▲ 6 points

Ask HN: What is the marketshare of modern vintage games by system?

by ibobev·6y ago·6 comments·view on hn ↗

I know that every year there are still at least a couple of new games for old systems like VIC-20, C64, Amiga, different ZX Spectrum and Amstrad variants, DOS, different games consoles, and so on, some of them even commercial. Is there any data about the market share of modern games for retro machines? Said with other words, for which vintage systems a new game will have the biggest audience?

This might be related to the total amount of units of each system sold, but I think that it is not mandatory to be in a such way. It is possible some systems produced in greater numbers to be not as suitable for games like other systems produced in lower numbers. The existence of emulators also may change the things, by making the numbers of the real system not so important as its actual capabilities. Another factor which I think that have to be considered is the eventual legal issues of distributing a game for an old system if the company which owns it still exists.

6 comments

Interesting question! I don't have any hard data. You could try mining online databases

https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/

https://csdb.dk/

I'd be surprised if the average is significantly greater than 1 release per day. Retro styles are all the rage. But its much easier to develop on Pico-8.

A good proxy is probably community size and passion. And there I would say the biggest market is undoubtedly Nintendo retro. Most are available via emulation, re-release. But the install base of working vintage consoles must be quite sizable still.

Best of Luck and please let us know what you uncover ;)

I don't know, but I do play some of the new games for NES/Famicom which are available freely (and there are some good ones!). (I even wrote one game myself, but never finished it, although you might be able to find it.) I also write some new computer games for DOS. (These emulators (i.e. software implementations) can be a VM, so that can be a VM to make your game, too. And yet, it can also work on the actual older systems, too, is also good.)

Could you share links to your games? Did you try to sell some of them to the retro community and if so could you share some sales statistics?

I have not try to sell any games. But, here is some links:

http://zzo38computer.org/GAMES/MEGAPANE.ZIP

http://zzo38computer.org/ZZT/xyzabcde.zip (you will also need ZZT)

I just want to say thanks for bring this up! I didn't know there were new games being made. Just my 2 cents, but I think most people play the old games for the nostalgia, which the new games might not provide.

I recently played a couple of new games for old systems. There exist really good ones. You can check those links:

https://www.protovision.games/

https://zxonline.net/

https://doublesidedgames.com/

http://www.retroworks.es/index_en.php

For me is very hard to determine what drives me to such games. It seems completely irrational. Maybe it is really a nostalgia. My first machine was an IBM XT PC in 1994 when I was 8 years old. It was more then 10 years behind the state of the art. Indeed it has capabilities close to the 8-bit machines despite being 16-bit.