1993 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as '' Dragon Ball Z: Super Butōden'', ''

Mortal Kombat II ''Mortal Kombat II'' is a 1993 arcade fighting game originally produced by Midway for the arcades in 1993. It was later ported to multiple home systems, including MS-DOS, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, 32X, Sega Saturn, Super Nint ...

'', ''

Secret of Mana ''Secret of Mana'', originally released in Japan as is a 1993 action role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the sequel to the 1991 game ''Seiken Densetsu'', relea ...

'', and ''

Super Street Fighter II is a competitive fighting game produced by Capcom and originally released as an arcade game in 1993. It is the fourth game in the ''Street Fighter II'' sub-series of ''Street Fighter'' games, following ''Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting''. It r ...

'', along with new titles such as ''

Disney's Aladdin ''Aladdin'' is a Disney media franchise comprising a film series and additional media. It began with the 1992 American animated feature of the same name, which was based on the tale of the same name, and was directed by Ron Clements and John ...

'', ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * L ...

'', ''

FIFA International Soccer ''FIFA International Soccer'' is a 1993 List of association football video games, association football video game developed by EA Canada's Extended Play Productions team and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released for the Sega Mega Dr ...

'', ''

Gunstar Heroes ''Gunstar Heroes'' is a run-and-gun shooter video game developed by Treasure and published by Sega. It was Treasure's debut game, originally released on the Sega Genesis in 1993. The game's premise is centered around a pair of characters, the G ...

'', ''

NBA Jam ''NBA Jam'' (sometimes "Jam" for short) is a long-running basketball video game series based on the National Basketball Association (NBA). Initially developed as arcade games by Midway, the game found popularity with its photorealistic digiti ...

'', ''

Ridge Racer is a racing game, racing video game series developed and published for arcade systems and home game consoles by Bandai Namco Entertainment, formerly Namco. The first game, ''Ridge Racer (1993 video game), Ridge Racer'' (1993), was originally rel ...

'', ''

Samurai Shodown ''Samurai Shodown'', known in Japan as is a fighting game series by SNK. The series began in 1993 and is known for being one of the earliest in the genre with a primary focus on weapon-based combat. Plot The stories in the series take place in ...

'', ''

Star Fox is an arcade style rail shooter and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, produced and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic animals, led by chief protagoni ...

'' and ''

Virtua Fighter is a series of fighting games created by Sega-AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original ''Virtua Fighter'' was released in October 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential first ''Virtua Fighter'' game ...

''. The year's highest-grossing video game worldwide was

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

's arcade

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

Street Fighter II is a fighting game developed by Capcom and originally released for arcades in 1991. It is the second installment in the ''Street Fighter'' series and the sequel to 1987's ''Street Fighter''. It is Capcom's fourteenth game to use the CP Syst ...

'' for the third year in a row, while again being the year's highest-grossing entertainment product. The year's best-selling home system worldwide was the

Sega Mega Drive/Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

video

game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a t ...

Top-rated games

Game of the Year awards

The following titles won

Game of the Year Game of the Year (GotY) is an award given by various award events and media publications to a video game that they feel represented the pinnacle of gaming that year. Events and ceremonies British Academy Games Awards (BAFTA Games Awards) ...

awards for 1993.

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

The following video game releases in 1993 entered ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving Famitsu scores of at least 35 out of 40.

Financial performance

Highest-grossing arcade games

'' was the highest-grossing entertainment product of 1993, earning more than the film ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later also referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton and centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. It began in 1990 when ...

''. The following table lists the year's top-grossing arcade games in Japan, the United Kingdom, United States, and worldwide.

Japan

The following titles were the top ten highest-grossing

arcade games An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

of 1993 in Japan.

United States

In the United States, ''

'' was the highest-grossing arcade game of 1993, followed by ''

Mortal Kombat ''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a v ...

''; both games exceeded the domestic box office gross of ''Jurassic Park'' that year. The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of the year, according to the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) and American Amusement Machine Association (AAMA).

Best-selling home systems

Consoles

Computers

Best-selling home video games

The following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games (

console games A console game is a type of video game consisting of images and often sounds generated by a video game console, which are displayed on a television or similar audio-video system, and that can be manipulated by a player. This manipulation usually ...

computer games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-deter ...

) of 1993 with known sales figures.

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1993.

Europe

In Europe, the following titles were the top two best-selling 1993 releases during the first quarter of the year. In the United Kingdom, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1993.

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the top two highest-grossing home

video game franchises This is a list of video game franchises, organized alphabetically. All entries include multiple video games, not counting ports or altered re-releases. 0–9 *''1080° Snowboarding'' *''1942'' *''3D Ultra Minigolf'' *'' 3-D Ultra Pinball'' *'' ...

in 1993. The following titles were the best-selling home video games of each month for

video game consoles A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a t ...

(

home consoles A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

and

handheld console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...

s) in 1993, according to

Babbage's GameStop Corp. is an American video game, consumer electronics, and gaming merchandise retailer. The company is headquartered in Grapevine, Texas (a suburb of Dallas), and is the largest video game retailer worldwide. , the company operates 4,5 ...

(reported by ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The m ...

'' and ''

Electronic Games An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...

''), ''

Mega Mega or MEGA may refer to: Science * mega-, a metric prefix denoting 106 * Mega (number), a certain very large integer in Steinhaus–Moser notation * "mega-" a prefix meaning "large" that is used in taxonomy * Gravity assist, for ''Moon-Eart ...

'' (for the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

in January), and

The NPD Group The NPD Group, Inc. (NPD; formerly National Purchase Diary Panel Inc. and NPD Research Inc.) is an American market research company founded on September 28, 1966, and based in Port Washington, New York. In 2017, NPD ranked as the 8th largest mar ...

(for the

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...

and Genesis in July). The following titles were the year's top six best-selling

PC games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-dete ...

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

format in the United States.

Events

* March – In

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, the Swedish video game magazine

Super Play ''Super Play'' was a British Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) magazine which ran from 1 October 1992 to September 1996. Overview ''Super Play'' covered in great detail the role-playing video game genre. Many of these games were ne ...

(SP) starts. The original name is ''Super Power''. * March 1 – The book '' Game Over'' by

David Sheff David Sheff (born December 23, 1955) is an American author of the books '' Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction'', ''Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy'',Sussman, Mick (April 19, 2013)"A Di ...

, devoted to the history of

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

, is published by Random House. * May 11 – The first

FuncoLand FuncoLand was an American video game retailer based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, that specialized in selling new and used video game software. It is considered the first major video game retailer to allow consumers to sell and trade used video ga ...

location in

McHenry County, Illinois McHenry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 Census, it had a population of 310,229, making it the sixth-most populous county in Illinois. Its county seat is Woodstock. McHenry County is one of the f ...

opens in

Crystal Lake Crystal Lake or Crystal Lakes may refer to: Lakes Canada * Crystal Lake (Saskatchewan) * Crystal Lake (Ontario), drain into the Lynn River, which drains into Lake Erie United States * Crystal Lake, California, a mountain lake in Nevada Co ...

, bringing the chain's total number of locations to 62. * August 4 – FuncoLand parent company Funco Inc. leases space for new locations in six shopping centers in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

area. * October 1 –

and

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

collaborate and begin work on "

Project Reality ''Project Reality'' is a series of combined arms tactical first-person shooter video game modifications which aim to create a realistic combat environment where the core gameplay encourages teamwork and coordination. The original version, ''Proj ...

". * December 7 – The first of two congressional hearings on video games takes place. Topics for discussion include the depiction of violence and sexual content in video games, their influence on children, and the prospect of governmental regulation of video game content.

Business

*New companies:

Croteam Croteam is a Croatian video game developer based in Zagreb. The company was established by Davor Hunski, Damir Perović, Roman Ribarić and Dean Sekulić, four former classmates, in late August 1992. Croteam is best known for ''Serious Sam'', a ...

nVidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns two major publishing labels, Rockstar Games and 2K, which operate internal g ...

, Shiny *Defunct companies:

DK'Tronics DK'Tronics Ltd (stylised as dk'tronics) was a British software and hardware company active during the 1980s. It primarily made peripherals for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC but also released video games for the ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, ...

Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before rena ...

Magnavox Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics company that since 1974 has been a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics corporation Philips. The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and ...

is acquired by the

Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and pri ...

MicroProse MicroProse is an American video game publisher and video game developer, developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the ''Civilization (series), Civilizatio ...

is acquired by Spectrum HoloByte

Notable releases

Arcade

Home

Hardware

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

releases the Model 2, an

arcade system board An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...

that introduces 3D

texture filtering In computer graphics, texture filtering or texture smoothing is the method used to determine the texture color for a texture mapped pixel, using the colors of nearby texels (pixels of the texture). There are two main categories of texture filtering ...

. It becomes their most popular arcade system board. *

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

releases the

FM Towns Marty The FM Towns Marty is a fifth-generation home video game console released in 1993 by Fujitsu, exclusively for the Japanese market. It is often claimed to be the first 32-bit CD-based home video game system, although it has a 16-bit data bus, just ...

in Japan, as the first

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

home console, starting the fifth console generation. *

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Osaka P ...

GoldStar GoldStar was a South Korean electronics company established in 1958. The corporate name was changed to LG Electronics and LG Cable on February 28, 1995, after merging with Lucky Chemical. LG Cable was spun off from LG Electronics and changed i ...

and

Sanyo , stylized as SANYO, is a Japanese electronics company and formerly a member of the Fortune Global 500, ''Fortune'' Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka, Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiari ...

release the first versions of the 3DO 32-bit console *

Atari Corporation Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when WarnerMedia, Warn ...

releases the

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

home console, calling it the first

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit Integer (computer science), integers, memory addresses, or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing unit, CPUs and arithmetic logic unit, ALUs are those ...

video game system. *

Commodore Business Machines Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mach ...

releases the

Amiga CD32 The Amiga CD32 (stylized as Amiga CD32, code-named "Spellbound") is a 32-bit home video game console developed by Commodore and released in Europe, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London on July 16, ...

multimedia home console. *

releases a smaller redesigned

NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

, which allows cartridges to be inserted at the top of the console, instead of the front. *

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...

releases the

LaserActive The is a converged device and fourth-generation home video game console capable of playing LaserDiscs, Compact Discs, console games, and LD-G karaoke discs. It was released by Pioneer Corporation in 1993. In addition to LaserActive games, separa ...

multimedia home console *Sega's

Mega-CD The Sega CD, released as the in most regions outside North America and Brazil, is a CD-ROM accessory for the Sega Genesis produced by Sega as part of the fourth generation of video game consoles. It was released on December 12, 1991, in Japan, ...

released in Europe and Australia.

References

{{History of video games 1993 in video gaming Video games by year

Top-rated games

Game of the Year awards

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

Financial performance

Highest-grossing arcade games

Japan

United States

Best-selling home systems

Consoles

Computers

Best-selling home video games

Japan

Europe

United States

Events

Business

Notable releases

Arcade

Home

Hardware

See also

References