Best Selling Kit Games?

MagicMarc-er

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Has anyone ever seen a list of the best selling kit games of all time? I tried searching for it but came up empty. I'd imagine games like Mr. Do and Capcom Bowling would be on there but would really be interested, if anyone has this info.
 
80% of the Stargates I find have been converted to either Yi Ar Kung Fu or Rush N Attack.

I'd guess something like Arkanoid or Golden Tee is the all time winner, but I'm pretty sure those other two killed most of my beloved Stargates! :)
 
I would think SF II and SF II CE would be #1 and #2 by far. I know operators that turned 90% of their fleet into those a d the rest into NeoGeo cabs.

Hec
 
I think Golden Tee could give SF2 and Mr. Do a run for their money, but that would encompass whole series.
 
It has to be Ms. Pacman or Galaga. There are sooooo many out there.


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Still haven't found anything approaching a comprehensive list but did find this little nugget: Mr. Do, which was the first kit game in 1982 sold 30,000 units just in the U.S.
 
Didn't Donkey Kong technically start as a kit? I realize that may not qualify for it to make this list since most were dedicated but thought it was something I read somewhere...
 
Still haven't found anything approaching a comprehensive list but did find this little nugget: Mr. Do, which was the first kit game in 1982 sold 30,000 units just in the U.S.

Where did you find that statement? Its accuracy is questionable; conversion kits were around before Mr. Do! came on the scene.

Now, if the implication was that it was Universal's first kit, I could possibly see that. But it wasn't the first arcade conversion kit.
 
You will probably never find a good answer without doing a ton of research. The only metric the industry cared about was revenue. And in the early 80s, as "software" became a part of amusements, the trades would track sales in their charts, such as in the lower right corner here:

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The Distribution number could help show how many ops reporting actually had that title.
Grab a stack of RePlay magazines spanning two decades and you might get a good answer
after you compile the data.
 
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Ah, yes, Wikipedia, the gold standard for accuracy ;)

Seriously, though, I think that what was written in there may have been misread or misinterpreted. From the article:

Wikipedia article on Mr. Do! said:
It is the first game in the Mr. Do series, and was released both as a standalone game and as a conversion kit (released by Taito Corp.) for existing arcade cabinets. It was one of the first arcade games to be released as a conversion kit, and went on to sell 30,000 units in the United States.

Note the emphasis in the quote above - it was one of the first, not the first. There were a number of games released as drop-in kits for Galaxian, Pac-Man, and Scramble cabinets (amongst others), all three of which predate Mr. Do!.
 
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I've read most of the Replay and Playmeters from the period. Mr. Do looks to be by far the most successful.
 
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