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1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS (later called the Atari 2600) also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games worldwide in 1980.
Rank | Title | Gross revenue | Inflation | Cabinet sales | Developer | Distributor(s) | Genre | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pac-Man | $1,000,000,000 | $3,700,000,000 | 100,000 | Namco | Namco / Midway | Maze | [3][4][5] |
2 | Asteroids | $700,000,000 | $2,600,000,000 | 70,000 | Atari, Inc. | Atari, Inc. | Shoot 'em up | [6][7] |
Galaxian | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Namco | Namco / Midway | Shoot 'em up | [8][9] | |
Space Invaders | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Taito | Taito / Midway | Shoot 'em up | [10] |
In Japan and the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1980.
Rank | Japan (Game Machine)[8][11] | United States | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Title | #1 | #2 | #3 | Points | Cash Box[12] | Play Meter[9][13] | RePlay[14][15] | Cabinet sales | |
1 | Pac-Man | 62 | 46 | 17 | 295 | Asteroids | < 60,000[6] | ||
2 | Galaxian | 44 | 25 | 18 | 200 | Galaxian | < 40,000[16] | ||
3 | Crazy Climber | 14 | 19 | 30 | 110 | — | Space Invaders | < 12,000[17][18] | |
4 | Moon Cresta | 3 | 24 | 15 | 72 | — | Unknown | Missile Command | Unknown |
5 | Monaco GP | 11 | 4 | 11 | 52 | — | Unknown | Rip Off | Unknown |
6 | Rally-X | 1 | 6 | 3 | 18 | — | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
7 | Heiankyo Alien (Digger) | 1 | 4 | 4 | 15 | ||||
8 | Pitch In | 0 | 1 | 5 | 7 | ||||
9 | Super Speed Race | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | ||||
10 | Sasuke vs. Commander | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | ||||
Space Invaders | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | |||||
Missile Command | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1980.
Rank | Title | Platform | Developer | Publisher | Release Year | Genre | Sales | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Space Invaders | Atari VCS | Taito | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Shoot 'em up | 1,318,655 | [19][20] |
2 | Breakout | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1978 | Action | 256,265 | [20] | |
3 | Football | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1979 | Sports (American football) | 248,502 | ||
4 | Bowling | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1979 | Sports | 245,670 | ||
5 | Night Driver | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Racing | 161,352 | ||
6 | Air-Sea Battle | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Shooter | 160,093 | ||
7 | Circus Atari | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Action | 148,756 | ||
8 | Street Racer | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Racing | 89,269 | ||
9 | Video Olympics | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1977 | Sports | 36,028 |
Rank | System(s) | Manufacturer | Type | Generation | Sales | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Game & Watch | Nintendo | Handheld | — | 2,000,000+ | [21] |
2 | Atari Video Computer System (VCS) | Atari, Inc. | Console | Second | 1,250,000 | [22] |
3 | TRS-80 | Tandy Corporation | Computer | 8-bit | 290,000 | [23] |
4 | Intellivision | Mattel | Console | Second | 200,000 | [22][24] |
5 | Atari 400 / Atari 800 | Atari, Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 200,000 | [23] |
6 | Commodore PET | Commodore International | Computer | 8-bit | 90,000 | [23] |
7 | Apple II | Apple Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 79,500 | [25] |
8 | HP 9800 / HP Series 80 | Hewlett-Packard | Computer | 8-bit | 11,300 | [25] |
9 | North Star Horizon | North Star Computers | Computer | 8-bit | 8,200 | [25] |
10 | TI-99/4 | Texas Instruments | Computer | 8-bit | 8,100 | [25] |