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1987 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Dragon Quest II, Final Lap, and Zelda II, along with new titles such as After Burner, Contra, Double Dragon, Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Metal Gear, Operation Wolf, Phantasy Star, Shinobi, Street Fighter and The Last Ninja. The Legend of Zelda was also introduced outside of Japan.

The year's highest-grossing arcade game worldwide was Sega's Out Run. The year's best‑selling home system was the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) for the fourth year in a row. The best-selling 1987 home video game release in Japan was Dragon Quest II: Akuryō no Kamigami, while the year's best-selling home video games in Western markets were The Legend of Zelda in the United States and Out Run in the United Kingdom.

Financial performance

Highest-grossing arcade games

The year's highest-grossing arcade game worldwide was Sega's Out Run.

Japan

The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1987 in Japan, according to the annual Gamest and Game Machine charts.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, Out Run was the most successful arcade game of the year. The following titles were the top-grossing games on the monthly arcade charts in 1987.

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1987.

The following titles were the top-grossing games on the monthly RePlay arcade charts in 1987.

Best-selling home systems

Best-selling home video games

Japan

In Japan, according to Famicom Tsūshin (Famitsu) magazine, the following titles were the top ten best-selling 1987 releases, including later sales up until mid-1989.

The following titles were the best-selling home video games on the Japan game charts published by Famicom Tsūshin (Famitsu) and Family Computer Magazine (Famimaga) in 1987.

United Kingdom and United States

In the United States, The Legend of Zelda was the best-selling home video game of 1987, becoming the first third-generation video game (non-bundled) to cross a million US sales that year, followed by Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! In the United Kingdom, Out Run was the best-selling home video game of 1987, with its 8-bit home computer ports becoming the fastest-selling games in the UK up until then.

The following titles were the top-selling home video games on the monthly charts in the United Kingdom and United States during 1987.

Top-rated games

Major awards

Famitsu Platinum Hall of Fame

The following 1987 video game releases entered Famitsu magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving Famitsu scores of at least 35 out of 40.

Business

• New companies: Acclaim, Apogee, The Bitmap Brothers, Empire Interactive, GameTek, Maxis, Natsume Co., Ltd.
• Defunct: Electric Transit, English Software, Muse
• Electronic Arts acquires Batteries Included.
• Atari Games establishes the Tengen division for porting their games to home systems.
• Nintendo of America, Inc. v. Blockbuster Entertainment lawsuit: Nintendo sues Blockbuster for photocopying complete NES manuals for its rental games. Nintendo wins the suit, and Blockbuster includes original manuals with its rentals.
• SSI President Joel Billings acquires the license to the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game, setting the stage for the Gold Box line of D&D games.

Notable releases

Arcade

• February 20 – Konami releases Contra
• July 1 – Irem releases scrolling shooter R-Type.
• July – Technōs Japan releases Double Dragon to arcades, distributed internationally by Taito.
• August 30 – Capcom releases Street Fighter, the first game of the series.
• Taito releases Rastan and Operation Wolf.
• Namco releases Wonder Momo, which is their last 8-bit game, Yokai Dochuki, which is their first 16-bit game, Dragon Spirit, Blazer, Quester, Pac-Mania, Galaga '88 and Final Lap.
• Atari Games releases RoadBlasters, Xybots, and APB.

Home

• January 14 – Nintendo releases Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the Famicom Disk System in Japan only. The game would go unreleased in America for nearly two years afterwards.
• February 12 – Infocom releases Bureaucracy from author Douglas Adams.
• May 1 – Konami releases Castlevania in North America.
• June 21 – Nihon Falcom releases Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished for the PC-8801 in Japan only. The game's director is Masaya Hashimoto, and it is the first game in the long running Ys series.
• June – Codemasters release Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure
• July 1 – Nintendo releases Kid Icarus in North America.
• July 5 – the Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards adventure is released by Sierra Entertainment.
• July 13 – Konami releases Metal Gear for the MSX2 home computer platform in Japan and Europe.
• August 15 – Nintendo releases Metroid in North America.
• August 22 – Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda in America and Europe, a year after being available in Japan.
• August 28 – Konami releases Castlevania II: Simon's Quest in Japan, the second Castlevania title released for the NES/Famicom.
• October – Nintendo releases Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for NES/Famicom.
• October – LucasArts releases Maniac Mansion, the first game to use the SCUMM engine, innovating the point-and-click interface for the adventure game genre.
• November 14 – Sierra On-Line releases Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge, the second game in the Space Quest series.
• December 17 – Capcom releases the first Mega Man game in the long-standing series for the NES/Famicom.
• December 18 – Square's Hironobu Sakaguchi releases Final Fantasy for the Famicom in Japan. Originally intended to be the company's last release, the game's success resulted in a prolific series. It was released in the US 3 years later.
• December 20 – Sega releases Phantasy Star on the Master System, featuring a female protagonist.
• FTL Games releases Dungeon Master for the Atari ST.
• Sierra On-Line releases Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel, the first game in the Police Quest series.
• MIDI Maze for the Atari ST is a first person shooter allowing up to 16 computers to be networked via the built-in MIDI ports for deathmatch-style fights.
• Incentive Software releases Driller, a first person game using 3D filled polygons.
• Ocean Software releases Head Over Heels, an isometric arcade adventure, for several 8-bit home computers.
• MicroProse releases Sid Meier's Pirates!, the first game from Meier with his name in the title.
• System 3 releases The Last Ninja.
• Accolade releases Test Drive.

Hardware

• March 28 – Sharp releases the X68000 in Japan.

• April – IBM launches the PS/2 line of computers which introduces VGA graphics and 3.5 inch floppy disk drives to PCs.
• September – Master System released in Europe.
• October 30 – NEC releases the PC-Engine console in Japan.
• Acorn releases the Acorn Archimedes 32-bit home computer, which brought the game Zarch (later known on other platforms as Virus) to prominence.
• Commodore releases the lower-cost Amiga 500 which became a significant gaming machine, particularly in Europe, and becomes the best-selling model.
• Atari Corporation releases the XE Game System, or Atari XEGS, a repackaged 65XE computer which is the last in the Atari 8-bit computer series.
• Master System is released in Japan.
• AdLib sets a de facto standard for PC audio with its Yamaha YM3812-based sound card.
• Namco develops the Namco System 1 arcade system board, followed later in the year by the Namco System 2.
• The IBM PCjr is discontinued after three years.

See also

• 1987 in games

References

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External links

• Video Game, Released between 1987-01-01 and 1987-12-31 (IMDb)

History of video games

v t e Chronology of video games Early history 1947–1972 1970s 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980s 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990s 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000s 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010s 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020s 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Near future v t e Video game history by platform By platform Early mainframe games History of arcade video games Golden age Timeline History of video game consoles Crash of 1983 Console war History of mobile games By console generation First (1972–1980) Second (1976–1992) Third (1983–2003) Fourth (1987–2003) Fifth (1993–2005) Sixth (1998–2013) Seventh (2005–2017) Eighth (2012–) Ninth (2020–) v t e Video game genres List of video game genres Action Platformer Endless runner Platform fighter Shooter Arena First-person Hero Light gun Shoot 'em up Bullet hell Rail Twin-stick Tactical Third-person Survival Battle royale Survival horror Other Beat 'em up Hack and slash Fighting Platform fighter Maze Pac-Man clone Snake Stealth Action-adventure Grand Theft Auto clone Metroidvania Adventure Escape room Graphic adventure Interactive fiction Interactive film Visual novel Walking sim Digital tabletop Deck-building Roguelike deck-building Digital collectible card Puzzle Hidden object Sokoban Tile-matching Role-playing Action role-playing Looter shooter Soulslike Dungeon crawl MMORPG Monster-taming Roguelike Roguelike deck-building Tactical role-playing Simulation Life Dating Farming God Social Virtual pet CMS Business City-building Government Sports Fishing Racing Kart racing Sim racing Vehicle Flight simulation Combat Lunar Lander Space Submarine simulator Train simulator Vehicular combat Other Falling-sand Immersive sim Strategy 4X Auto battler MOBA Real-time strategy Time management Real-time tactics Tactical role-playing Tower defense Turn-based strategy Turn-based tactics Artillery Wargame Grand strategy Other genres Cozy Fitness Horror Survival horror Incremental Music Rhythm Non-game Party Photography Programming Typing Related concepts Themes Advergame Bishōjo Christian Comedy Educational Girls Licensed Otome Sexual Eroge Nonviolent Personalized Sci-fi Serious Art Climate change News Player modes Multiplayer Co-op MMO PVP Single-player Production AAA Indie Doujin soft Fan game Design Casual Hypercasual Emergent gameplay FMV Gacha Kaizo Masocore Nonlinear gameplay Open world Sandbox Side-scrolling Twitch gameplay Vertically scrolling Other Minigame Toys-to-life Video game clone Video game modding Video game remake v t e Video games by country Africa Ghana Kenya Nigeria South Africa Americas Latin America Brazil Colombia Canada United States Asia Bangladesh China India Indonesia Iran Japan South Korea Malaysia Philippines Russia Thailand Turkey Europe Belgium Czech Republic Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Oceania Australia New Zealand

• 1987 in video gaming
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