In the run so far from mid-1984 to mid-1988, for my list of #1s I have been working from various magazines’ scattered multiformat charts and, for the many periods those weren’t available, Your Sinclair’s printings of Gallup’s Spectrum-specific charts. I’ve done this based on assorted evidence that Spectrum games were clearly the best-selling at the time. As assumptions go I’m alright with it, but it’s not ideal, and were it to continue towards the ‘90s it would become steadily less defensible.

Fortunately, I can now turn to a better and more consistent source of charts. Computer & Video Games magazine published the multiformat Gallup chart consistently from its June 1988 issue to its February 1992 issue, alongside individual format charts for at least some of the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, and they’re all archived online. Sometimes they even mention which format of the multi-format #1 game was the best-selling! Where I don’t have quite that luxury of information, I’m deciding which version of a game to cover by looking at the individual format charts and choosing one it was #1 on. On occasions the answer is ‘all of them’, and at first I’m still going with the Spectrum for those. By 1991 the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit is very clear and I am instead opting for the version on Amiga in such cases. More on that computer (and a cameo for its Atari rival) soon.

As with the previous era, I still have the issue that magazine release schedules mean these are monthly glimpses of weekly charts. For much of the time, though, the top of the chart moves so slowly that this seems unlikely to be a major issue. In fact, months going by with the #1 spot occupied by budget re-releases of years-old games I’ve already covered is more of a problem in itself (Paperboy – who knew?). I will be taking action to address this by covering games which were the highest-placed full price games in the multiformat chart even if they never reached overall #1. I have already used some Spectrum full-price charts at times so it’s consistent, but it’s honestly largely because it makes for a more interesting journey. In plain numbers of games I cover, this era will still be underrepresented even then. I will be covering only five games from 1989, for instance. More on the reasons behind that soon.

Previously: A note on the Spectrum era (1984-1989)