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The original PlayStation was a hit-maker
The passage of time has unfortunately occurred, and the original PlayStation is now celebrating its 30th birthday in North America. Released way back on September 9, 1995, the PS1 birthed many of the iconic franchises we still have today and has given gaming culture one of its most enduring companies and symbols.
To commemorate the anniversary, Mat Piscatella over at the analyst firm Circana has shared many of the best-selling games across PlayStation’s long history, including the top sellers on PS1 in the United States. The list is hardly surprising and is made up of the very games that have gone on to define the generation and tech moving forward, such as the Gran Turismo and early Tony Hawk games.
This first of these lists is arranged by units sold, while the second one ranks these titles by dollars made on the releases and neither of these lists account for copies sold via hardware bundles. Interestingly, the lists points to a discrepancy where renowned games like the Resident Evil titles rank as far as money made, but don’t crack the top 20 when considering units sold.
Some of the inclusions here, like Frogger and Jampack–which is a series of compilations–are just plainly out of left field, but that makes this PS1 list a really fun one to pore over. Piscatella and Circana also shared a list running down the best-selling games across all PlayStation platforms, and even released one detailing how games on the much-maligned Sega Dreamcast sold, since that also shares a birthday with the PS1. Here’s the breakdown of PS1’s best-selling games:
