Comment by Supernaut
14 hours ago
Okay, that's interesting. I was in my early teens when it was released. Absolutely everyone I knew had either a Spectrum or a C64, aside from the one rich kid who owned a BBC Micro.
I just had a look at Wikipedia, which says, "the NES performed less well in Europe, where it faced strong competition from the Master System and home computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum."
This is a interesting long read on the subject: https://fatnickindustries.com/Blog/2019/07/03/8-bit-showdown...
The NES did get past a million sales in the UK, but a lot of them seem to have been at a cheap price late in its life once the SNES and (more so) the Mega Drive had established a popular market for consoles in the UK.
An indicative fact on consoles vs computers that the article highlights: in 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive reached #11 in the UK charts on its release, and it was considered a remarkable and unusual achievement for a console game to do so well.
Great article! Interesting to see they were still selling the SMS for 10% of the price of the Saturn at the same time.
Just want to say, I hadn't encountered your website before, but it's an absolute treat.
I'll be working my way through your Timeline over the next while!
Thank you! I hope you enjoy