Best-selling game each Christmas 1984 - 2023 (UK)

Best-selling game each Christmas 1984 - 2023 (UK)

Some amazing games have topped the Christmas chart over the years... and perhaps some not-so-great ones, too. Man, just check out those first six Spectrum-focused years... I had the C64 versions, but what a fantastic set of titles!

I'm surprised James Bond topped the chart in '99

Easy to forget how much of a phenomenon Who Wants to be a Millionaire was when it first came out

Tomous wrote:Easy to forget how much of a phenomenon Who Wants to be a Millionaire was when it first came out

I remember the 2nd Edition (purple) then bombed. Eidos also spent a fortune mocapping Chris Tarrant on PS2, who in the game seemed to have developed a nervous twitch. The hype came and went.

We bought the original game on PSone from Woolworths. We then had to take it back and have it replaced because the disc didn’t work. The only time I can recall that I’ve encountered a faulty disc.

Tomorrow Never Dies a year earlier was a load of crap as well, from what I can remember. The 2000 Bond game was better.

Rambo was the unofficial sequal to commando (at least in my eyes).

Gauntlet, Robocop and Chase HQ on the Spectrum where great games.

TMHT was the NES conversion rather than the better arcade beat em up 4 player.

The original FIFA on MD was good, but was later massively eclipsed by the underrated ISS.

Tomorrow never dies was heavily riding on the misplaced coat tails of Goldeneye.

Forgot how big a deal Brain Training was.

Great list Jawa. Really takes me back. I actually owned original copies of most of those earlier titles but for the C64. In fact I never had any pirate 8 but games now I think about it.

Seems crazy the Super Nintendo never had a Xmas best seller. All my friends owned one.

Vermi Claus wrote:I'm surprised James Bond topped the chart in '99

Yes, I hadn't remembered that one! Perhaps it was standing on the shoulders of GoldenEye frmo a couple of years earlier?

Tomous wrote:Easy to forget how much of a phenomenon Who Wants to be a Millionaire was when it first came out

Oh, definitely, Tom. It was huge and the game must have really appealed at that time. I recall avidly watching the TV show!

KK wrote:Tomorrow Never Dies a year earlier was a load of crap as well, from what I can remember. The 2000 Bond game was better.

I've not played those PS Bond titles but IIRC the N64 version of The World is Not Enough was fairly decent.

mcjihge2 wrote:Rambo was the unofficial sequal to commando (at least in my eyes)...

The computer version of Rambo launched just prior to Commando :-)

. Despite what some websites - including Wikipedia! - say, Rambo launched around September 1985 with Commando arriving just before Christmas. I picked up the C64 version of Rambo at luanch and then got Commando for Christmas :toot:

. Both were great shooters... pretty tough, though!

mcjihge2 wrote:...Gauntlet, Robocop and Chase HQ on the Spectrum where great games...

I know, right? What a fantastic era!

mcjihge2 wrote:...The original FIFA on MD was good, but was later massively eclipsed by the underrated ISS...

Yeah, FIFA was good but, as you say, ISS on the SNES was even better.

Last edited by jawa_ on Sat Dec 23, 2023 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Shutter's fill wrote:Great list Jawa. Really takes me back...

It is nice looking back at those past hits, isn't it?

Shutter's fill wrote:...I actually owned original copies of most of those earlier titles but for the C64. In fact I never had any pirate 8 but games now I think about it...

Yeah, I had C64 versions, too. It's pretty amazing at how different games were on different systems in those days!

Shutter's fill wrote:...Seems crazy the Super Nintendo never had a Xmas best seller. All my friends owned one.

In my neck of the woods the Mega Drive was more popular but there were plenty of SNES gamers around, too. EA's sports titles were always better on the MD than the SNES and they were just so popular at that time.

Good point regarding the Sports game phenomenon and how they were synonymous with the MD. I had not considered that.

I would never have guessed Who Wants to be a Millionaire, that passed me by :lol:

The 2020s are off to a much more interesting start than the 2000s and 2010s by this measure

Interesting to see how popular Need for Speed was back in 2005 and 2006, too. Imagine NFS being the number one now!

I've always liked the series but, oddly enough, that was exactly when I didn't buy it; I've bought them before and after that time.

I think Sonic 2 is the only one I would have actually have gotten at Christmas during the year it was the top seller... owned plenty of the other but grabbed at random times.

jawa_ wrote:
mcjihge2 wrote:Rambo was the unofficial sequal to commando (at least in my eyes)...

The computer version of Rambo launched just prior to Commando . Despite what some websites - including Wikipedia! - say, Rambo launched around September 1985 with Commando arriving just before Christmas. I picked up the C64 version of Rambo at luanch and then got Commando for Christmas . Both were great shooters... pretty tough, though!

Whilst this is true for the Commando home game release, the arcade release was sooner, July 1985 according to wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commando_(video_game)
Which aligns with my recollection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo_(1985_video_game)

EDIT: The citations in these wiki links are a nostalgic rabbit hole of 80s games mags.

Honestly surprised not to see NFS feature more. They always used to release around November and seemed to be permanent fixtures atop the charts in the games mags I read growing up.

Interesting too how FIFA has become this total behemoth and really the only football game around now but hasn’t topped the Christmas charts since the 90s.

I have a vivid memory of seeing a giant cardboard cutout of Sonic and Tails in the window of Dixons in Inverness in November 1992 and feeling excited. I would’ve had a Master System then so probably went home feeling sad to play The Ninja.

mcjihge2 wrote:Whilst this is true for the Commando home game release, the arcade release was sooner...

Oh, man, yeah - the arcade version definitely pre-dated Rambo.

mcjihge2 wrote:...a nostalgic rabbit hole of 80s games mags.

There were so many gaming mags around in the 80s and 90s! It's hard to imagine it now but WH Smith and newsagents had large sections dedicated to them. Good times!

hamm sandwich wrote:...Interesting too how FIFA has become this total behemoth and really the only football game around now but hasn’t topped the Christmas charts since the 90s...

Good shout, hamm - I was thinking the same. I'd thought that FIFA/CoD had kinda alternated at the number one spot in recent years but that's not the case. I guess that FIFA release a little earlier - September, nowdays - and so fades just a little by Christmas. Obvs it still sells hugely well, though.

hamm sandwich wrote:...I have a vivid memory of seeing a giant cardboard cutout of Sonic and Tails in the window of Dixons in Inverness in November 1992 and feeling excited. I would’ve had a Master System then so probably went home feeling sad to play The Ninja.

No-one should feel sad when they're a Master System owner. You've got Sega arcade hits in your home 8-)

. Oh, and, yeah, Dixons... they seemed to be on every high street and were great for console gaming.

Massive rush of nostalgia seeing Ghostbusters up there back in 1984. I played that for ages on my cousins C64. I remember it had 2 or 3 different game styles in one game, we thought we'd never be bored of it and would play it for the rest of our lives!

Wonderful ChristmasLime wrote:Massive rush of nostalgia seeing Ghostbusters up there back in 1984. I played that for ages on my cousins C64. I remember it had 2 or 3 different game styles in one game, we thought we'd never be bored of it and would play it for the rest of our lives!

Great stuff, Lime! A pal just down the road from me had a C64 and I recall seeing the start-up sequence music playing... it was so good! And when I realised you could press the space bar to have speech say "Ghostbusters", I almost died :lol:

.

jawa_ wrote: And when I realised you could press the space bar to have speech say "Ghostbusters", I almost died .

what

Best-selling game each Christmas 1984 - 2023 (UK)

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