How many of the williams 1980s games were made ?

andykmv

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Curiosity is getting the better of me. Ovewer time I've seem some discussion about volumes of certain games being made, but not sure where to find out some definitive info on the Williams stuff!

Of these Williams' arcade games (and/or conversion kits ?) from the 1980s, how many of each were made/manufactured ? What hardware platform (where not sure) and whether the hardware platform used for other arcade games ?

1942 (capcom 1942),
Aeroboto (Jaleco) (what hardware platform ?)
Blaster, (what hardware platform ?)
Bubbles,
Defender,
Devastator (what hardware platform ?)
Inferno,
Joust,
Joust 2,
Make Trax (Kural Samno ?), (what hardware platform ?)
Moon patrol (Irem),
Motorace (what hardware platform ?)
Mystic Marathon,
NARC, (what hardware platform ?)
Robotron 2084,
Sinistar,
Speed Ball: Contest at Neonworld (what hardware platform ?)
Splat!,
Stargate (Defender II),
Star Rider (what hardware platform ?)
Turkey Shoot

And to round out the question, what about the early 1990s ?
Hot Shot (1992) (what hardware platform ?)
High Impact Football (1990) (what hardware platform ?)
Hit The Ice (1990) (what hardware platform ?)
SmashTV (1990) (what hardware platform ?)
 
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I hate to say it, but this information just isn't out there. I'm not sure where the pinball guys got their information from, either through research or a source within the old williams, but that hasn't happened with video games, afaik.

You can eliminate the games that never made it into production, like devastators, splat, and speed ball (play ball and the predator games too) Inferno is also down near this area. These numbers are so low it doesn't really matter. But when it comes to games that made it into productions its very hard to say ,for example, which was made more star rider or joust 2, i just couldn't take a guess.
 
which was made more star rider or joust 2, i just couldn't take a guess.


I'll take a total guess based on what i saw at the time (in the UK). I saw a lot of Star Rider sit downs when they first came out but I guess they all died failry quickly disspaeared form view or got converted. Also, being released around/before the games crash I bet it was visualised to be sold in higher numbers.

I never remember seeing a joust 2 though.
 
Curiosity is getting the better of me. Ovewer time I've seem some discussion about volumes of certain games being made, but not sure where to find out some definitive info on the Williams stuff!

Of these Williams' arcade games (and/or conversion kits ?) from the 1980s, how many of each were made/manufactured ? What hardware platform (where not sure) and whether the hardware platform used for other arcade games ?

1942 (capcom 1942),
Aeroboto (Jaleco) (what hardware platform ?)
Blaster, (what hardware platform ?)
Bubbles,
Defender,
Devastator (what hardware platform ?)
Inferno,
Joust,
Joust 2,
Make Trax (Kural Samno ?), (what hardware platform ?)
Moon patrol (Irem),
Motorace (what hardware platform ?)
Mystic Marathon,
NARC, (what hardware platform ?)
Robotron 2084,
Sinistar,
Speed Ball: Contest at Neonworld (what hardware platform ?)
Splat!,
Stargate (Defender II),
Star Rider (what hardware platform ?)
Turkey Shoot

And to round out the question, what about the early 1990s ?
Hot Shot (1992) (what hardware platform ?)
High Impact Football (1990) (what hardware platform ?)
Hit The Ice (1990) (what hardware platform ?)
SmashTV (1990) (what hardware platform ?)

I can't speak to all of them, but I remember some numbers that were thrown around.
Defender (all platforms, UR, CT) was around 50,000
Stargate (all platforms, UR, CT, CB) was around 25,000
Robotron (all platforms, UR, CT, CB) was around 40,000
Joust (all platforms, UR, CT) was around 20,000
Aeroboto (conversion kit only) 200
Bubbles (all platforms, UR, CT, DM) was around 8,000
Blaster (all platforms, UR, SD, DM) was around 2,500
Sinistar (all platforms, UR, SD, DM) was around 12,500
Mystic Marathon (3 conversion kits, Defender 100, Joust 200, Moon Patrol 200) 500 (plus 5 dedicated prototypes that were sold - 1 know to survive)

Defender was built on Gen 1 hardware (2 versions).
Stargate was built on Early Gen 2 hardware (no DMA chips on ROM board)
Joust was built on Gen 2 hardware
Robotron was built on Gen 2 hardware
Sinistar was built on Gen 2 hardware with a modified ROM and I/O card
Blaster was built on Gen 2 hardware (some mods to ROM & I/O card)
Bubbles was built on Gen 2 hardware with modified CMOS
Splat! was built on Gen 2 hardware with udgraded DMA chips (Special Chip 2s)
Mystic Marathon was built on Early Gen 3 hardware (discrete logic later replaced by a custom chip)
Joust2 was built on Gen 3 hardware
Turkey Shoot was built on Gen 3 hardware with a special I/O board for gun
Inferno was built on Gen 3 hardware
StarRider was built on a custom hardware design

MakeTrax was licensed hardware
Moon Patrol was licensed hardware (Irem)
Areoboto was licensed hardware (Jaleco)
1942 was licensed hardware (Capcom)

The difficulty with getting exact numbers for Williams games was that they did not put a good accounting system in place until the mid to late 1980s. They tended to go by the "do we still have money in the bank at the end of the month" accounting style. The other problem is that they counted everything that came into the finishing room and gave it the next serial number when it was ready to ship. So by serial number it might be 4 pins followed by 3 vidoe games followed by a jukebox followed by a different pin followed by 2 more of a different video game. At one time, I had a Robotron cabinet that was sequentially 1 number higher than one of my Joust cabinets.

ken
 
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