What was the Total Sega Genesis Hardware Sales Number?

[A Black Falcon]

The most commonly heard number is "29 million". However, I think that that number has to be wrong -- it's almost certainly too low!

http://retro.ign.com/articles/965/965032p1.html

Nintendo moved 49.1 million Super NES consoles over the course of the generation and beyond, far surpassing the Genesis, which sold a still impressive 29 million units. Why is being 20 million behind Nintendo impressive? Because this was the last generation before videogames went mainstream thanks to the marketing prowess of Sony. It's also impressive because in the previous generation, SEGA was decimated by Nintendo. The Master System sold an anemic 13 million to the NES count of 62 million.

Nintendo released official sales numbers for all its systems. You can look at the chart here.

Sega, however, did nothing of the sort.

To make things worse, there are MANY Sega Genesis models...

Sega Genesis 1/MegaDrive 1
Sega Genesis 2/MegaDrive 2
Sega Genesis 3 (Majesco Genesis)
Sega MegaJet
Sega Nomad
Sega CDX/Multi-Mega
JVC X'eye
Pioneer LaserActive with Sega PAC add-on

And this isn't counting more recent, licensed stand-alone units that only play a single game, or several games, or things like that, just the older ones that take cartridges. I'm also not counting the various emulation-based but officially licensede clone systems now on the market. Those systems would probably not be counted in a "system sold" list... but as they are licensed, should they could for something? I'd count them separately for sure if I did, but it's an interesting question. But anyway...

The point is, does that "14 million" or "29 million" number include all of these models? Just the official Sega models, not things like the LaserActive or X'eye? Just the Genesis 1 or Genesis 1 and 2? Which years? I have no idea.


So, we have to work on guesswork. So what's the source for this "29 million" number? Wikipedia says it too, so their source is the likely one.

Wikipedia links this site as its source for the "29 million" number.

http://www.islandnet.com/~KPOLSSON/segavid/

Here's the relevant quote they're basing the number on:

1989

(month unknown)

* Sega Enterprises introduces the Genesis home video game system in the US. It features 7.68 MHz 16-bit Motorola 68EC000 processor, 4 MHz Z80 sound coprocessor, 64 kB RAM, 512 colors in 320x224 resolution. 80 animated sprites are possible, with up to 16 colors per sprite. Included is the video game Altered Beast. Price is US$189. (Total North American sales in its lifetime: 14 million. Total world sales: 29 million.) [70] [124.352] [157.44] [176.C1] [317.68] [483.64] [1255.75]

Hmm, sounds clear enough. But wait... keep reading the page. What do you find, in the "1997-2000" page...

1999

(month unknown)

* Unit sales of video game systems in North America to date: Sega Master System 1.5 million, Sega Genesis 19 million, Saturn 1 million, [378.59]

NINTEEN million, not 17 million? Wait a minute, but that "29 million" number everyone quotes was based on a US sales base of 14 million, not 19 million. If the actual total US sales was at least 19 million, that worldwide total must be wrong, right? And if that's wrong... well, then the N64 (32 million sold) probably isn't actually the best-selling non-handheld second-place console, is it (note -- the Sony PSP is now the most successful second-place console ever, hence the "non-handheld" qualification). But if that "29 million" is based on incomplete US totals, what about the rest of the world... is there anything out there to even guess at this? That source site does list its sources, so at least it would be possible to look up those numbers... I have no idea which are accurate and which aren't. It would make things so much easier if Sega had ever just released a comprehensive units-sold total chart, like Nintendo has...

I don't know about internationally, but honestly, 23.35 million SNESes sold in the US. The idea that despite how close that generation was for so long (in fact, that the Genesis led until sometime in 1994) the SNES somehow managed to win by nearly a full TEN MILLION UNITS just defies belief, in my opinion. That 19 million number makes a LOT more sense to me, really...