, magazines were giving huge coverage to the 16-bit Amiga, and Atari ST computers, this was where the new gaming fans who had a lot of cash were going during this time in the UK, on top of that the UK magazines went absolutely crazy for the PC-Engine, which they had imported from Japan, virtually every magazine ran scores of PC-Engine reviews at the time, and people were clamouring to buy them, but after constant rumours over a period of years the system was never actually properly released here (there was just a crappy 3rd party attempt to bring it out with no advertising and little distribution). People in the UK really wanted the PC-Engine, not the NES, but sadly it never turned up.

NES later on gained a decent sized userbase of pre-pubescent boys, mainly on the back of Game Boy popularity (Game Boy was huge in the UK), and all the Nintendo themed cartoons that started turning up from the US (Mario, Zelda, Captain N).

Spectrum sold ~4 million (most of these were 1982-1985 though)

C64 sold ~4 million (most of these were mid to late 80s)

Amstrad sold ~2 million (mostly mid to late 80s)

Master System sold ~ 1.5 million (mostly late 80s and early 90s)

NES sold ~1 million (mostly late 80 and early 90s)

Domino_slayer

ZX Spectrum sold 5 million worldwide and Amstrad CPC sold 3 million worldwide. I doubt most of those sales came from the UK alone, since they were also selling quite well in other parts of Europe. If I had to estimate, I'd say the UK sales were ~2 million for Spectrum and ~1.5 million for Amstrad.

As for the Sega Master System, ~1.5 million was how much it had sold by 1993. Considering how it was continuing to sell in the UK up until 1996, I'd estimate it sold up to ~2 million overall in the UK.

EDIT:

You're more or less spot on about everything else though. I remember the PC Engine getting quite a lot of coverage in UK gaming mags at the time, which was unusual for a console that wasn't even officially released in the UK (though it did get a very limited third-party release, like you pointed out). The UK had a thriving import scene back in those days (with plenty of import stores even selling the rarest of Japanese games), but that UK import scene kind of died out around the PS2 era.

In the UK, the only Nintendo consoles to have had mainstream success back then were the handhelds, i.e. the Game Boy, GBC, GBA, and DS.

The only Nintendo home console to ever have had widespread mainstream success in the UK was the Wii.

Other than that, the home console market was dominated by Sega in the 8-bit to 16-bit days and by Sony in the 32-bit to 128-bit days.

I know that the UK has a lot less potential customers than say, America (the population diference being massive), but it seems, in general, that people over here are a lot less interested in Nintendo games. At boot sales, i can maybe only find one guy who sells nintendo games, and i'll be very lucky to find NES. But in America, NES games are littered at every stall. Were nintendo not popular that much back in the day for the UK, or is this all just some big co-incidence?

xXsmithy98Xx

yes. uk like pretty much everything in europe was always sega territory. the uk one of it's biggest strongholds though and good for that. countries like spian, portugal and italy you are lucky to find a gameboy as nintendo product and pretty much nothing else

[QUOTE="GSJones1994"]

Yes. The UK is very, and I mean VERY anti-Nintendo.

penpusher

As for carboot sales btw, they can be a very tricky thing, some of them will regularly have certain products, some of them rarely, if ever, will. But have a look at some where like say, Gotham Games, in Lincoln (my home town) and you'll see tons of NES games. It's all about where you go. Oh and ebay, a lot of them find there way to ebay. Back in the day we were a smaller market of course, so you are right that it's harder to find second hand copies of certain games here in the UK compared to the US, but we certainly weren't small, I can remember seeing Nintendo (and SEGA) every where.

uh no. only gameboy and wii have sold millions and millions in uk and that was pretty much after sega was done.

I wouldn't say the UK was anti-nintendo...

Sega master systems and megadrives were more popular, and I believe they took off more in Europe than they did in America. But people were still interested in Nintendo all the same. Growing up in the 90's I remember that most of my friends only had one console per househand, and it was usually either a playstation 1, a sega, or a nintendo. I guess it just depended on your own personal preference. But back then -- at least for me -- people didn't really have multiple consoles until probably when the portable ones started to gain the limelight. A lot of people were buying Gameboys by the time they started to get released here.

There is still an interest for Nintendo there even today, but I think that the main consoles just gain more attention. Usually when it gets to about Christmastime is when you find all the DS advertisments and the Wii ones more than usual (as expected). I think it's just a case that people know what they want, and it's usually on another console. 

hinotoriii

nintendo was never popular in europe until the wii basically and for this to understand you have to go back to how european gaming was set up. the market was very mature in the 80s already thanks to commodore 64 and amiga that were very popular in europe and because there was never a game crash in europe. also atari stayed very popular because of that. and therefore nintendo could never get a foothold into europe and "kiddy" games were not popular, not even with kids. it was all simulations, sports games, european rpg's, cyberpunk and more serious action and platform games. that's why sega products who where much more mature were much more popular. here where I lived I knew one guy with a nes and from 1994 I knew 1 guys with a snes. everyone else owned sega products including gamegears and also atari stuff like atari lynx and even atari jaguar was fairly succesful here.

ZX Spectrum sold 5 million worldwide and Amstrad CPC sold 3 million worldwide. I doubt most of those sales came from the UK alone, since they were also selling quite well in other parts of Europe.Jag85

Spectrum sold 5 million official machines

Russia was one of the biggest Spectrum markets, but they only bought clones, so they're not included in that total.

In regards to the rest of Europe, what you need to take into account is that back in the 80s the sales disparity between regions was much greater, Britain made up at least 30% of Europe's sales (its probably closer to 40% to be honest), only Britain, France, and Germany had markets that could really sell >1 million machines, after that you had places like Spain and Italy where a huge seller would be maybe ~600,00-800,000 (if a company had a monopoly in one of those regions they could hit >1 million though), then Scandinavia, and eastern European countries where you're looking at a hugely popular best seller being in the region of 100,000 - 200,000.

Out of the big three markets Spectrum was only popular in Britain, out of the secondary markets Spectrum was only a leading system in Spain (going up against Amstrad CPC, and to a much lessor extent the MSX), here it did not hit 1 million (maybe around 700,000 to 800,000), then in Italy it was a distant 2nd behind the more popular C64 (probably only a few hundred thousand, best case scenario), Poland and Ukraine are going to be negligible.

To be honest I wasn't really estimating sales figures, what I've said is not going to be more than a few hundred thousand out, as I've seen numerous sales statements for these different regions, I'm just filling in some of the blanks

In regards to Amstrad, last year I got into an argument with someone and a lot of info was thrown around and yeah, the majority of Amstrad sales are going to be the UK too. Previously I had thought the majority would be from France, as I knew the system was the leading 8-bit computer in that region, but sales figures don't back this up. Turns out that France wasn't actually as pro computer as the rest of Europe, in this region the 8-bit consoles actually became more popular than computers and sold side by side with them.

Still your 1.5 million estimation for Amstrad is well within the realms of possibilty, I was rounding my estimation up anyway tbh.

Your Spectrum estimation is waay off though, as in ludicrously off, the computer was selling 1 million a year in the UK in the early days, it was absolutely huge and it pretty much had a monopoly until the C64 got its ass into gear in the mid 80s.

As for the Sega Master System, ~1.5 million was how much it had sold by 1993. Considering how it was continuing to sell in the UK up until 1996, I'd estimate it sold up to ~2 million overall in the UK.Jag85

What I've seen points to SMS having very negligible sales post 93, personally I don't even remember it being around after 93 anywhere apart from mail order catalogues like Grattan and Great Universal, maybe Argos, and the Monopolies and Mergers Commision estimated that it would be selling in the region of ~50,000 in 1994 and dropping fast.

master system was still around evidently in benelux and germany after 1993.

Spectrum sold 5 million official machines

Russia was one of the biggest Spectrum markets, but they only bought clones, so they're not included in that total.

In regards to the rest of Europe, what you need to take into account is that back in the 80s the sales disparity between regions was much greater, Britain made up at least 30% of Europe's sales (its probably closer to 40% to be honest), only Britain, France, and Germany had markets that could really sell >1 million machines, after that you had places like Spain and Italy where a huge seller would be maybe ~600,00-800,000 (if a company had a monopoly in one of those regions they could hit >1 million though), then Scandinavia, and eastern European countries where you're looking at a hugely popular best seller being in the region of 100,000 - 200,000.

Out of the big three markets Spectrum was only popular in Britain, out of the secondary markets Spectrum was only a leading system in Spain (going up against Amstrad CPC, and to a much lessor extent the MSX), here it did not hit 1 million (maybe around 700,000 to 800,000), then in Italy it was a distant 2nd behind the more popular C64 (probably only a few hundred thousand, best case scenario), Poland and Ukraine are going to be negligible.

To be honest I wasn't really estimating sales figures, what I've said is not going to be more than a few hundred thousand out, as I've seen numerous sales statements for these different regions, I'm just filling in some of the blanks

In regards to Amstrad, last year I got into an argument with someone and a lot of info was thrown around and yeah, the majority of Amstrad sales are going to be the UK too. Previously I had thought the majority would be from France, as I knew the system was the leading 8-bit computer in that region, but sales figures don't back this up. Turns out that France wasn't actually as pro computer as the rest of Europe, in this region the 8-bit consoles actually became more popular than computers and sold side by side with them.

Still your 1.5 million estimation for Amstrad is well within the realms of possibilty, I was rounding my estimation up anyway tbh.

Your Spectrum estimation is waay off though, as in ludicrously off, the computer was selling 1 million a year in the UK in the early days, it was absolutely huge and it pretty much had a monopoly until the C64 got its ass into gear in the mid 80s.

Domino_slayer

I think the Spectrum and Amstrad were probably slightly before my time. I remember the C64 and BBC Micro being quite popular when I started gaming, and then the Master System took over after that. The BBC Micro sold 1.5 million, so I'm a bit surprised by your 4 million estimate for the Spectrum. Are you sure it's not more closer to 3 million?

What I've seen points to SMS having very negligible sales post 93, personally I don't even remember it being around after 93 anywhere apart from mail order catalogues like Grattan and Great Universal, maybe Argos, and the Monopolies and Mergers Commision estimated that it would be selling in the region of ~50,000 in 1994 and dropping fast.

Domino_slayer

I remember even after the Saturn and PlayStation launched, the Master System was still being sold in various catalogues, including Argos, Littlewoods, and a few others. Still, I'd say the overall estimate for SMS should be somewhere between 1.5 - 2 million in the UK.

[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]

Spectrum sold 5 million official machines

Russia was one of the biggest Spectrum markets, but they only bought clones, so they're not included in that total.

In regards to the rest of Europe, what you need to take into account is that back in the 80s the sales disparity between regions was much greater, Britain made up at least 30% of Europe's sales (its probably closer to 40% to be honest), only Britain, France, and Germany had markets that could really sell >1 million machines, after that you had places like Spain and Italy where a huge seller would be maybe ~600,00-800,000 (if a company had a monopoly in one of those regions they could hit >1 million though), then Scandinavia, and eastern European countries where you're looking at a hugely popular best seller being in the region of 100,000 - 200,000.

Out of the big three markets Spectrum was only popular in Britain, out of the secondary markets Spectrum was only a leading system in Spain (going up against Amstrad CPC, and to a much lessor extent the MSX), here it did not hit 1 million (maybe around 700,000 to 800,000), then in Italy it was a distant 2nd behind the more popular C64 (probably only a few hundred thousand, best case scenario), Poland and Ukraine are going to be negligible.

To be honest I wasn't really estimating sales figures, what I've said is not going to be more than a few hundred thousand out, as I've seen numerous sales statements for these different regions, I'm just filling in some of the blanks

In regards to Amstrad, last year I got into an argument with someone and a lot of info was thrown around and yeah, the majority of Amstrad sales are going to be the UK too. Previously I had thought the majority would be from France, as I knew the system was the leading 8-bit computer in that region, but sales figures don't back this up. Turns out that France wasn't actually as pro computer as the rest of Europe, in this region the 8-bit consoles actually became more popular than computers and sold side by side with them.

Still your 1.5 million estimation for Amstrad is well within the realms of possibilty, I was rounding my estimation up anyway tbh.

Your Spectrum estimation is waay off though, as in ludicrously off, the computer was selling 1 million a year in the UK in the early days, it was absolutely huge and it pretty much had a monopoly until the C64 got its ass into gear in the mid 80s.

Jag85

I think the Spectrum and Amstrad were probably slightly before my time. I remember the C64 and BBC Micro being quite popular when I started gaming, and then the Master System took over after that. The BBC Micro sold 1.5 million, so I'm a bit surprised by your 4 million estimate for the Spectrum. Are you sure it's not more closer to 3 million?

What I've seen points to SMS having very negligible sales post 93, personally I don't even remember it being around after 93 anywhere apart from mail order catalogues like Grattan and Great Universal, maybe Argos, and the Monopolies and Mergers Commision estimated that it would be selling in the region of ~50,000 in 1994 and dropping fast.

Domino_slayer

I remember even after the Saturn and PlayStation launched, the Master System was still being sold in various catalogues, including Argos, Littlewoods, and a few others. Still, I'd say the overall estimate for SMS should be somewhere between 1.5 - 2 million in the UK.

I think the Spectrum and Amstrad were probably slightly before my time. I remember the C64 and BBC Micro being quite popular when I started gaming, and then the Master System took over after that. The BBC Micro sold 1.5 million, so I'm a bit surprised by your 4 million estimate for the Spectrum. Are you sure it's not more closer to 3 million?Jag85

Spectrum was a phenomenom in the UK, there were like >1000 games a year coming out in the early days (literally).

BBC was bought mainly as an educational machine for schools, where it came to gaming it was mainly in the homes of kids with well-off backgrounds whose parents wanted them to have a "proper" computer.

Spectrum hit its height 1983-1984, it hit the ground running because Sinclair's two previous machines had both been a success, the ZX80 was more of a hobby machine, but the ZX81 actually built a decent gaming scene around itself and was quite popular for a short period.

In the beginning the competition was between the Spectrum, Dragon (which was actually a Welsh version of the US CoCo), and BBC. The C64 took longer to take off for a number of different reasons (mainly its price didn't drop until around late 1983, and initially they pushed the Disk Drive, which was actually as expensive as the computer itself!).

During 1983 there were a ton of new computers released early on in the year. Even though they were already in the lead by a sizeable amount, Sinclair price dropped the system to £129 and it essentially wiped out all of the competition.

From 1984 onwards Amstrad CPC was sold as an easy to set-up "complete system" including the tape deck in the computer, and a black and white or colour monitor with each system. This was always Amstrad's gimmick, they'd built their company doing this with stereo system's (though to be fair the CPC also had good features for doing actual computing, and was better suited for this sort of thing than C64 and Spectrum).

In 1985 the Spectrum's sales dropped by a significant amount, Sinclair had basically ignored the machine to focus on their new computer, the QL (which failed), and their stupid electric car (which failed). They rushed out the Spectrum 128k model, but it wasn't enough and so they had to sell their Spectrum business to Amstrad who then did with the Spectrum 128 what they did with everything else (complete system with built-in tape deck, built in joystick ports etc). The Amstrad Spectrum sold steadily, and well for the remainder of the 80s, but it never again reached the heights of the original 48k model (maybe a little over 1 million are +2 models, the rest of the Spectrum's sold were primarily the 48k, and the 48k + models).

C64 started off as a luxury system (Commodore's brand name in the UK was already known from the PET), when the price dropped and they moved to tape's, Turbo Loader's were written (programs which were put at the beginning of the tape that were loaded 1st which sped up the C64's incredibly slow tape loading). This, with the influx of US software into the UK grew the C64 market into one eventually rivalling the Spectrum. By the late 80s the C64 was outselling the Spectrum on a year to year basis, but the Spectrum's huge peak early on meant that C64 had a lot of catching up to do.

So almost around U.S. numbers.Tiger Superman

Yep, they sold as many Master System's in 3rd place in the UK as they did in a country with 4X the population.

You don't compare the North American market to the UK market, you compare it to Europe as a whole.

[QUOTE="Jag85"]I think the Spectrum and Amstrad were probably slightly before my time. I remember the C64 and BBC Micro being quite popular when I started gaming, and then the Master System took over after that. The BBC Micro sold 1.5 million, so I'm a bit surprised by your 4 million estimate for the Spectrum. Are you sure it's not more closer to 3 million?Domino_slayer

Spectrum was a phenomenom in the UK, there were like >1000 games a year coming out in the early days (literally).

BBC was bought mainly as an educational machine for schools, where it came to gaming it was mainly in the homes of kids with well-off backgrounds whose parents wanted them to have a "proper" computer.

Spectrum hit its height 1983-1984, it hit the ground running because Sinclair's two previous machines had both been a success, the ZX80 was more of a hobby machine, but the ZX81 actually built a decent gaming scene around itself and was quite popular for a short period.

In the beginning the competition was between the Spectrum, Dragon (which was actually a Welsh version of the US CoCo), and BBC. The C64 took longer to take off for a number of different reasons (mainly its price didn't drop until around late 1983, and initially they pushed the Disk Drive, which was actually as expensive as the computer itself!).

During 1983 there were a ton of new computers released early on in the year. Even though they were already in the lead by a sizeable amount, Sinclair price dropped the system to £129 and it essentially wiped out all of the competition.

From 1984 onwards Amstrad CPC was sold as an easy to set-up "complete system" including the tape deck in the computer, and a black and white or colour monitor with each system. This was always Amstrad's gimmick, they'd built their company doing this with stereo system's (though to be fair the CPC also had good features for doing actual computing, and was better suited for this sort of thing than C64 and Spectrum).

In 1985 the Spectrum's sales dropped by a significant amount, Sinclair had basically ignored the machine to focus on their new computer, the QL (which failed), and their stupid electric car (which failed). They rushed out the Spectrum 128k model, but it wasn't enough and so they had to sell their Spectrum business to Amstrad who then did with the Spectrum 128 what they did with everything else (complete system with built-in tape deck, built in joystick ports etc). The Amstrad Spectrum sold steadily, and well for the remainder of the 80s, but it never again reached the heights of the original 48k model (maybe a little over 1 million are +2 models, the rest of the Spectrum's sold were primarily the 48k, and the 48k + models).

C64 started off as a luxury system (Commodore's brand name in the UK was already known from the PET), when the price dropped and they moved to tape's, Turbo Loader's were written (programs which were put at the beginning of the tape that were loaded 1st which sped up the C64's incredibly slow tape loading). This, with the influx of US software into the UK grew the C64 market into one eventually rivalling the Spectrum. By the late 80s the C64 was outselling the Spectrum on a year to year basis, but the Spectrum's huge peak early on meant that C64 had a lot of catching up to do.

So almost around U.S. numbers.Tiger Superman

Yep, they sold as many Master System's in 3rd place in the UK as they did in a country with 4X the population.

You don't compare the North American market to the UK market, you compare it to Europe as a whole.

[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]

[QUOTE="Tiger Superman"]So almost around U.S. numbers.Tiger Superman

Yep, they sold as many Master System's in 3rd place in the UK as they did in a country with 4X the population.

You don't compare the North American market to the UK market, you compare it to Europe as a whole.

Europe has always had about twice the population of North America, not "10x" the size.