Most video game companies do not disclose their production numbers, but most pinball manufacturers do (go figure?). So finding out how many of a game was made can be a difficult task. Good estimates (or exact numbers), are available for most of the really popular games from the classic era. Most of these numbers come from ex-employees, or from the simple fact that a lot of companies used normal serial numbers that started with 001 and went up from there.<\/p>\n
All the really big production numbers were done in the classic era, specifically the period of time before 1984. Back then a great game could easily sell 40,000 units. Most of the popular games from the big name companies did huge numbers (Atari, Williams, and Midway specifically). It was odd for Atari or Midway to make a game with a run of less than a few thousand. But the smaller manufacturers usually had runs in the hundreds, and sometimes even in the tens. This all stopped in 1984 when the game industry crashed. Production numbers started going way down in 1984, and they never came back up. Most games from the 1985-1986 era had runs of around 1000 or less, with a few exceptions from big name companies (Gauntlet, et cetera). The industry slowly rebounded, but they simply never got back into the massive production that they once enjoyed. Today few games do more than a few thousand units (except for fighting game kits), and there are far less titles available now then at any point in the past.<\/p>\n
What does all that mean? Well basically it means that the most common games are actually the old ones, and newer games are actually the rare ones. I’ll bet you will find 100 Ms. Pac-Man machines (1982) for every Skull & Crossbones machine (1989). But enough blabbing, lets get to the numbers I have compiled.<\/p>\n
Exact numbers and decent estimates
\nMost of these numbers are really close, and most of the Atari ones are exact. Some are inferred from serial numbers, others come from leaked documents, or statements from employees of the respective companies. These numbers are largely for the US versions of the games, the European versions were usually in slightly different cabinets and were made in much smaller numbers, while the Japanese versions were often totally different (or non-existant in the case of many Atari titles).<\/p>\n
Akka Arrh 2 (Both owned by the same person)
\nArabian 1950
\nArcade Classics 6
\nAsteroids 47840
\nAsteroids (cocktail) 8725
\nAsteroids (factory Lunar Lander conversion) 200
\nAsteroids (Gold) 1 (Belonged to Ed Logg last time I checked)
\nAsteroids Deluxe 18142
\nAsteriods Deluxe (cabaret) 1005
\nAsteroids Deluxe (cocktail) 3252
\nAtari Baseball 1050
\nAtari Football 10450
\nAtari Football (Four player version) 901
\nBattlezone 13022
\nBattlezone (cabaret) 2000
\nBattlezone (cocktail) 1
\nBegas Battle 700
\nBerzerk 39000
\nBerzerk (cocktail) 1000
\nBlack Widow 1550
\nBlaster (cockpit) 3
\nBradley Trainer 2-3
\nBreakout 11000
\nBruce Jenner (Laserdisc) 2 (both of them currently exist, but there is only one copy of the laser disc left, and it suffers from bit rot)
\nBurgertime 22,000
\nCentipede 46062
\nCentipede (cabaret) 3924
\nCentipede (cocktail, 13 inch display) 5977
\nCentipede (cocktail, 19 inch display) 25
\nCity Connection 1000 (Guessed from serial numbers)
\nCloak & Dagger (Dedicated) 25
\nComputer Space (Yellow) 8
\nCosmic Chasm 400 (Based on serial numbers)
\nCrystal Castles 4880 (one of those is mine)
\nCrystal Castles (cocktail) 500
\nDonkey Kong (Red) 2000
\nDig Dug 10504
\nDig Dug (cabaret) 505
\nDig Dug (cocktail) 1219
\nDoom II 1 (Functioning movie prop)
\nDr. Sparkz Lab 3 (2 of which are currently accounted for)
\nDragon’s Lair 8300 (Guessed from serial numbers of known cabinets)
\nFood Fight 1951
\nFood Fight (cocktail) 100
\nFreedom Fighter 30 (Inferred from serial numbers)
\nGravitar 5427
\nGoal to Go 100
\nI, Robot 1300 (Highly debated)
\nInferno 25
\nJoust (cocktail) 500 (Debated, could be higher)
\nJoust 2: Survival of the Fittest 500 (Debated, could be higher)
\nKangaroo 9803 (One of them is mine)
\nKick 1500 (More were made as Kick-Man)
\nLiberator 762
\nLock ‘n’ Chase (dedicated) 800
\nLunar Lander 4830
\nMajor Havoc (upright) 300
\nMarble Madness 2: Marble Man 3-6 (3 known to exist now)
\nMillipede (cocktail) 1300
\nMillipede (upright) 8690
\nMissile Command (cabaret) 1500
\nMissile Command (cocktail) 3005
\nMissile Command (cockpit) 100-200
\nMissile Command (upright) 14044
\nMs. Pac-Man (upright) 115,000 (Bootlegs and cocktails would nearly double this number)
\nNight Driver 2100
\nPac-Man 100,000 (US uprights only, clones, bootlegs, overseas versions, and tables could make this number as high as 250,000)
\nPeter Packrat 500
\nPole Position II (dedicated) 2400
\nPole Position (sitdown) 3169
\nPole Position (upright) 17270
\nPrimal Rage II Less than 10 (1 currently known to exist)
\nProfessor Pac-Man 400 (Most of which were returned to Midway and later converted to Pac-Land)
\nQuake – Arcade Tournament Edition 20 (A lot of people made their own Quake arcade machines too, those are actually more common than the real ones)
\nQuantum 500
\nRadar Scope 3000 (2000 of those were factory converted to Donkey Kong)
\nRadar Scope (environmental) around 100
\nRed Baron 1500
\nRed Baron (cockpit) 504
\nShrike Avenger 10-12
\nSpace Duel (cocktail) 1019
\nSpace Duel 11017
\nSpace Ace 5000 (Mostly conversions)
\nSpace Invaders 60,000 (US uprights only, clones, bootlegs, overseas versions, and tables could make this number as high as 150,000)
\nSpace Invaders (Alien “Taiten” headed UK version) 20
\nSprint 2 8200
\nStargate 26,000
\nStargate (cocktail) 1,000
\nStar Wars (cockpit) 2450
\nStar Wars (upright) 10245
\nStarship I 3500
\nS.T.U.N. Runner (Upright) 1 (The rest were sit down units)
\nSuper Breakout 4805
\nSuper Don Quixote (Dedicated) 50
\nTapper (monochrome sideart) 3200
\nTapper (color sideart) 100
\nTapper (cocktail) 300
\nTempest (cabaret) 2176
\nTempest (cocktail) 1663
\nTempest 25112
\nTurkey Shoot 450
\nVideo Pinball 1505
\nWar of the Worlds 10
\nWarlords (cocktail) 1253
\nWarlords (upright) 1014
\nXevious 5295
\nLess than exact numbers, speculation, lies, and dirty lies.
\nThese numbers come from rumor, memory, speculation, and other inexact sources.<\/p>\n
Blaster (wooden cabinet) Probably only a few hundred, most Blasters shipped in the DuraMold cabinet.
\nCrunch Pod Zero This game existed only as a prop in “Pepper Ann”.
\nDeath Race Less than 1,000
\nDefender Somewhere around 50,000
\nDonkey Kong (Entire series) Close to 80,000 or so.
\nExidy (All titles) Most Exidy games only had a run of a few hundred. They didn’t have facilities to do much more than that.
\nGalaxian (25″ display) Not too many, as 19″ models seem to outnumber the 25″ ones about 50 to 1.
\nGyruss Thought to be around 10,000, but that number is purely an estimate.
\nHard Drivin’: Airborne Maybe 25 or so? It was tested but never went into wide production.
\nJack The Giantkiller, Naughty Boy, and Zzyzzyxx (combined) 5,000 boardsets were made for this platform in total.
\nJackie Chan In Fists Of Fire Not nearly enough!
\nJoust Somewhere around 40,000 to 60,000
\nManhole Zero This game has showed up as a prop in a lot of television shows (Silver Spoons, Married with Children, et cetera), but it is only an empty cabinet, and has nothing inside.
\nMoppet Video (total of all titles) A few thousand at best, most of which are long gone now.
\nNintendo Vs. Unisystem Less than 80,000 total, because these were made for retrofitting Donkey Kong series games. Probably more like 40,000.
\nPuppy Pong At least 35, but no more than 100.
\nRed Baron (original cabinet style, before they started using spare Battlezone cabinets) 3-10
\nRobotron 2084 11,000 (Unverified, I can’t remember where I read that number)
\nShark JAWS Less than 500 (Highest serial number I can find is mine, and that is number 311)
\nSplat! A few hundred at best, probably less.
\nStar Castle 8,000-10,000
\nStreet Fighter 2 (all versions) Way too many! (Apparently it was around 35,000. This was the only game ever to break 30,000 after 1984).
\nSundance Around 100, almost all of which blew up the minute they were plugged in.
\nSuper Death Chase less than 10.
\nThe Last Star fighter Zero This game never existed as anything other than a movie prop, and a prototype boardset that didn’t work correctly.
\nTime Pilot (cocktail) Probably less than 100. The serial number on mine is 000007, and I can’t find anyone else who owns one, and an extensive UseNet search only shows mention of two others, both of which were seen at live auctions.
\nTime Pilot ’84 (dedicated) A few hundred, as the vast majority of these were kits to retrofit Time Pilot.
\nVindicators 2 A few hundred<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most video game companies do not disclose their production numbers, but most pinball manufacturers do (go figure?). So finding out how many of a game was made can be a difficult task. Good estimates (or exact numbers), are available for most of the really popular games from the classic era. Most of these numbers come … Continue reading “Arcade Production Numbers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arcade-production-numbers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connecticutarcade.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}