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1988 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Dragon Quest III, Super Contra, Super Mario Bros. 2, Mega Man 2, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, and Super Mario Bros. 3, along with new titles such as Assault, Altered Beast, Capcom Bowling, Ninja Gaiden, RoboCop, Winning Run and Chase H.Q.

The year's highest-grossing arcade video games were After Burner and After Burner II in Japan, Double Dragon in the United States, Operation Wolf in the United Kingdom, and RoboCop in Hong Kong. The year's best‑selling home system was the Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) for the fifth year in a row, while the year's best-selling home video games were Dragon Quest III in Japan and Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt in the United States.

Events

• Out Run wins Game of the Year at the 5th Golden Joystick Awards, for the year 1987.
• June – Nintendo releases the last issue (#7) of Nintendo Fun Club News.
• July – Nintendo releases the first issue of Nintendo Power magazine.
• December - Namco releases their first 3D polygon video game, Winning Run, running on the Namco System 21 arcade board.

Financial performance

Highest-grossing arcade games

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1988, according to the annual Gamest and Game Machine charts.

Hong Kong and United States

In Hong Kong and the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1988.

United Kingdom

Operation Wolf was the top-earning arcade game of 1988 in the United Kingdom. The following titles were the top-grossing games on the monthly arcade charts in 1988.

Best-selling home systems

Best-selling home video games

Japan

The following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1988 in Japan, according to the annual Family Computer Magazine (Famimaga) charts.

United Kingdom and United States

In the United States, the NES Action Set bundled with Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt was the best-selling toy of 1988. The same year, Super Mario Bros. 2 became one of the best-selling cartridges of all time, Super Mario Bros. 2 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link were the top-selling cartridges during the holiday season, and The Legend of Zelda and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! each crossed 2 million sales between 1987 and 1988.

The following titles were the top-selling home video games of each month in the United Kingdom and United States during 1988.

Top-rated games

Major awards

Japan

United Kingdom

United States

Famitsu Platinum Hall of Fame

The following 1988 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: Eurocom, Image Works, Koeo, Stormfront, Visual Concepts, Walt Disney Computer Software
• Defunct: Aackosoft, Coleco, Sente, Spectravideo
• Activision renamed to Mediagenic
• Nintendo vs. Camerica lawsuit: Nintendo sues Camerica over the clone production of an Advantage joystick controller for the NES console

Notable releases

Arcade

• April – Namco releases Assault, which may be the first game to use hardware rotation of sprites and the background.
• August – Sega releases Altered Beast, later ported to the Mega Drive/Genesis where it was packaged with the console in North America and Europe.
• December – Capcom releases Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins.
• December – Namco releases Winning Run, the first polygonal 3D arcade racing game.
• December – Technōs Japan releases Double Dragon II: The Revenge, the first sequel to Double Dragon, released during the previous year.
• Atari Games releases an official arcade version of Tetris as well as Cyberball and Toobin'.
• Namco releases World Stadium, Berabow Man, Märchen Maze, Bakutotsu Kijūtei, which is the sequel to Baraduke, Ordyne, Metal Hawk, World Court, Splatterhouse, which is the first game to get a parental advisory disclaimer, Mirai Ninja, Face Off and Phelios.
• Williams releases the violent, drug-themed NARC, beginning a run of major hits for the company.

Home

• January 2 – Electronic Arts releases Wasteland.
• January 5 – shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic is one of the first NES-style scrolling platform games for MS-DOS, setting the stage for a subsequent shareware boom.
• January 8 – Konami releases Super Contra.
• January 14 – Konami releases Konami Wai Wai World the first ever crossover game features cast of all star characters from various video game franchises & non-video game properties such as characters from blockbuster movies.
• January 29 – the first commercial versions of Tetris are released.
• February 10 – Enix releases Dragon Quest III.
• March – R.C. Pro-Am is released and becomes a hit for the NES, drawing attention to UK developer Rare.
• July 20 – Capcom releases Bionic Commando, for NES/Famicom based on the 1987 arcade game of the same title.
• August – Zortech releases Big Bang.
• October 5 – Origin Systems releases Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, which includes a time-of-day system and daily schedules for non-player characters.
• October 9 – Nintendo revamps Doki Doki Panic and releases it as Super Mario Bros. 2, for the Nintendo Entertainment System in America and the PAL region. Birdo made her debut in this game and released in Japan as Super Mario USA in 1992.
• October 23 – Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Famicom in Japan. First appearance of the Koopalings.
• December 1 – Nintendo releases Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in America. The game had been released nearly two years earlier in Japan on the Famicom Disk System, before America even saw the first The Legend of Zelda.
• December 9 – Tecmo releases Ninja Gaiden for the NES/Famicom.
• December 17 – Square Co. releases Final Fantasy II for the Famicom as the second installment of the Final Fantasy series.
• December 24 – Capcom releases Mega Man 2 in Japan, eventually becoming the highest-selling installment of the entire Mega Man franchise with a total of 1.5 million copies sold.
• Pool of Radiance the first of the SSI Gold Box games is released, the first computer RPG officially based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
• Superior Software release Exile on the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro. A complex arcade adventure, it is the first with a full physics engine.
• Sega releases Phantasy Star outside Japan for the Master System, the first in the company's most successful series of role-playing video games.
• Electronic Arts releases John Madden Football for the Apple II, starting its highly successful line of American football games.
• Interplay's animated chess program Battle Chess is released for the Amiga, then widely ported.
• Pioneer Plague makes use of the Amiga's 4096 color Hold-And-Modify mode, something not thought possible for animated games.
• AMC Verlag releases Herbert for the Atari 8-bit computers.

Hardware

• October 29 – Mega Drive released in Japan.
• Nintendo buys the rights to Bandai's Family Trainer and re-releases it as the Power Pad.
• Namco releases the Namco System 21, the first arcade system board specifically designed for 3D polygon graphics.

See also

• 1988 in games

References

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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

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