Most games for a system?

[arkaeyn.]

Hi all. I'm working with the Onion AV Club's "Ask the AV Club" section on old game questions, and someone has asked us, basically, which system has the most games?

This is obviously impossible to answer with total certainly, because the PC, for example, can emulate everything, and the PS2, PS3, XBox 360, GBA, and DS are all backwards compatible. So I'm not expecting a holy grail, but am looking for clues.


Sorry if this has been asked before, but I tried searching the archives for it and couldn't find it specifically. If it has, please point me to the link.

cheers!

[GM80]

You certainly need to decide whether you're including or excluding the PC. The number of games that can be run on a properly configured Windows XP machine is staggering and nigh-innumerable. In addition to 20-some years of commercial games, you've got countless 6KB doohickeys from millions of people with a pirated version of Visual Basic and a little free time.

That doesn't even begin to included emulation, which is a drop in the ocean. A similar situation might apply to early "home computers," in which BASIC games were everywhere. So if you're including computers, the contest's over.

You'd also need to clarify whether you're referring to US games, or a more global perspective. If you're limiting the question to dedicated game hardware, with global software counts, my first guess would be the GBA and it's library of value-priced titles, when you include the compatible GB and GBC games.

A second guess (for global software) would be the PS3 with its few releases, but the compatible PS2 and PSOne games.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to make me look foolish and offer a definitive answer. I just had a few minutes to blow :)

[Kroogah]

Backwards compatibility, it just might be the Atari 7800, which can play every Atari 2600 game in addition to its own.

Game Boy Advance can play every GB, GBC and GBA game from every region of the world with no modifications.

[arkaeyn.]

perhaps to be more clear - I understand that such things will make answering the question impossible, but if I can get some raw data, then we can have some fun deciding what fits where.

[Cornelius]

I'd only do US releases, and I'd leave out backwards compatibility. I only recall rough numbers, but here's what I've got:
2600 - ~550? real rough
NES - 760
PSX - something like 2000?

Frankly I don't see anything touching the PSX

[coreys429]

PSX had that many games because think about how many sports and sport clones that came out with that system. Every game store I go to has PS1 games of sports and nothing else.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Yeah, whether you're only counting U.S. releases or whether you mean worldwide releases might make a difference.

Actually, I think there's 1200 U.S. Playstation 1 releases. And something like 3500 worldwide. Chances are that's the most in either category.

The GBA has like 900 U.S. releases and I think the original Gameboy has about the same plus like 150 for the Gameboy Color (that's a total guess, I really have no idea). So if you're counting backwards compatibility, the GBA probably edges out the PS3. I don't know the worldwide numbers for Gameboy systems, bu they'd probably still be higher than world wide numbers for the Playstation systems.

PC definitely slaughters them all, though. And yeah, I would expect that the C64 is way way up there, too.


...word is bondage...

[tom]

Even for US only releases, in the past, the Apple ][, C-64, and even A8 had most game releases for sure. Apple ][ most likely in the lead, followed by C-64 and A8 third. (www.GB64.com now claims 20.000 game releases worldwide, but you gotta half that because they count type-in listings from magazines, DIY games from Contruction sets, game makers...etc)

But as said before, the PC is in the lead with most game releases in the long run (since 1981).