Monday, July 13, 2009

Nintendo Power Charts - SNES Index

Below you'll find links to every month's chart.

The Power Charts were a regular feature in Nintendo Power magazine starting with the first issue in mid-1988. Initially, every month there was a list of NES games ranked in order, aka the Top 30. Several months after the introduction of the Super NES, it was reduced to a top 20 for all three Nintendo systems at the time (NES, SNES, Gameboy). That change occurred in January 1992. The SNES charts were published for 7 years, although for the final two they were reduced to a top 10.

Only 15 games reached #1 over those 84 months, with Zelda: A Link To The Past leading the way for 19 of those months.

I found it strange that they continued the SNES charts into 1998, when only one game was released for the system. The NES charts ended the same month the final game was released (in 1994). It just seems like they went a year too long, especially when you look at how little changes there were in those final charts.

How were the charts compiled? The old issues with the top 30 show exactly how it worked. There were three separate rankings for players, pros, and dealers; when the the points were added up for those categories which gave us the final rankings. Issue 50 explains the process clearly:

"Each month we collect information from three sources to find the Top 20. The Players' Picks come from the Player's Poll cards sent in each month, the Dealers' Picks are based on retail sales reports, and the Pros' Picks are collected from game evaluators at Nintendo. All three sets of votes are set at equal weight, then averaged to find the point total a game receives."

The old issues (before 1992) where that additional data was displayed were nice, because it let you see how much of each game's total was in each category. It also allowed for some double checking. Unfortunately, once the SNES charts were introduced they didn't show all three categories. Only on a few occasions did they mention how a certain game was doing in a certain category. So because of that, there's no way to know if any of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System charts had errors in them. After 1994 (the third year), they stopped publishing the total amount of points altogether.


Total Points Ranking 1992-1998


Each Month's SNES Power Chart

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