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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And as I record this, my

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Speaker 1: email is starting to fill up with messages about E three.

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Speaker 1: That's the big computer and video game trade show that

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Speaker 1: happens in Los Angeles every year. This year, it's a

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Speaker 1: little different from previous years. This year, for the first

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Speaker 1: time in Ages, E three is going to open up

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Speaker 1: its doors to the general public. You can actually attend

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Speaker 1: E three as a member of the general public. I

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Speaker 1: think you have to purchase a ticket to go. I'm media,

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Speaker 1: so it's different for me. I'm covering the event. I'm

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Speaker 1: not attending it the way other folks are. But this

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Speaker 1: is the first time in the Ages that the general

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Speaker 1: public has been allowed to go to E three. Before,

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Speaker 1: it's been one of those things where you had to

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Speaker 1: be an industry professional or part of the media in

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Speaker 1: order to get uh in there, or you just had

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Speaker 1: to know somebody and kind of leverage those personal relationships

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Speaker 1: in order to get access to it. So it should

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Speaker 1: be a really interesting show. But it does mean that

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Speaker 1: things are starting to get real busy. In my email inbox,

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Speaker 1: I do plan on going to E three. I plan

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Speaker 1: on recording at least one show about what I see

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Speaker 1: out there if I can, if I can manage it.

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Speaker 1: Uh And I thought, in honor of all that, in

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Speaker 1: honor of E three and video games, I would do

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Speaker 1: a show in which I talk about some of the

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Speaker 1: best selling games of all time, and some of these

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Speaker 1: might get a more thorough treatment in a future episode

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Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff. I might dedicate a full episode either

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Speaker 1: to a specific video game franchise or more likely the

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Speaker 1: company that created the franchise. In some cases, I might

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Speaker 1: talk about a specific video game designer. Uh. So it's

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Speaker 1: very possible that some of these that I mentioned today

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Speaker 1: I will revisit in some future episode. But today, let's

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Speaker 1: take a stroll down memory lane and talk about popular

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Speaker 1: video and computer games. And I'm really gonna cover sort

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Speaker 1: of all the major eras of video game and computer

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Speaker 1: game history. Now, one thing I have to mention early

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Speaker 1: on is that video games sales were very different in

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Speaker 1: the early days than they are today. Today we talk

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Speaker 1: about dozens of millions of units sold for a truly

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Speaker 1: blockbuster game, but back in the day that was way

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Speaker 1: too big a number to even dream about. Uh, it

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Speaker 1: was more of a niche market in the early eighties

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Speaker 1: when computer games and video games were really first starting

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Speaker 1: to take off. So with today's world, where you've got

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Speaker 1: pre sales and you've got these these digital delivery systems

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Speaker 1: where it means you don't even have to go to

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Speaker 1: a store to buy the thing anymore, the numbers obviously

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Speaker 1: are very very different. Also, video games are much more

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Speaker 1: mainstream now than they were in the eighties. You know,

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Speaker 1: it was a bustling industry back then, but it was

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Speaker 1: still very much a niche industry. Back in those good

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Speaker 1: old days, when you were happy to have eight bits

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Speaker 1: to rub together in order to make a game, things

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Speaker 1: were a little different. And I'm not going to cover

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Speaker 1: every console or every system because that would take way

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Speaker 1: too much research, honestly, to have to look at the

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Speaker 1: different sales figures for every single platform that was out there.

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Speaker 1: But I covered all the major ones, including the major

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Speaker 1: ones of the past. Um and to start with, we'll

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Speaker 1: take a look at the good old at now is

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Speaker 1: not the only early video game console. There was Collique Vision,

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Speaker 1: there was in television. There were other Atari models like

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Speaker 1: but they is what I think of when I think

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Speaker 1: of classic home video game market. It was the big

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Speaker 1: daddy out of all the systems that were out there,

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Speaker 1: at least as far as a dedicated video game console,

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Speaker 1: and it was one of the most successful ones of

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Speaker 1: that time. So let's take a look at the top

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Speaker 1: ten titles featured on that system. And I want to

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Speaker 1: tell you right now that when I talk about the

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Speaker 1: ones at the very end of the list, or really

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the list, because I started ten and

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Speaker 1: work my way down, you could substitute a few different

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Speaker 1: names for the top numbers ten, nine, and eight and

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Speaker 1: seven or so like those those top four. You could

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Speaker 1: probably switch this out with some others because these sales

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Speaker 1: were very similar, like around a million units each. So

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Speaker 1: that is something to keep in mind when I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about these top selling ones. They were so close that

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Speaker 1: if you were to look at a different list of

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Speaker 1: top ten best selling games for the attor, I would

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Speaker 1: bet the last few entries on the list would be

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Speaker 1: a little different than the ones I have. But I'm

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Speaker 1: the one running this show, so I get to pick

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Speaker 1: which ones end up on the list. Since they were

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Speaker 1: all so close that it really is kind of a

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Speaker 1: judgment call in the first place, and I wanted ten

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Speaker 1: because that's a nice round number. So number ten, depending

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Speaker 1: upon the version that you're looking at, was Kaboom. Kaboom

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Speaker 1: was a game from Activision, so that was a third

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Speaker 1: party developer for games on the Autar and in Kaboom,

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Speaker 1: you used a paddle style controller to move a bucket

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Speaker 1: or sometimes a series of buckets back and forth across

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Speaker 1: the base of the screen. At the top of the

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Speaker 1: screen was a naughty little man, the mad Bomber, dropping

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Speaker 1: a series of bombs down and your job was to

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Speaker 1: catch the bombs before they could hit the ground. So

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Speaker 1: you would slide your bucket back and forth using this

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Speaker 1: paddle controller to catch the bombs. Pretty simple gameplay, Very

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Speaker 1: compelling though, because it was fast paced and it got

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Speaker 1: much more challenging the longer you played. Most of these games,

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Speaker 1: that's the way they worked. The difficulty would increase the

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Speaker 1: longer you played the game. This one came out and

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Speaker 1: sold more than a million copies. Number nine was one

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Speaker 1: of the games that I would argue ranks among the

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Speaker 1: best that ever came out for the at In fact,

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Speaker 1: I would probably put this as a tie for number

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites, and it was called River Raid.

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Speaker 1: River Raid was a top down shooter in which you

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Speaker 1: would control a jet and you flew back and forth.

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Speaker 1: It would scroll vertically, so you're flying over a river,

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Speaker 1: uh and the screen would change scrolling from the top

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Speaker 1: down to the bottom. Meanwhile, you're flying back and forth

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Speaker 1: shooting down boats and also helicopters, and and you would

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Speaker 1: end up destroying stuff in order to try and find

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Speaker 1: fuel because as you flew, you would actually consume the

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Speaker 1: fuel that you were using, meaning that if you didn't

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Speaker 1: pick up more fuel, your jet would eventually crash. Even

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Speaker 1: if you were able to avoid all the enemy fire

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Speaker 1: coming at you, you would still need to pick up

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Speaker 1: more fuel. So this was another game from Activision. Activision

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Speaker 1: produced lots of games for the Atari. A lot of

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Speaker 1: the big successful ones came out of Activision, and I

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Speaker 1: thought that River Raid was one of the more exciting

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Speaker 1: and interesting games on there. It was the one of

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Speaker 1: the ones that got closest to replicating the sort of

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Speaker 1: experience you might have at an actual arcade. The graphics

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Speaker 1: weren't arcade level graphics, but the action was similar to

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Speaker 1: what you would find in an arcade machine. Number eight

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Speaker 1: was a game called Adventure, one of the best known

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Speaker 1: games of the era. I have played Adventure, but I

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Speaker 1: did not own it. I did have an Atari twenty

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Sometimes people say the Adventure

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Speaker 1: was one of the earliest, if not the very first

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Speaker 1: action adventure game. I think that might be going a

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Speaker 1: bit far, but I see where they're coming from. It

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Speaker 1: came straight from Atari, so it was the first party game.

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Speaker 1: It didn't come from a third party developer, and it

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Speaker 1: required you to navigate a maze searching for a chalice

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Speaker 1: while simultaneously trying to avoid three naughty little dragons and

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Speaker 1: a little action adventure game. You go through these different

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Speaker 1: maze like areas finding components that would allow you to

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Speaker 1: get access to the chalice, and if you could then

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Speaker 1: you could win the game, essentially win that level more

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Speaker 1: or less. Also, this game has the honor of being

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Speaker 1: the first video game that anyone was able to point

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Speaker 1: to and say, there's an Easter Egg in that video game,

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Speaker 1: and the easter Egg was the name of the developer.

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Speaker 1: So back in those days, Atari did not allowed developers

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Speaker 1: to include their names on either the packaging or the

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Speaker 1: game itself. Atari didn't want developers to have any connection.

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Speaker 1: They didn't want this to become a personality thing. They

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Speaker 1: wanted to be known as just a company that produced

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Speaker 1: great games, and they didn't really see the value of

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Speaker 1: allowing developers their chance to claim any of the credit,

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Speaker 1: and this caused a lot of consternation in the video

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Speaker 1: game developer world. So in this case, the developer decided

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Speaker 1: that it might be a little cheeky and fun to

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Speaker 1: hide his name inside the game itself, and if you

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Speaker 1: knew the right place to go in the game, you

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Speaker 1: could go down an invisible go through an invisible door,

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Speaker 1: down a corridor into a room that had the developers

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Speaker 1: name in it. And uh. Eventually, a Tori stance on

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Speaker 1: not allowing developers to include their names attached to games

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Speaker 1: would lead to a lot of people leaving Atari to

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Speaker 1: form their own company. That's how Activision got its start, actually,

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Speaker 1: was that there are people who are working for Atari

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Speaker 1: who got tired of the fact that they could not

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Speaker 1: claim any credit to the games they developed, and so

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Speaker 1: they left to form their own company where they could

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Speaker 1: make their own policies. So it's actually a policy that

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Speaker 1: would ultimately hurt Atari in the long run. The seventh

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Speaker 1: best selling game for the hundred is a title that

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff once declared the worst video game of all time,

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Speaker 1: though to be fair, that was actually the result of

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Speaker 1: a poll that we put out among tech stuff listeners.

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Speaker 1: We asked our listeners to nominate what they thought was

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Speaker 1: the worst video game of all time, and the number

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Speaker 1: one response, not the only response, but the one that

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Speaker 1: got the most votes was ET the Extra Terrestrial for

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Speaker 1: the Atari dred and that is the number seven best

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Speaker 1: selling game on the at now. I don't really think

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Speaker 1: it deserves the title of worst video game of all time.

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Speaker 1: I think there are way worse games there than ET.

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Speaker 1: But man, it was not a great game. It had

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Speaker 1: a lot of problems. It was also really expensive for

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Speaker 1: Atari to produce because they had to pay for the

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Speaker 1: license to get ET so they could make a game

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Speaker 1: about it. Uh And it sold a lot of copies.

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Speaker 1: It was on number seven on this list, but Atari

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Speaker 1: produced way more copies and they were actually able to sell,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of those would end up buried in

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Speaker 1: a landfill. And you can learn more about that story.

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Speaker 1: There's a documentary called Atari Game Over. You can actually

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Speaker 1: watch that, and it has the whole journey of of

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Speaker 1: identifying the landfill where supposedly these games were dumped, and

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Speaker 1: then they do a dig to see if they can

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Speaker 1: actually find the games. And I don't want to spoil anything,

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Speaker 1: but it's a good documentary, so you should check that

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Speaker 1: out if you're interested in this story. And a lot

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Speaker 1: of people point to ET as being an expensive mistake

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Speaker 1: that ultimately contributed to Atari's collapse. Uh, and that seems

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Speaker 1: pretty fair. Atari into up over committing on these big,

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Speaker 1: big projects and then not selling enough units, and they

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Speaker 1: took a math on it. They they suffered losses as

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Speaker 1: a result that ultimately led to a massive crash in

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Speaker 1: the home video game market. This is one of those

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Speaker 1: games I had as a kid. I had E. T. D. Extraterrestrial,

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Speaker 1: so I experienced this pain firsthand. I played it and

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Speaker 1: it was one of those things where in my mind

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Speaker 1: I had never really completed the game, but then when

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Speaker 1: I watched the play through, I realized I had completed

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Speaker 1: the game on numerous occasions. I just kind of blocked

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Speaker 1: it out of my mind. It helps to remember that

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Speaker 1: the game developer, Howard Scott Warshaw, it was working under

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Speaker 1: a crazy deadline. He was given something like five weeks

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Speaker 1: to develop this game from start to finish. So he

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Speaker 1: really had an impossible task ahead of him when it

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Speaker 1: came down to making this game, and that should give

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Speaker 1: you at least some sympathy for him, and it explains

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Speaker 1: why the game turned out the way it did. He

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Speaker 1: didn't have enough time to develop, you know, a more

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Speaker 1: well rounded, interesting game, and everything in the game works.

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Speaker 1: It's just not particularly fun to play. So there are

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Speaker 1: other games that don't even have components that completely work,

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Speaker 1: So that that alone tells me this is not the

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Speaker 1: worst game ever developed. Uh. Then we've got a game

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Speaker 1: called Atlantis, which was the first game on this list.

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Speaker 1: I actually don't remember ever playing or seeing played. So

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Speaker 1: in this game, you would protect the city of Atlantis

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Speaker 1: from enemy aircraft flying overhead, and you had a set

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Speaker 1: of three cannons that you could use. You can control

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Speaker 1: with the joystick, so you could switch between the cannons

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Speaker 1: using the joystick, and then you would fire with the

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Speaker 1: button and tried to shoot down the aircraft that flew overhead.

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Speaker 1: As the aircraft would pass overhead, they would get a

242
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Speaker 1: little lower on their subsequent passes, and at certain points,

243
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Speaker 1: once they reached an altitude, they would start firing down

244
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Speaker 1: and destroying your cannons, so it became a race to

245
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Speaker 1: destroy the aircraft before your can ends were destroyed, similar

246
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Speaker 1: to another game that's on this list called Missile Command.

247
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Speaker 1: UH also kind of tied with Atlantis around this same area,

248
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Speaker 1: so technically I guess there are eleven items on this list.

249
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Speaker 1: Was a game called Demon Attack, which I had heard about,

250
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:16,880
Speaker 1: but I also never played this one. I didn't know

251
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Speaker 1: Demon Attack. This one came from a company called The

252
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Speaker 1: Magic and was launched in two Now. Atari had actually

253
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Speaker 1: sued a Magic over this game, saying that they had

254
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Speaker 1: copied another game called Phoenix. And if you look at

255
00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,400
Speaker 1: Phoenix and you look at Demon Attack, they do, in

256
00:14:35,440 --> 00:14:39,000
Speaker 1: fact look extremely similar to one another, although Phoenix is

257
00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: a faster paced game than Demon Attack is Demon Attack

258
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:46,440
Speaker 1: you play a little cannon that can move back and

259
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:48,520
Speaker 1: forth across the bomb of the screen, kind of similar

260
00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:51,840
Speaker 1: to Space Invaders, and you fire up at these three

261
00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:56,520
Speaker 1: flying objects that are at different levels of altitude. So

262
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:58,880
Speaker 1: there's one in the low position, one a middle position,

263
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 1: and one in the high position and UH, and your

264
00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:05,320
Speaker 1: job is to destroy wave after wave of these three things.

265
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Speaker 1: And each time you complete one wave, you get a

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Speaker 1: new set of three, and they might have slightly different abilities,

267
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:15,840
Speaker 1: like the kind of projectiles they fire change a little bit,

268
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:18,440
Speaker 1: and eventually get to a point where when you destroy one,

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Speaker 1: they'll it'll split into two smaller entities that can swoop

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Speaker 1: down at you and also shoot at you. Interesting note,

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Speaker 1: if you do ever play this game and you want

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Speaker 1: to look like a total pro playing it, only the

273
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:37,240
Speaker 1: bottom most creature can actually shoot at you. So if

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Speaker 1: you concentrate on destroying the bottom most creature in each

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Speaker 1: wave and and they do respawn, but they only respond

276
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Speaker 1: a certain number of times per wave. If you destroy

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Speaker 1: that lowest level one, you can take all the time

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Speaker 1: in the world to destroy the next two because they

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Speaker 1: will never shoot you ever. Uh. The only difference is

280
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Speaker 1: that if you get to the levels where you shoot

281
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Speaker 1: one and it splits into creatures, those that pair of

282
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Speaker 1: creatures will move down levels until they're at that lowest level,

283
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Speaker 1: and at that point they can shoot at you and

284
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:13,080
Speaker 1: swoop at you, but in their big form, they'll just

285
00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:16,440
Speaker 1: like you can set your controller down and go order

286
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:22,360
Speaker 1: a pizza. You're fine. They'll never shoot you. Spoiler, I

287
00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:24,440
Speaker 1: guess if you're talking about a game that came out

288
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:28,760
Speaker 1: in the early eighties that is on an obsolete system,

289
00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:32,000
Speaker 1: but interesting that it was one of those where Atari

290
00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:35,120
Speaker 1: would actually take another company to court. By the way,

291
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:39,760
Speaker 1: the case was settled out of court, but yeah, it was.

292
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Speaker 1: It was. It caused some consternation. Next on the list,

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Speaker 1: number five, since that was kind of a tie. Is

294
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Speaker 1: a real classic in arcade game history Space Invaders. So

295
00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 1: similar to what I was just saying before. Space Invaders.

296
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Speaker 1: Of course, very very successful arcade game uh A debuted Japan.

297
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Speaker 1: The arcade version debut in Japan in nine. Now a

298
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:12,080
Speaker 1: company called Tito created Space Invaders, and then Bally's Midway

299
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:15,719
Speaker 1: division would end up licensing it and distributing it here

300
00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:20,680
Speaker 1: in the United States and in Europe. The Attori version

301
00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:22,959
Speaker 1: of Space Invaders came out in nineteen eighties, so two

302
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,280
Speaker 1: years after the game had come out in arcades, and

303
00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:29,240
Speaker 1: they sold around two million copies, which was a huge

304
00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:33,240
Speaker 1: number for home video games at this stage. Two million

305
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:37,119
Speaker 1: is enormous. Space Invaders was one of those titles that

306
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:41,040
Speaker 1: helped sell consoles because people remembered how much fun they

307
00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:42,800
Speaker 1: had playing it in the arcade and they wanted to

308
00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:46,600
Speaker 1: have that experience at home. So it's a known quantity

309
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,360
Speaker 1: and you'll often see games come out where people will

310
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Speaker 1: say that's that's the the killer app or that's the

311
00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:59,360
Speaker 1: one that will sell consoles because it creates a an

312
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:03,480
Speaker 1: experience that people want to have or that they associate

313
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:07,040
Speaker 1: with being fun. So in this case, Space Invaders was

314
00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:09,439
Speaker 1: a really popular game in the arcades and it really

315
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:15,040
Speaker 1: helps sell some Atari consoles um and it was more

316
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:17,600
Speaker 1: or less the same game on the Atari twenty hundred.

317
00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:21,879
Speaker 1: It wasn't as colorful or as a uh you know,

318
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:24,640
Speaker 1: the graphics weren't as good, which is weird to say

319
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:26,679
Speaker 1: when you look at the graphics of Space Invaders, but

320
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:30,880
Speaker 1: it's true. But it had the basic game elements fairly

321
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:35,800
Speaker 1: well represented in the twenty version. Number four is was

322
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Speaker 1: Missile Command. This is the game I was talking about

323
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Speaker 1: earlier when I was talking about Atlantis. Missile Command came

324
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:44,720
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty, with the Atari twentyre port debuting

325
00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:48,359
Speaker 1: the following year, so was when the arcade version came out,

326
00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:52,919
Speaker 1: and the arcade version had a roller ball control, but

327
00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:57,480
Speaker 1: the Atari version used the basic joystick. It still was

328
00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:00,280
Speaker 1: a big hit with the with fans. They bought two

329
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 1: and a half million units of this thing. So it's

330
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:07,160
Speaker 1: very successful gameplay for Missile Command if you've never played.

331
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:11,480
Speaker 1: It involves moving a little set of crosshairs over the

332
00:19:11,560 --> 00:19:15,200
Speaker 1: horizon as missiles are coming in towards a city, and

333
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:19,280
Speaker 1: you can fire anti missile projectiles and what happens is

334
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:21,600
Speaker 1: they'll they'll fly out, and then at the point where

335
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:27,280
Speaker 1: you designated with your crosshairs, the anti missile projectile will

336
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:31,280
Speaker 1: explode in a little circle. Any missiles that make connection

337
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:36,080
Speaker 1: with that circle will disappear. They're nullified. So the game

338
00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:41,119
Speaker 1: becomes one of fast reflexes and also just strategy figuring

339
00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:45,359
Speaker 1: out where you can place these anti missile projectiles to

340
00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:49,480
Speaker 1: take out as many different enemy missiles as possible, because

341
00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 1: you have a limited number of shots per level, so

342
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:54,960
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that you get two or

343
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,720
Speaker 1: three per level instead of trying to dedicate one for

344
00:19:57,800 --> 00:19:59,840
Speaker 1: one thing. You would run out of time before you

345
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,600
Speaker 1: it take down all the missiles and you would start

346
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,879
Speaker 1: losing parts of your city. But anyways, again another one

347
00:20:06,920 --> 00:20:10,080
Speaker 1: of those games that had very simple gameplay, but it

348
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: was compelling. It It encouraged people to keep playing and

349
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:14,840
Speaker 1: keep trying to get better and beat that high score.

350
00:20:15,560 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 1: So while these games were simplistic, especially compared to today's games.

351
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:25,720
Speaker 1: What they had was some sort of hook that latched

352
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:29,040
Speaker 1: on to that reward center in our brains, that lizard

353
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: part of our brains that wants to achieve something, and

354
00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:37,560
Speaker 1: it just gently presses that button saying good job. And

355
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,040
Speaker 1: if it presses that button just frequently enough, not so

356
00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:43,240
Speaker 1: frequently that you get tired of it, but not so

357
00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:46,960
Speaker 1: infrequently that you get frustrated by it, it becomes a

358
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 1: compelling game. Number three was another classic port Asteroids. Asteroids

359
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,080
Speaker 1: was one of the very first arcade games, especially one

360
00:20:56,119 --> 00:21:00,160
Speaker 1: of the first successful arcade games, and the port came

361
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:02,199
Speaker 1: out in ninety one and it would go on to

362
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:06,359
Speaker 1: sell just shy of four million copies, again a huge

363
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:10,640
Speaker 1: number in those days. This game involves controlling a spaceship

364
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:14,640
Speaker 1: that has to blast asteroids before they collide with the spaceship.

365
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 1: If you collide with an asteroid, your spaceship is destroyed.

366
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:20,439
Speaker 1: But when you shoot an asteroid, it splits into smaller

367
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 1: asteroids until they get to such a level that they

368
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,960
Speaker 1: just are disintegrated. So it then becomes a game of

369
00:21:27,080 --> 00:21:30,400
Speaker 1: shooting asteroids to break them apart, but not shooting too

370
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 1: many big asteroids, because otherwise you just have a huge

371
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:36,520
Speaker 1: field of smaller ones you have to maneuver around. The

372
00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: Arcade game was really challenging because all it had were

373
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 1: buttons to control your spaceship. You can control the direction

374
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 1: you were facing, your thrust, and your rate of fire

375
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:50,040
Speaker 1: as was a little hyperspace button, whereas the Arcade the

376
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,520
Speaker 1: the Atari version used it all as a controller, so

377
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:56,199
Speaker 1: you would control your spaceships orientation and thrust with the

378
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: joystick part and then the fire with a button. So

379
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:01,680
Speaker 1: it made a little sim blur, but I still thought

380
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:05,359
Speaker 1: it was really fun back in those days. Um number

381
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: two is the only game on this list that I

382
00:22:09,080 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 1: think is as good as River Raid, which was Pitfall.

383
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 1: Number two. Best selling hunter game was Pitfall. It was

384
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:23,239
Speaker 1: an early platform er, so platform ring games were not

385
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,680
Speaker 1: a thing, uh from the get go. Like a lot

386
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 1: of the early games were war games or strategy games

387
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: or puzzle games. This was a platform er and you

388
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,399
Speaker 1: control a little dude named Harry. And you have Harry

389
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 1: running through the jungle, swinging over ponds, jumping on alligators,

390
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:45,359
Speaker 1: dodging scorpions, and picking up random treasures to generate the points.

391
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 1: And you had a timer so you had to try

392
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:50,240
Speaker 1: and get as many treasures within that timer as possible,

393
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: or you know, obviously if you ran into enemies you

394
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 1: could lose lives, so your your game was over either

395
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 1: when the timer ran out or more likely when you

396
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 1: died three times. Pitfall also was well known for the

397
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 1: fact that when you had Harry jump on a rope

398
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,360
Speaker 1: a vine and swing, he made a little Tarzan like noise,

399
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: although it was the eight bit version of a Tarzan

400
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: like noise, so not exactly perfect audio, but it was

401
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: really charming and it was another reason why people really

402
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: liked it, And it was a glorious eight bit sound

403
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,920
Speaker 1: that I still love to this day. And that game

404
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: sold four million copies, so very popular. The number one

405
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: a game I think goes neck and neck with the

406
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: worst game for the ATY. I think this one in

407
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,920
Speaker 1: some ways is worse than et It is pac Man.

408
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:48,399
Speaker 1: So it was a port of an arcade game, a

409
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: very popular arcade game, one of the iconic arcade games

410
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, late seventies early eighties pac Man.

411
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: The version was ugly compared to the arcade version. Things

412
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: that were nice and smooth and round were blocky instead

413
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: of pellets, you were eating dashes. The ghosts were flickering

414
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 1: in the Utari version because the sprites wouldn't be able

415
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: to stay solid. It was a mess. The sound effects

416
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: were terrible and and clangy, and it just wasn't It

417
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: didn't represent what pac Man was like in arcades, so

418
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: it was a bad port in many ways. However, it

419
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: sold seven million copies. Unfortunately, Atari had produced twelve million copies,

420
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:43,879
Speaker 1: so five million copies went unsold. That's a huge investment

421
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: that they did not see a return on. So this

422
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: is another example of Atari making a big, bold move

423
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: that would end up costing the money, and ultimately it's

424
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:57,160
Speaker 1: what helped push the entire industry toward a crash, although

425
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: there were a lot of other factors there too. Um So,

426
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: it sold more copies than any other Atari game, but

427
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: not as many as what Atari was hoping for, and it,

428
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 1: along with a lot of third party games that had

429
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 1: very little quality control, help sink the home video game

430
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 1: industry in um let's talk about that just for a second. Now.

431
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: I've done episodes about the video game crash of three,

432
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:26,360
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to go into a whole lot

433
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: of detail here, but basically, What you had was a

434
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: huge amount of competition with lots of different consoles trying

435
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: to make their their spot in consumer electronics. So you

436
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: had hundred the Collique of Vision, the Intellivision, You had

437
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: countless other video game consoles. You had hundreds of titles

438
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: from third party developers, some of which were really good games.

439
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,959
Speaker 1: Some of the best games of that time came from

440
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: third party developers. But some of them were terrible. They

441
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,159
Speaker 1: were buggy, they were not fun, some of them barely worked,

442
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 1: and they were being sold side by side with first

443
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 1: party game titles, and so you were diluting the product

444
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: over time. This is what eventually got consumers fed up

445
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:23,120
Speaker 1: with home video game since what led to that huge crash. Now,

446
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: in our next segment, we're going to talk about the

447
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 1: company that helped resurrect the home video game industry after

448
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: this massive crash. But before we get to that very

449
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: special company, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

450
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 1: All Right, it is time to talk Nintendo. The Nintendo

451
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:55,600
Speaker 1: Entertainment System gets a lot of credit for resurrecting the

452
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: home video game market after that crash, and it should

453
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: get that credit. The previous incarnation of the video game

454
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: industry had collapsed in on itself due to its own

455
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: massive bulk, and consumers were completely sick of it. They

456
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: felt like they had been burned by home video games,

457
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: and the rise of the personal computer meant that people

458
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: were starting to take more attention um and pay more

459
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: attention toward personal computers than to video game consoles. So

460
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: it was a big deal to get into that game

461
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: after the entire industry had collapsed. But luckily, not really luckily,

462
00:27:34,920 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: due to hard work, Nintendo had a compelling product that

463
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: was running compelling games, and it was enough to get

464
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 1: people interested in it even after they had lost all

465
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: faith in the industry because of the issues I had

466
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 1: just talked about. That is a huge thing. Uh, And

467
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: if you've listened to my podcasts on Nintendo, you know

468
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 1: the history of the company. It started off as a

469
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: playing card money so to get to a point where

470
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: it became a video game company, that's a huge journey there,

471
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 1: and I recommend you listen to those if you're not

472
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: familiar with them. They were a lot of fun to record.

473
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: So Nintendo saw where some of these problems were with

474
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: the home video game industry, and one of the things

475
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: they said was we want to make sure the quality

476
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: of the games is at our level of standards, so

477
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a certification program. People will have to

478
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: submit their games to us and we can certify them,

479
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: Otherwise we will not allow them to run on our consoles. Eventually,

480
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 1: people would develop workarounds to that. They would develop adapters

481
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: that would allow you to play games that were not

482
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: Nintendo certified on Nintendo hardware. But initially, what this meant

483
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: was it gave Nintendo a very clear level of control

484
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 1: for their games, and you could argue because of that,

485
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: the quality of the games was much a step better

486
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: than what you had seen in the previous generation of

487
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: video game consoles. Then s game Nintendo Entertainment System game

488
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: that sold the most copies was a launch title. Uh,

489
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 1: not a big surprise. Most of the titles that you

490
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: will see that are the top selling title for a

491
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: video game console tend to also be the ones that

492
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: were bundled with the console when it was initially sold.

493
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 1: Of course, not all consoles came with a bundled game,

494
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: and in those cases it could be a very different result.

495
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: But in this case, we're talking about Super Mario Brothers,

496
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: one of the most popular platform or games of all time,

497
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: one of the most popular games of all time period.

498
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: It sold more than forty million copies. Forty million. I

499
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: was just talking about seven million being a big number.

500
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: So more than five times as many as Atari's top

501
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: selling game forty million. Now that's largely because the nes

502
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: was such a huge success and because the game was

503
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: bundled with it, but still that's just such a huge,

504
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:09,479
Speaker 1: huge number. If you're not familiar with Super Mario Brothers,

505
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: welcome to the modern world. I hope that you are

506
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: comfortable out from beneath the rock you were under. Just kidding,

507
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: I know not everyone's interested in video games. So maybe

508
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: you don't know about Super Mario Brothers, or you've heard

509
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: the name but you don't know what it's about. Well,

510
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers. Here's how the game works. It's a

511
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: got either one player mode or two player mode. In

512
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: one player mode, you're playing as Mario. In two player,

513
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: one person plays as Mario, the other person plays as Luigi.

514
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: You are a jumpy little plumber and Mario had previously

515
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: appeared in other games like Donkey Kong, although at the

516
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: time he was just called jump Man and Mario Brothers.

517
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: There was a game just called Mario Brothers, which involved

518
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: running around in a little level that was to be

519
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: like a sewer and you would knock turtles on their

520
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: backs and kick them over because those turtles were bad anyway.

521
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: They You also had a Donkey Kong Jr. Where Mario

522
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: was technically the bad guy in that game, but in

523
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers, your job was to navigate a world

524
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: filled with various little monsters and things that could hurt

525
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: you so that you could get to the correct castle

526
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: after visiting a series of incorrect castles and rescue Princess

527
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: Peach from the clutches of the Evil Bowser. There's a

528
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: lot of jumping and running involved. That's what a platform

529
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: er is called called a platform er because you typically

530
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: are jumping from one platform to another platform, and you're

531
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: trying to get the timing rights that you avoid gaps,

532
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: you avoid enemies, you avoid enemy fire, that kind of stuff.

533
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: Other games that also sold well for the Nintendo Entertainment

534
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: System included Duck Hunt. Now, Duck Hunt was a light

535
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: gun game, and it became packaged with the Light Gun system.

536
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: So again not a big surprise that it's sold really well,

537
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: but uh, it was. It was a big seller. Like

538
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: there were many millions of copies of it sold. The

539
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: first two sequels to Super Mario Brothers also sold very well,

540
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: so the Super Mario Brothers two and three did extremely well.

541
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: Just shy of the top five slot for the best

542
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: selling video games of the Nintendo Entertainment System was the

543
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: Legend of Zelda. That was the sixth best selling game

544
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: for the NES. The Legend of Zelda was the first

545
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 1: game and another beloved Nintendo franchise. And you're gonna start

546
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: seeing things as I go through these Nintendo games where

547
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: a lot of the names start popping up over and

548
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: over again. Nintendo, more than any other company, I would argue,

549
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: depends heavily upon it's franchises that it created, more so

550
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: the third party games that were developed for Nintendo. The

551
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: first party franchises are what get Nintendo fans excited and

552
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: it's what sells Nintendo consoles. So with Nintendo Super Mario Brothers,

553
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: anything Mario Brothers related, that's obviously one of the top performers.

554
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: Also Zelda another top performer, and Legend of Zelda was

555
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: the first of many mini games in that franchise. That

556
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: particular version Legend of Zelda sold six and a half

557
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: million copies. So this is number six on our list, right,

558
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: and it hits six and a half million copies. Remember

559
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: number one of Atari hits seven million, So we're already

560
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:44,480
Speaker 1: talking about a totally different industry at this point. Metroid,

561
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: which is another franchise people love with Nintendo, got edged

562
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: out of the top ten, just barely. It was number

563
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: eleven on the best Selling Games of Nintendo and it

564
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: sold two point seven million copies. So yeah, popular system.

565
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: The success user to the Nintendo Entertainment System was, of course,

566
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or the Super Famicom. The

567
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: Famicon was the name of the NES in Japan, and

568
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: then the Super Famicon was the next one, so we

569
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: called it the Super Nintendo Entertainment System or the s

570
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 1: NES or SNEES, depending upon the circles you run in.

571
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: The top selling game for that one, again not a

572
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: big surprise. It was a bundled to launch title was

573
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 1: Super Mario World, sometimes referred to as Super Mario Brothers four. Now,

574
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: you could argue that Nintendo's reliance on franchises like the

575
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers franchise was cemented by the fact that these

576
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: were the best selling games in consoles and their consoles history,

577
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: but in many cases these were games that were also

578
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: bundled with the actual system, So it's it's it's like

579
00:34:56,600 --> 00:34:59,399
Speaker 1: you can't really do apples and apples because the game

580
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: comes of the console, than just buying a console means

581
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: you I have become a customer of that game. Even

582
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: if you were to never put the game in the

583
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,919
Speaker 1: system and you weren't really interested in it, you still

584
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: technically bought one. So it's a little complicated. But Super

585
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,240
Speaker 1: Mario World sold more than twenty million copies, already half

586
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: of what the NES sold. So even though the NES

587
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: ushered in a new era of video games of home

588
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: video games, it didn't mean that we were immediately just

589
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: going to keep on building with each new system selling

590
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 1: even more copies than the one before it. It got

591
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: a little more complicated than that. Other top performers in

592
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System World included Donkey Kong Country,

593
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: in which you took control of the former villainous Donkey

594
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: Kong that was the bad guy in the game Donkey Kong,

595
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: where you played Mario slash jump Man. Uh. He was

596
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 1: also the captor our captive rather in Donkey Kong Junior,

597
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:03,879
Speaker 1: you played as Donkey Kong Junior and you were trying

598
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: to rescue your dad, but Donkey Kong Country meant that

599
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: you were actually controlling Donkey Kong himself. Uh. Super Mario

600
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: Kart was also a top seller and would become another

601
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: franchise within Nintendo. Super Mario Kart, of course, is a

602
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: kart racing games, So you're playing like go karts, uh,

603
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: and you're playing as various iconic Nintendo characters, typically from

604
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: the Super Mario world, and you can pick up a

605
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: little power ups and use them to completely infuriate all

606
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: of your fellow players. And if you hit me with

607
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: another BLUESLL so help me, you get no more Cheetos

608
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: you know I'm talking to Well. These were or that

609
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 1: that joined the Donkey Kong franchise, the Mario franchise, and

610
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: the Metroid and Zelda franchises to come yet another longstanding

611
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: franchise with Nintendo. You could argue it's a spinoff because

612
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: it's the Super Mario characters, but the Mario Kart franchise

613
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: is really kind of its own things, sort of like

614
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: the way Super Smash Brothers is its own thing. But again,

615
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: It really showed how Nintendo would rely heavily on these

616
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 1: franchises in order to make big sales because that's what

617
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 1: their fans loved. You could tell because those were the

618
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: games that were selling the best, So we might as

619
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,040
Speaker 1: well stick with Nintendo. Other console systems were coming out

620
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: the same time as the S and E s and

621
00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:40,359
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter, but we might as well focus on one

622
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,720
Speaker 1: company at a time. So next would be the Nintendo

623
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: sixty four or in sixty four, which was the system

624
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: I really loved it was the system was the last

625
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: of the home console systems Nintendo would sell that was

626
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: a cartridge based system. The other ones would become disc based.

627
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: This was a cartridge based system. I never owned a

628
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 1: Nintendo or Super Nintendo, but I did have a Nintendo

629
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 1: sixty four, and I thought it was pretty keen. The

630
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 1: top selling game was Super Mario sixty four, which did

631
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: not necessarily come within Nintendo sixty four, So actually this

632
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: one is legitimately a top seller because I never had

633
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: that game. I always wanted it. It was also one

634
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: that even years and years and years after it came out,

635
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: you could not find it for a real discounted price

636
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: because there were still a demand for it. That's how

637
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: how highly regarded this game was. Super Mario sixty four

638
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 1: always was pretty expensive, even if you were trying to

639
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: buy a used copy. This was eleven point nine million

640
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: units sold. So again you look at the story, the

641
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: nes top selling games sold forty million copies, the S

642
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: and E s twenty million, and then the n sixty

643
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: four eleven point nine million. So you see there's this

644
00:38:56,560 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: trend of decreasing diminishing returns, if you will, which would

645
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 1: end up being a little troubling and more so in

646
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: future generations of Nintendo consoles. But not too far behind

647
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 1: Super Mario sixty four was Mario Kart sixty four, which

648
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 1: firmly established the Mario Kart franchise as a thing in

649
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: its own right. And third place was unusually a licensed game,

650
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 1: not a Nintendo first party game, but a licensed game.

651
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: It was Golden I Double O seven And anyone who

652
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: had an in sixty four and played Golden Eye, I

653
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: guarantee you right now they have a big smile on

654
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: their face. Why because this game was awesome. You played

655
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: as James Bond, and the game loosely followed plot lines

656
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: that were inspired by the film Golden I. It was

657
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: cool because you got to run around different levels as

658
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: James Bond and try and defeat various enemies and make

659
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 1: sure you didn't get shot in the process. But even

660
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: better than that, you could argue, was the multiplayer. You

661
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: could a first person shooter multiplayer against friends in a

662
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: split screen environment, and it was one of the earliest

663
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: console based multiplayer first person shooters that I can think of,

664
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: and it did it really well. The controls were fun,

665
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 1: the weapons were fun, the maps were fun, and it

666
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: was hilarious to listen to a group of people play

667
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: this game because they would come up with some very

668
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: creative curse words to yell at each other as they

669
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: would get shot while trying to shoot someone else. One

670
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 1: of my favorite games to play and favorite games to

671
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: watch people play. Fourth place for the Nintendo sixty four

672
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: would go to the Legend of Zelda the ok Arena Time,

673
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: which sold seven point six million copies, so fourth place

674
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,279
Speaker 1: seven point six million. First place was eleven point nine.

675
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: You're seeing less of a drop off from one to

676
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: two to three to four, which is good. Out of

677
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: all the versions of Zelda I've played, and I've only

678
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: played a few of them, There are a lot more

679
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: out there that I haven't touched, but all of all

680
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: the ones I have played, Oak are Enough Time is

681
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: my favorite. Then we come to the Nintendo GameCube. The

682
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,800
Speaker 1: best selling game for the game Cube was Super Smash

683
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: Brothers Melee. This was a game that our franchise that

684
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 1: had previously been established with just Super Smash Brothers. This

685
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,760
Speaker 1: one involves playing various iconic Nintendo characters, and you're playing

686
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 1: on on levels against other players, typically other human players,

687
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: although you can play against computer controlled ones too, and

688
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 1: the object is to knock your opponents off of the

689
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: platforms that you can stand on, so you want to

690
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: be the last character standing in a free for all Melee. Ah,

691
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: this one did really well. The other ones had done well,

692
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: but not as good as this that they sold more

693
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: than seven million units. However, that means that you also

694
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,360
Speaker 1: see another drop from eleven point nine million as the

695
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: top one of the inn sixty four to seven million

696
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 1: for the game Cube. I shall also point out that

697
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: I'm concentrating on platform exclusives here for the most part.

698
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 1: Keep in mind some games would appear on multiple platforms,

699
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: and that means that they might do well overall. When

700
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: you add up all the different platforms they were sold on,

701
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: but because you could play them on various different consoles,

702
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 1: it was they rarely reached the top five for most

703
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: game platforms because you've diluted it by allowing people to

704
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: buy it on whichever console they most prefer. It's the

705
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:40,959
Speaker 1: console exclusives that tend to be in the top five

706
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: simply because that's the only place you can buy them,

707
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: it's the only place you can play them. Rather, the

708
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,720
Speaker 1: rest of the top five for the game Cube includes

709
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: the usual suspects. Another kart racing games again, other Mario

710
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: Kart game in there. You have another Super Mario game

711
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: with like Super Mario Sunshine. You had another Zelda game

712
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: in there, and you had Metro Prime. So again, the

713
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: top selling games for Nintendo are the franchises that they established.

714
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: The Golden I Double O seven was kind of a

715
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: exception to the rule, and now we're back to the rule,

716
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: which is Nintendo depends very heavily on the intellectual property

717
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: they have created. It's also one of the reasons why

718
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: they were very reluctant to have that stuff appear on

719
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: other platforms, because clearly those are the titles that sell consoles.

720
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: They're the ones that have the highest sales rates. So

721
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: that explains why Nintendo is never really eager to put

722
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: their stuff on a different platform. Doesn't mean that people

723
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: haven't done it. Obviously. They've got the Mario Jump game

724
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: for iPhone, but that didn't do as well as what

725
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:51,279
Speaker 1: Nintendo was hoping and kind of reinforce their idea that

726
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: their intellectual property works best on their own platforms. The

727
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: Nintendo WE tells a slightly different story than the Predace sessors.

728
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 1: Louise most popular game was WE Sports because it was

729
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: bundled with the console, although to be fair, it's also

730
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 1: a very fun game, so I'm not here to suggest

731
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: that it's a bad game, just that if you bought

732
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: a WE you got WE Sports is one of your games,

733
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: at least early on. Initially, it's sold eighty two point

734
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: eight million copies. Now that is mind blowing, eighty two

735
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: point eight million, more than twice as many as the

736
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: nes Super Mario Brothers game, and that helps illustrate how

737
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: the Nintendo WE had become a huge powerhouse in the industry,

738
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: at least temporarily. It had a big impact on the

739
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 1: video game industry. It was insanely popular, you couldn't find

740
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: them anywhere when they first came out, because they would

741
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: be bought as soon as they would hit store shelves.

742
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: But when you start looking down the list of the

743
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: top performing games, you see that there's an issue because

744
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 1: number two on that list was Mario Kart We and

745
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: that one sold thirty six point eight three million copies,

746
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: so less than half of number one. What that tells

747
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:13,800
Speaker 1: you is that the console was what was popular, and

748
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: then gamers differed on which games they felt were the best.

749
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: Because you see a huge drop from number one to

750
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: number two. Number one sells more than eighty million copies,

751
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: number two sells thirty six million. It's an enormous gap. Uh.

752
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: Nintendo had several big hits for the Weed, but nothing

753
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 1: that approached the level of interest for the console itself.

754
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: So once you get the tenth place, which was We Party,

755
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: you're talking about nine million copies sold, which is still

756
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't mean to take anything away from it,

757
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: but remember we started at eighty million, So you go

758
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 1: from eighty million at number one to nine million at

759
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 1: number ten. That shows that there were not any standout

760
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: games that really demanded a huge push from the consumer level.

761
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: And that was an issue. You got to see more

762
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: and more players kind of put their Nintendo we to

763
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: the side and allow it to gather dust, and they

764
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: would only take it out if they had a group

765
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: of people over to play party games or group games.

766
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 1: The WU is even more jury story. The top selling

767
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: title on the WU was Mario Kart eight and the

768
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: sales were hitting around eight million units. So the number

769
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 1: one selling game of the Weiu sold fewer units than

770
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: the number ten for the Wei itself. That's not a

771
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: great story, and in fact, if I were to talk

772
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: specifically about the WEU, it would be a pretty sad

773
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: story from beginning to end, particularly because I think the

774
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: WU was a very innovative approach. It just didn't have

775
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: the games or the experiences that were compelling enough to

776
00:46:55,880 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: really push it into a success. Switching over to handhelds,

777
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: just briefly, the top selling title on the Game Boy

778
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: is one that I'm going to chat about later. And

779
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of you will guess what the

780
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: top selling title for game Boy was, but again I'll

781
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: i'll address that one in a little bit. So apart

782
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: from the number one spot, Pokemon Rules the Land for

783
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: the original game, Boy, the Pokemon games Red, Blue, Gold,

784
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: and Silver made up nearly fifty million units sold. That's

785
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: collectively the four games fifty million units, huge number. The

786
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: Game Boy Advance continued that trend with Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, Fire,

787
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: Red Leaf, Green, and Emerald, which collectively accounted for more

788
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: than thirty million units, which tells me that Pokemon fans

789
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: love their games. Then you have the Nintendo DS. That's

790
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: top game was the New Super Mario Brothers, followed by

791
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:03,799
Speaker 1: An ten Dogs and then Mario Kart DS. The three

792
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: DS returned the title to Pokemon, with Pokemon X and

793
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: Y leading the charge with more than sixteen million units sold.

794
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: And I guess someday I'm just gonna have to do

795
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 1: a full Pokemon episode. She means, I'm gonna have to

796
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:23,399
Speaker 1: understand it. Pity me. Before I take another quick break,

797
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be cool to chat about the top

798
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 1: selling games for some of the consoles that weren't nearly

799
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: as popular as the Nintendo line. And we're talking about

800
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: the Vegas Sega systems here, So what were the top

801
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: games on those systems. It's a little tricky because most

802
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: of them didn't really hit a full million units and

803
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 1: that's what you need to show up on a lot

804
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: of lists. The Sega Genesis, which was better known as

805
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 1: the Mega Drive and other parts of the world, had

806
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: Sonic the Hedgehog as its top performing title with fifteen

807
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,239
Speaker 1: million units sold. It's another title that got bundled with

808
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:59,239
Speaker 1: the Sega Genesis in most cases. Sonic two came in

809
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:03,319
Speaker 1: second place with six million units uh, which is much

810
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: more modest than the fifteen million that Sonic One sold,

811
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: and third place went to Disney's Aladdin, which was another

812
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: licensed game, and it managed to buck the trend that

813
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 1: trend being a licensed game that ends up being pretty lousy.

814
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:20,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure any video gamers out there are familiar with

815
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 1: tons of different games based on licenses that just were

816
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: not fun or we're a bad representation of whatever the

817
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: license was. But Aladdin was a fun platform or that

818
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people liked, so it did really well

819
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 1: on the Sega Genesis. Uh. Following that up, We're the

820
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: Game's NBA Jam, one of the few sports related games

821
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: to a show up on our lists so far, although

822
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: NBA Jam is a very arcady version of sports and

823
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat to our first fighting game besides, uh yeah, no,

824
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 1: it's our first one first fighting game where it's kind

825
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: of like Street Fighter sort of stuff, Mortal Kombat too.

826
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 1: The Sega Saturn had only a few titles top more

827
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: than a million sold. That would include Virtua Fighter Too,

828
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:11,240
Speaker 1: which was another fighting game kind of like Mortal Kombat

829
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: or Street Fighter or tech In or one of those,

830
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,399
Speaker 1: and Sega Rally Championship, a racing game. The Dreamcast, which

831
00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:20,719
Speaker 1: is still one of my favorite consoles of all time,

832
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 1: had Sonic Adventure as its top selling title, followed by

833
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:28,800
Speaker 1: the fighting game Soul Caliber. Soul Caliber is kind of

834
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: like more more like Mortal Kombat, I would argue than

835
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 1: Street Fighter because you have a lot of weapons involved.

836
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 1: There are also other elements of gameplay that we're not

837
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: common to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. I spent a

838
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,799
Speaker 1: lot of time playing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast trying

839
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:46,239
Speaker 1: to unlock all the different stuff. My favorite character was Servantes,

840
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: who was a pirate yar. Anyway, Third place would go

841
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: to a Crazy Taxi, which sold a little bit more

842
00:50:56,080 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: than one point two million units. Now, I would take

843
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 1: time to talk about the top selling Turbo Graphics six

844
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:07,719
Speaker 1: team games, but those didn't get to sales figures large

845
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: enough for me to find in a really reliable source.

846
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure that certain games did pretty well, but none

847
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 1: of them were breakout successes. So you might find a

848
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 1: game like Ninja Spirit or Legendary Acts or BOMBERMANE that

849
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: did pretty well, but again couldn't find any sells figures

850
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,240
Speaker 1: that made it stand out. Now, in our next section,

851
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 1: I'll take a look at the top games on Sony

852
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: and Xbox consoles, as well as the big names in

853
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: PC games. But before that, let's take another quick break

854
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. All right, let's talk about Sony now.

855
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:55,720
Speaker 1: Sony's PlayStation was the first console to seriously give Nintendo

856
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: a run for its money, and it also ushered in

857
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 1: a new era of big say hills in video games.

858
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 1: The original PlayStation's top selling game was Grand Tarismo, which

859
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: was a racing game and a driving simulator. Still is

860
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: a racing game and a driving simulator. It didn't magically

861
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: transform over the last few years, but Grand Tarismo was

862
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 1: the number one selling title for the original PlayStation. And

863
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: I find this interesting since we didn't really see any

864
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: actual driving simulators in our other lists. Really, we saw

865
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: some arcady things like Mario Kart, but this was an

866
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: honest to goodness driving simulator and a race car simulator.

867
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: Other big PS one games included Final Fantasy seven, so

868
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: a video game role playing game, one of the most

869
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: popular of the Final Fantasy franchise, and Grand Tarismo too.

870
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 1: As it turns out, Grand Turismo really was dominating PlayStation one.

871
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: Fourth place went to tech In three, which was another

872
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: fighting game. But then let's take a look over at

873
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 1: PS two. So the PlayStation two's top game was Grand

874
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: Theft Auto San Andreas. So this is an action adventure

875
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: game and the first sandbox style game on our list. Now,

876
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: to be fair, consoles really didn't have the power to

877
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: give you a sandbox kind of experience. And basically a

878
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,680
Speaker 1: sandbox game means that you get dumped into a game

879
00:53:18,719 --> 00:53:20,680
Speaker 1: world and you have a lot of freedom of choice

880
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 1: as to what you do next. You can wander around,

881
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:25,400
Speaker 1: try and do different things. You don't have to go

882
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: down a linear pathway in order to complete the game

883
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: right away. You can do a lot of side missions.

884
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: You can explore the world uh to to greater or

885
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 1: lesser degree. Grand Theft Auto series tends to have things

886
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,400
Speaker 1: that keep you in certain areas at least to a

887
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:43,400
Speaker 1: certain point of the game before it opens up the

888
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: next area, but you still can explore large portions of

889
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 1: the game right away as soon as the game starts.

890
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 1: So Grand Theft Auto San Andreas takes place in a

891
00:53:55,680 --> 00:54:00,360
Speaker 1: fictional version of Los Angeles. Then you play a cominal,

892
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:02,240
Speaker 1: as you do in all the Grand Theft Auto games.

893
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: You play a criminal who is going on a series

894
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: of missions in order to pursue specific goals, which usually

895
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: involved becoming more and more powerful in the crime scene

896
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: of whatever area you are in, as well as eliminating

897
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: various enemies and rivals that you encounter throughout the story.

898
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: And you're playing a specific character in each of these games,

899
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:29,080
Speaker 1: different characters for each game, but a specific one. You're

900
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: not able to create a character, at least not in

901
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:36,880
Speaker 1: the single player version. So Grand Theft Auto San Andreas

902
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: sold seventeen million copies, and again we see a nice

903
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 1: big number here, much bigger than than the lagging we

904
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 1: numbers were later um which actually happened later at this point,

905
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 1: because we're still talking about the PS two. But then

906
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 1: Grand Rismo three and four take second and third place, respectively.

907
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: So the driving racing games, those were still really popular

908
00:55:01,320 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: in Sony's world. This is kind of interesting to me

909
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: because I would argue that by looking at the top

910
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: selling games of each console, you start to get kind

911
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: of a profile of what the hardcore fans of those

912
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,839
Speaker 1: consoles really liked. So it's Sony, you're getting the Grand

913
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 1: Theft Auto games, these sandbox games, and the Grand Turismo games,

914
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 1: the race card games that seted apart from something like

915
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: Nintendo that was looking at things like the Super Mario franchise,

916
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:34,360
Speaker 1: the Zelda franchise, or other companies as well. When we

917
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 1: get the Xbox, we'll see that they have a different

918
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 1: style of games that are the most popular, and you

919
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a feeling of the personality

920
00:55:43,320 --> 00:55:47,839
Speaker 1: for each console in a way. The next two games

921
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 1: on the list after Grand Tourism three and four were

922
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 1: other Grand Theft Auto games. Actually, so this is still

923
00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: for the PS two. So number four on the list

924
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 1: for top five p US two selling games was Grand

925
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:04,800
Speaker 1: Theft Auto Vice City, which sets you in a fictional

926
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: version of Miami during the nineteen eighties, and number five

927
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: was Grand Theft Auto three, which puts you in a

928
00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 1: fictional version of New York City. So three Grand Theft

929
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:17,839
Speaker 1: Auto games and two Grand Thereismo games took the top

930
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: five spots for PS two, not a whole lot of

931
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:26,279
Speaker 1: variety there. The PS three would continue this trend with

932
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto five raking up twenty one million units sold,

933
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 1: and that game would take you back to San Andreas,

934
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: that fictional version of Los Angeles as well as surrounding areas.

935
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: It was a much larger map than the one for

936
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:44,759
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. Second place would go to

937
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 1: Grand Thereismo five, So again, no surprise, you're still having

938
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theresmo dominating the top of

939
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 1: the charts for the Sony PlayStation line. Really sinsing a

940
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:57,640
Speaker 1: trend here, but third place would change things up a bit.

941
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:00,479
Speaker 1: Third place went to Battlefield three, which is first person

942
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 1: shooter games set in modern day, a fictional version of

943
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 1: modern day, and it had both single and multiplayer modes

944
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,799
Speaker 1: that made it very popular. Slots four and five would

945
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:17,480
Speaker 1: go to Uncharted three and Uncharted two, respectfully respectively. I

946
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: should say not respectfully. I'm sure they do respect it,

947
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: but that's neither here nor there. Uncharted three and to

948
00:57:24,200 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: carry on the series of Uncharted, which follows the exploits

949
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: of a character named Nathan Drake who's kind of a

950
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: mix between Laura Croft the tomb Raider and Indiana Jones.

951
00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 1: He's a treasure hunter who gets in trouble, gets in

952
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: over his head all the time, and they has to

953
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 1: try and escape, usually ends up escaping without whatever the

954
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: treasure was he was going after it gets lost to

955
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 1: all time or something along those lines. Um very cinematic

956
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 1: style games, very popular for the PS three. Now, one

957
00:57:56,760 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 1: game I was surprised didn't show up on the Best

958
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:02,919
Speaker 1: Selling Games for the p S three was The Last

959
00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: of Us, which is a post apocalyptic zombie survival style game,

960
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: although I guess you could argue they're not really zombies.

961
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 1: They are humans that have been infected by some sort

962
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: of fungal um infection for lack of a better word,

963
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be repetitive and redundant here that makes them

964
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 1: go crazy and attack people. So The Last of Us

965
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,000
Speaker 1: is a great game, but is not on the Best

966
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:32,480
Speaker 1: Selling Games for the p S three. However, the remastered

967
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:35,360
Speaker 1: version would end up being number eight for PS four,

968
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: but was on the top of PS four's list. All

969
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:43,320
Speaker 1: The top selling game for PS four is Uncharted four

970
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: that just seemingly concludes Nathan Drake's storyline in the Uncharted series,

971
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 1: although never say never. Number two is a game called

972
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: Horizon zero Dawn, one of the more recent games on

973
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: this list in this entire episode, really is Horizon zero

974
00:59:02,240 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: Don's interesting post apocalyptic science fiction game that I recommend

975
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: checking out because it's kind of cool. Third place, we

976
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: go to kill Zone shadow Fall, which is a first

977
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: person shooter game, and then would you would have Blood Born,

978
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 1: which is an action role playing game. In fourth place

979
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: and fifth place, we go to Drive Club, which was

980
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 1: the only racing game to make the top five of

981
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:26,680
Speaker 1: Sony's most recent console. So that is kind of a departure,

982
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 1: partly because of delays with Grand Tarismo series, but it

983
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: is a departure from the Sony h appeal because you

984
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 1: saw in the earlier consoles that Grand Treismo was always

985
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: taking a top place in those those top fives. Now,

986
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: those who know me, and they know me well, they

987
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 1: know that I'm an Xbox guy. I'm not a PlayStation person.

988
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: I do own a p S three, but I do

989
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,920
Speaker 1: not own a PS four. I like the PS three

990
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: just fine, and I like the games that I played

991
00:59:57,640 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: on it really well. I like the Uncharted series, but

992
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 1: I just tend to be more of an Xbox player

993
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: than a PlayStation player. I do fully recognize that each

994
01:00:09,200 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 1: generation the PlayStation is a more powerful console than the Xboxes,

995
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:17,440
Speaker 1: but I just prefer the Xbox ecosystem. I prefer the controller.

996
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 1: I in large part prefer the games that are exclusive

997
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 1: to the Xbox, although they are not that many of them,

998
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: only a few. Most of them are multi platform games, um,

999
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: but you know, just interest of full disclosure so I

1000
01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 1: can get that bias out of the way. For the

1001
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:40,080
Speaker 1: original Xbox, the best selling game is Halo two, which

1002
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 1: I find really interesting. I would have thought the first

1003
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: Halo would take the top spot, but it's actually in

1004
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: second place. Halo two is the best selling game on

1005
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:54,600
Speaker 1: the original Xbox, with Halo following suit. The Halo series

1006
01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: follow you playing the role of a hero called master

1007
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: Chief who's fighting off aliens and various fun guy that

1008
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 1: are infecting aliens and humans alike. So it's the first

1009
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: person shooter. You're blasting aliens a lot. There's a lot

1010
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 1: of science fiction e plot around it, but the important

1011
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,920
Speaker 1: thing is you're blasting aliens a lot unless you're playing multiplayer,

1012
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 1: in which case you're blasting other master chiefs a lot,

1013
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's a first person shooter game with

1014
01:01:23,240 --> 01:01:26,280
Speaker 1: a really popular multiplayer feature, at least starting with Halo two.

1015
01:01:26,320 --> 01:01:29,640
Speaker 1: It's a really popular multiplayer feature. The first Halo, if

1016
01:01:29,680 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: you had a whole bunch of people over at your

1017
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: house or you were going to a land party, it

1018
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 1: was popular. But Halo two was when you started getting

1019
01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 1: this over into the actual internet world. Um So, Halo

1020
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 1: two and Halo take spots one and two in the

1021
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: top five for Xbox. What's number three? That would be

1022
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 1: a game called Fable, which sold three million units, So

1023
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 1: you're already seeing that the number of units is significantly

1024
01:01:54,240 --> 01:01:57,560
Speaker 1: lower than that for the PlayStation. But Fable is a

1025
01:01:57,720 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: fantasy role playing game that it was supposed to depend

1026
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,880
Speaker 1: heavily upon the players choices. In other words, the actions

1027
01:02:04,920 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: you took as a player were supposed to have a

1028
01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:11,000
Speaker 1: huge impact on the game world. But you could argue

1029
01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: that as the game got closer to release, more and

1030
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: more of those features got removed, so that your impact

1031
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: on the game world was actually kind of minimal. It

1032
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: wasn't as big a deal as it was made out

1033
01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 1: to be in the development process. It disappointed some fans,

1034
01:02:26,080 --> 01:02:29,919
Speaker 1: although it's still kind of a cool game. Fourth place

1035
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: was splinter Cell. That's a franchise where you play a

1036
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:37,080
Speaker 1: special ops stealth operative and you have to stealthily make

1037
01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:40,360
Speaker 1: your way through various levels and and achieve special mission

1038
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:43,479
Speaker 1: goals while not being spotted. You can either go super

1039
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: stealthy or you can go loud, although it's very difficult

1040
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 1: to do so. Very popular series, and the first one

1041
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 1: was one of the top selling games for the original

1042
01:02:53,320 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 1: Xbox and the fifth slot went to Project Gotham Racing,

1043
01:02:57,880 --> 01:03:01,440
Speaker 1: which sold two point one million units. Again, a racing

1044
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 1: game made it into the top five for the original Xbox,

1045
01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 1: but it wasn't selling nearly the number of units that

1046
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:11,920
Speaker 1: you would see Grand Turismo on the PlayStation now. One

1047
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:14,800
Speaker 1: thing Microsoft has been really really good at, something they

1048
01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:21,760
Speaker 1: do amazingly well is naming its consoles and following a

1049
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:25,680
Speaker 1: strategy that makes perfect sense because you have your original Xbox,

1050
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:30,160
Speaker 1: followed by the Xbox three sixty, and then after that

1051
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: you get the Xbox One, So yeah, that makes sense anyway.

1052
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: The top selling game for the Xbox three sixty was

1053
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: actually Connect Adventures. It's a sports game that moved twenty

1054
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 1: four million units. I suspect because it was bundled with

1055
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:49,000
Speaker 1: the Connect, so if you bought a Connect, you got

1056
01:03:49,200 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 1: a copy of that game. Second place for the Xbox

1057
01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 1: three sixty was Grand Theft Auto five, so again we

1058
01:03:57,880 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: see the Grand Theft Auto franchise making a big impact

1059
01:04:01,720 --> 01:04:05,760
Speaker 1: on consoles. It was popular on Microsoft's console, just as

1060
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:08,080
Speaker 1: it had been over at Sony, and it sold nearly

1061
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 1: eighteen million units. That's a lot. Halo three would come

1062
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,600
Speaker 1: in third place with fourteen and a half million units,

1063
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:22,880
Speaker 1: and then followed by Minecraft with thirteen million units. And

1064
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:26,640
Speaker 1: I've done a full episode about Minecraft, so I don't

1065
01:04:26,680 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 1: feel like I need to go into it very much.

1066
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:30,360
Speaker 1: Here you can listen to that, although I have been

1067
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:33,160
Speaker 1: told I need to update my episode on Minecraft, so

1068
01:04:33,680 --> 01:04:36,240
Speaker 1: keep an ear out because eventually I will update that

1069
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 1: episode and I will release a new version. But no

1070
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:42,080
Speaker 1: need to go into it here. And then in fifth

1071
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:44,440
Speaker 1: place you had Call of Duty Black Ops, a first

1072
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 1: person shooter style game that sold twelve million units. So

1073
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: while their numbers weren't as big as some of the

1074
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:57,720
Speaker 1: PlayStation numbers, they were grouped more closely together, which could

1075
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 1: tell you that your hardcore group of game mers are

1076
01:05:00,800 --> 01:05:05,640
Speaker 1: buying similar games because they're all you know, they they

1077
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:07,960
Speaker 1: seem to be hitting the same spread because those those

1078
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:10,960
Speaker 1: are pretty consistent numbers. You don't have a huge gap

1079
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:13,880
Speaker 1: between one and two and two and three. In other words,

1080
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: So now we've got Xbox one and seriously, Microsoft, I

1081
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:22,440
Speaker 1: know everyone has criticized you for this nonsensical naming strategy

1082
01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 1: that you've been employing, but what the heck man? Come on? Anyway,

1083
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:30,040
Speaker 1: the top selling game for the Xbox One so far

1084
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 1: is Halo five Guardians with five million units sold. So yeah,

1085
01:05:35,720 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 1: top selling game, but fewer copies than what you would

1086
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:44,120
Speaker 1: see in previous UH console generations, and it shows that

1087
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: the Xbox One hasn't been performing at nearly the same

1088
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:49,960
Speaker 1: level as the SONYPS four. Second place would go to

1089
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: Dead Rising three, which is a survival horror game with

1090
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:58,280
Speaker 1: some weird comedic undertones. It's set in a zombie infested California.

1091
01:05:58,800 --> 01:06:01,520
Speaker 1: Third and fourth place went to two entries in the

1092
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 1: four motorsport racing series UH for for the Motorsports five

1093
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:10,240
Speaker 1: and then six, So again we see racing games starting

1094
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:13,640
Speaker 1: to make a big impact on the top one sold

1095
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:17,360
Speaker 1: and fifth place spot went to Gears of War Ultimate Edition,

1096
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:22,120
Speaker 1: which is a third person science fiction based shooter. And

1097
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,240
Speaker 1: this brings us to the PC, which is interesting, Like,

1098
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 1: there was a time where I was devoted to gaming

1099
01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:35,400
Speaker 1: on personal computers because I felt that they gave a

1100
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: superior experience to consoles. Then I felt that consoles were

1101
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: superior for a while because you didn't have to upgrade

1102
01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:46,320
Speaker 1: a console after you bought it. All the games you

1103
01:06:46,360 --> 01:06:48,680
Speaker 1: bought for your console were guaranteed to run on it

1104
01:06:49,600 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 1: more or less as opposed to a PC game that

1105
01:06:52,840 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: you might buy and it ends up being incompatible with

1106
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 1: your video card or you need a new three D

1107
01:06:57,960 --> 01:06:59,800
Speaker 1: based video card in order to play it, and you

1108
01:06:59,880 --> 01:07:03,440
Speaker 1: have to upgrade your computer over and over again. Eventually

1109
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:05,000
Speaker 1: we get to a point where now I feel like

1110
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 1: PC gaming has overtaken console again. I think PC gaming

1111
01:07:08,840 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: is out on top. So let's talk about some of

1112
01:07:12,960 --> 01:07:16,640
Speaker 1: the top selling PC games of all time. Number one

1113
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 1: with a bullet is Minecraft. It has sold more than

1114
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: any other PC game. But next after that is World

1115
01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: of Warcraft, which is a fantasy based massively multiplayer online

1116
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:32,160
Speaker 1: role playing game or m m O RPG. Uh kind

1117
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 1: of like Dungeons and Dragons, but on the computer, you

1118
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:38,840
Speaker 1: play a character that's part of one of two sides,

1119
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:43,400
Speaker 1: and those two sides are in opposition to one another,

1120
01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:46,680
Speaker 1: and you can't really push the story forward too far,

1121
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:49,200
Speaker 1: but you can advance within the world and feel like

1122
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:54,400
Speaker 1: you're playing a part in this bigger story. Third place

1123
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 1: was Diablo three, which is a dungeon crawler and that

1124
01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:00,960
Speaker 1: will end up wearing out your mouth button faster than

1125
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,640
Speaker 1: anything else. A hacking slash style game where you keep

1126
01:08:03,680 --> 01:08:07,080
Speaker 1: on clicking that mouse button trying to whack enemies before

1127
01:08:07,120 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: they whack you. After that as counter Strike, which is

1128
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 1: a game that came out but it really found its

1129
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:18,160
Speaker 1: legs with the moderate community, as in people who modify games.

1130
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:20,840
Speaker 1: There are tons of different modifications for Counterstrike and that

1131
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:24,639
Speaker 1: made it last much longer than other games of its ilk.

1132
01:08:25,880 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 1: And then fifth place would go to The Sims, which

1133
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:32,839
Speaker 1: is a family or life simulator game which really drives

1134
01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:35,960
Speaker 1: home the notion that no matter what you want, you

1135
01:08:36,120 --> 01:08:38,280
Speaker 1: cannot do all the things you need to do in

1136
01:08:38,360 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: a day, like exercise, eat well, do your job, find

1137
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 1: time for entertainment, hygiene. Something's got to give you, guys,

1138
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: know where your priorities are. I'm not making any commentary here. Now,

1139
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:56,599
Speaker 1: just for funzies, I thought i'd take a look at

1140
01:08:56,600 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: how some classic computer games measure up in sales. So

1141
01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:05,599
Speaker 1: modern games you can get massive numbers of sales, millions

1142
01:09:05,720 --> 01:09:10,360
Speaker 1: and millions of units, particularly on day one of a

1143
01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:16,040
Speaker 1: game hitting the virtual shells, because of digital delivery and

1144
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:20,760
Speaker 1: pre game or pre sales. I should say that's not

1145
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:24,160
Speaker 1: the case with classic games. Let's take a good old classic,

1146
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:30,080
Speaker 1: Zorke one. Zorke was a text based adventure game, meaning

1147
01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:32,759
Speaker 1: that the whole game plays out almost like a choose

1148
01:09:32,760 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: your own adventure book, and you would type in what

1149
01:09:35,240 --> 01:09:37,840
Speaker 1: you would want your character to do, and as long

1150
01:09:37,920 --> 01:09:40,520
Speaker 1: as you were typing in commands that the game recognized,

1151
01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: you would continue on through the game until you got

1152
01:09:42,760 --> 01:09:47,240
Speaker 1: eaten by a group. One of the most popular games

1153
01:09:47,280 --> 01:09:50,000
Speaker 1: of the early computing era, one that a lot of

1154
01:09:50,040 --> 01:09:52,439
Speaker 1: people have heard about, and it sold a grand total

1155
01:09:52,520 --> 01:09:56,080
Speaker 1: of around four hundred thousand copies, so not even half

1156
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:59,519
Speaker 1: a million, which is kind of crazy to me because

1157
01:09:59,560 --> 01:10:03,000
Speaker 1: I think of zork is being synonymous with early PC gaming,

1158
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:06,160
Speaker 1: But it does show you that it was a very

1159
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:10,439
Speaker 1: small niche market back in the day. Or how about

1160
01:10:10,479 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 1: the Bard's Tale, which is a very popular dungeon crawler

1161
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:17,320
Speaker 1: or fantasy game again kind of like Dungeons and Dragons,

1162
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:21,200
Speaker 1: very similar to other games of the same style, like Wizardry.

1163
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:26,040
Speaker 1: So how did it do? It's sold three hundred thousand units.

1164
01:10:26,840 --> 01:10:30,040
Speaker 1: Or Ultimate four, which is a game that changed up

1165
01:10:30,080 --> 01:10:32,720
Speaker 1: computer role playing games by requiring the player to not

1166
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:37,160
Speaker 1: act like a complete psychopath. One of the issues that

1167
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 1: Richard Garriott, who created the Ultimate series, had with computer

1168
01:10:41,400 --> 01:10:44,559
Speaker 1: role playing games is that the computer role playing games

1169
01:10:44,600 --> 01:10:49,360
Speaker 1: were not very good at inspiring players to make ethical choices.

1170
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:52,680
Speaker 1: Most of the time, there were very few consequences if

1171
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:55,240
Speaker 1: you did something unethical, like if you tried to steal

1172
01:10:55,400 --> 01:10:58,240
Speaker 1: money from the good guys, or you just started to

1173
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:02,240
Speaker 1: slaughter good guys for no reason. Often there'd be very

1174
01:11:02,280 --> 01:11:05,600
Speaker 1: few consequences to that. With Ultimate four, he designed a

1175
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:09,960
Speaker 1: game that you could not win unless you played a

1176
01:11:10,400 --> 01:11:15,760
Speaker 1: model ethical character. You had to become the avatar, someone

1177
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:22,840
Speaker 1: who embodied the the virtues of this fantasy world, which

1178
01:11:22,920 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: meant that you had to play as a super duper

1179
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:27,479
Speaker 1: goody two shoes, and in parts of the game it

1180
01:11:27,560 --> 01:11:30,120
Speaker 1: was actually really challenging because it felt like two different

1181
01:11:30,240 --> 01:11:32,760
Speaker 1: virtues were at slight odds with one another, so you

1182
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:35,439
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to navigate your way through

1183
01:11:35,479 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 1: situations in order to actually achieve what you needed to

1184
01:11:39,400 --> 01:11:43,000
Speaker 1: in order to win. The game sold three copies, So

1185
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:46,280
Speaker 1: the Ultimate Series is one of the more popular franchises

1186
01:11:46,680 --> 01:11:49,599
Speaker 1: in the early PC gaming era. But you're still talking

1187
01:11:49,640 --> 01:11:52,280
Speaker 1: about sales that amounted to less than half a million

1188
01:11:52,360 --> 01:11:55,920
Speaker 1: in most cases. So remember when I say something like

1189
01:11:56,040 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 1: six million units, isn't that much? It's all a matter

1190
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:02,639
Speaker 1: of context. Obviously, six million units back in the early

1191
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:05,719
Speaker 1: days of PC gaming would have been a huge number,

1192
01:12:05,960 --> 01:12:10,639
Speaker 1: an unimaginably huge number. Oh and what was the greatest

1193
01:12:10,720 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: video game or best selling video game of all time?

1194
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:16,479
Speaker 1: Not greatest video game, but best selling video game of

1195
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:21,920
Speaker 1: all time. Well, it's sold more than four million units

1196
01:12:22,880 --> 01:12:27,000
Speaker 1: across all the different platforms that appeared on. But it

1197
01:12:27,160 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: was That's the reason why it sold so well, as

1198
01:12:29,280 --> 01:12:34,240
Speaker 1: it's on multiple platforms, not just a console or a

1199
01:12:34,360 --> 01:12:38,400
Speaker 1: family of consoles or PCs, It's on pretty much everything.

1200
01:12:39,800 --> 01:12:42,840
Speaker 1: It's one of the most addictive puzzle arcade games of

1201
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 1: all time, and the original game Boy version had a

1202
01:12:46,640 --> 01:12:51,080
Speaker 1: killer soundtrack. I am, of course talking about the one

1203
01:12:51,280 --> 01:12:56,559
Speaker 1: the only Tetris, in which blocks of different shapes fall

1204
01:12:56,640 --> 01:12:59,639
Speaker 1: down a board and it's your job to arrange them

1205
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:04,560
Speaker 1: into to complete layers so that they disappear. Otherwise the

1206
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: board just keeps filling up with shapes until you get

1207
01:13:08,040 --> 01:13:11,960
Speaker 1: to the top and your game is over. Well, the

1208
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:15,080
Speaker 1: story of Tetris is interesting in its own right, and

1209
01:13:15,160 --> 01:13:17,120
Speaker 1: I could probably do a full episode just about the

1210
01:13:17,160 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 1: Tetris story, but I'm gonna give you kind of the

1211
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:23,000
Speaker 1: cliffs notes version here. There was a software developer named

1212
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:28,080
Speaker 1: Alexey paget Nov, and I apologize for butchering the name,

1213
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:32,160
Speaker 1: but my Russian is yet. That just means my Russian

1214
01:13:32,240 --> 01:13:35,439
Speaker 1: is no. That's how bad my Russian is. It's not

1215
01:13:35,680 --> 01:13:41,439
Speaker 1: just not good, it's just no. Alexey pat paget Nov

1216
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:45,160
Speaker 1: created the game in four and he was a citizen

1217
01:13:45,320 --> 01:13:48,240
Speaker 1: of what is now Russia, but at the time was

1218
01:13:48,360 --> 01:13:52,080
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and those young uns among you might

1219
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:55,040
Speaker 1: not know how chilly relations were between the U S

1220
01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:57,679
Speaker 1: SR and the good old USA back in those days,

1221
01:13:57,720 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 1: but suffice it to say we were not besties. The

1222
01:14:02,439 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 1: name of the game he took from the Latin prefix tetra,

1223
01:14:06,800 --> 01:14:10,960
Speaker 1: which generally means four and his favorite sport, which was tennis,

1224
01:14:11,680 --> 01:14:16,280
Speaker 1: and he had Tetris. And the reason he chose four

1225
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:19,720
Speaker 1: is because every block in Tetris is made up of

1226
01:14:19,880 --> 01:14:23,280
Speaker 1: four smaller blocks. So if you have a long piece,

1227
01:14:23,479 --> 01:14:28,160
Speaker 1: that's actually four small blocks in a row. If you

1228
01:14:28,240 --> 01:14:32,320
Speaker 1: have a box, that's a two by two square of blocks.

1229
01:14:32,880 --> 01:14:35,200
Speaker 1: So if you look at any shape in your standard

1230
01:14:35,240 --> 01:14:37,600
Speaker 1: Tetris game, you'll see that's made up of four of

1231
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:43,519
Speaker 1: these little blocks. In some configuration or another. The Soviet

1232
01:14:43,600 --> 01:14:48,200
Speaker 1: Union was keeping a really firm grasp on what could

1233
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:54,160
Speaker 1: leave its country legally, and that included money, and included

1234
01:14:54,760 --> 01:14:59,400
Speaker 1: physical goods, and it included software. So this game that

1235
01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: was made in eight four, it might have just stayed

1236
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:04,719
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union. It may not have ever gotten

1237
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:08,920
Speaker 1: beyond that, except that paget Noov was able to show

1238
01:15:09,120 --> 01:15:14,639
Speaker 1: it off at a software symposium in Hungary. And someone

1239
01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:17,400
Speaker 1: else who attended that was a guy named Robert Stein,

1240
01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:22,360
Speaker 1: who owned his own software company in the UK, and

1241
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:25,519
Speaker 1: he was able to secure an agreement with the Soviet

1242
01:15:25,640 --> 01:15:28,439
Speaker 1: Union that he would be able to license Tetris to

1243
01:15:28,600 --> 01:15:31,559
Speaker 1: distributors in the United Kingdom and in the United States,

1244
01:15:32,200 --> 01:15:37,479
Speaker 1: but only for a computer version. Of Tetris. In other words,

1245
01:15:38,280 --> 01:15:40,640
Speaker 1: it couldn't go to video game consoles, it couldn't go

1246
01:15:40,720 --> 01:15:45,439
Speaker 1: to arcades, It could only be computer based versions. What

1247
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:49,479
Speaker 1: Stein started to do was talk up Tetris to other

1248
01:15:50,200 --> 01:15:52,639
Speaker 1: entities and say, hey, I'm gonna work on getting these

1249
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:56,040
Speaker 1: other deals in place so that we can also make

1250
01:15:56,160 --> 01:16:00,840
Speaker 1: arcade games or make versions for home video game consoles.

1251
01:16:01,800 --> 01:16:04,880
Speaker 1: So go ahead and get to work on that. I'll

1252
01:16:04,920 --> 01:16:09,439
Speaker 1: take care of the the bureaucratic nonsense. This really upset

1253
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:13,280
Speaker 1: government officials in the Soviet Union. They had not given

1254
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:16,599
Speaker 1: him any authority to do this, and so it had

1255
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:20,720
Speaker 1: a had a the opportunity to potentially shut all this down.

1256
01:16:21,600 --> 01:16:26,880
Speaker 1: But then a second software developer was able to smooth

1257
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:29,120
Speaker 1: things out. His name was Hank Rogers, and he was

1258
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:32,599
Speaker 1: able to convince the Soviet Union to license this over

1259
01:16:32,720 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 1: to Nintendo and they put it out for the Game

1260
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:37,599
Speaker 1: Boy uh and that once the Game Boy edition came out,

1261
01:16:39,120 --> 01:16:42,519
Speaker 1: it really caught fire, and from that point forward it

1262
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:45,240
Speaker 1: was one of the most popular games. In fact, it

1263
01:16:45,400 --> 01:16:49,719
Speaker 1: was the most popular game in video game history. Sad

1264
01:16:49,880 --> 01:16:54,599
Speaker 1: side note Pageantanov didn't profit from this. He didn't get

1265
01:16:54,640 --> 01:16:57,760
Speaker 1: to collect profits from these sales that was pretty much

1266
01:16:57,800 --> 01:17:02,680
Speaker 1: going to the Soviet Union government. Paget Nov, even though

1267
01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:06,200
Speaker 1: he built the thing, wasn't getting rewarded for it. Eventually,

1268
01:17:06,320 --> 01:17:10,240
Speaker 1: hink Rogers would travel to Moscow and actually argue that

1269
01:17:10,680 --> 01:17:13,559
Speaker 1: paget Nov should be reawarded the rights to the game

1270
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:17,760
Speaker 1: he himself had developed. But by then it was so

1271
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:20,080
Speaker 1: you're talking about more than a decade and a half

1272
01:17:20,880 --> 01:17:28,040
Speaker 1: of sales where the so Union had been benefiting from this, uh,

1273
01:17:28,200 --> 01:17:32,000
Speaker 1: this piece of software, and paget Nov had not. So

1274
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:35,479
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting story and maybe one day I'll

1275
01:17:35,520 --> 01:17:37,880
Speaker 1: do a full episode on Tetris to really dive into

1276
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:40,280
Speaker 1: that and give you like a blow by blow of

1277
01:17:40,400 --> 01:17:44,479
Speaker 1: how that played out, because it's interesting political story as

1278
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:47,360
Speaker 1: well as a technological one. But for now, it's time

1279
01:17:47,439 --> 01:17:50,680
Speaker 1: to wrap this up and say goodbye. So here's a

1280
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:52,519
Speaker 1: question for some of you guys. Have you any of

1281
01:17:52,560 --> 01:17:54,479
Speaker 1: you played any of the games that I've mentioned here,

1282
01:17:54,760 --> 01:17:56,920
Speaker 1: Are any of them like really stand out games? You

1283
01:17:56,920 --> 01:17:59,080
Speaker 1: would say that makes sense that that's on that best

1284
01:17:59,120 --> 01:18:03,519
Speaker 1: selling list because as that game is amazing, or were

1285
01:18:03,600 --> 01:18:06,080
Speaker 1: there any games that you feel should have been on

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Speaker 1: the best selling list? But for some reason, I have

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01:18:09,040 --> 01:18:12,200
Speaker 1: been overlooked. Are there games that you wish got more

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01:18:12,240 --> 01:18:15,040
Speaker 1: attention because you think that they were really, really good,

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01:18:16,000 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 1: but they just never got that mainstream adoption that would

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01:18:22,600 --> 01:18:24,920
Speaker 1: have put them as a best seller. Let me know.

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Speaker 1: Or if you have suggestions for future episodes of tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff or guests I should have on the show, anything

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Speaker 1: like that, send me an email. The address for the

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Speaker 1: show is text stuff at how stuff works dot com,

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Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Twitter or Facebook.

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Speaker 1: The handle for the show at both of those locations

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Speaker 1: is tech Stuff hs W. Remember I live stream tech

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Speaker 1: Stuff now, so if you ever want to watch me

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Speaker 1: record one of these shows live on camera like people

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Speaker 1: are doing at this very second that I'm recording this,

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Speaker 1: not when you're listening. That wouldn't make sense, go to

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Speaker 1: twitch dot tv slash tech Stuff. My schedule is up

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Speaker 1: on the website. I live stream on Wednesdays and Fridays,

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Speaker 1: so check that out. I would love for you to

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Speaker 1: join us, and I will talk to you guys again

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Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics.

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