1995 in video games

1995 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Dragon Quest VI, Mega Man 7, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, and Tekken 2, along with new titles such as Mario's Picross, Battle Arena Toshinden, Chrono Trigger, Rayman, Twisted Metal, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Destruction Derby, Wipeout and Jumping Flash!
The year's highest-grossing arcade game in Japan was Virtua Fighter 2, while the best-selling arcade video games in the United States were Daytona USA and Mortal Kombat 3. The home video game with the highest known sales in 1995 was Dragon Quest VI, despite only releasing in Japan. The Super Famicom was the best-selling game console in Japan, while the North American Super Nintendo was the best-selling console in North America.

Hardware releases

Nintendo releases:
*March 20 – Game Boy Play It Loud! series, color/clear versions of the Game Boy.
*April 23 – Satellaview accessory for the Super Famicom console in Japan only.
*July 21 – Virtual Boy 32-bit console in Japan. It is discontinued on December 22.
May 11 – Sega releases the Sega Saturn console in North America.
August 14 – The Nintendo Entertainment System is discontinued in North America.
September 9 – Sony releases the PlayStation console in the United States.
September 29 – Sony releases the PlayStation console in Europe.
October 25 – Funtech releases the Super A'Can console in Taiwan.
Full date unknown
*R-Zone
*VFX1 Headgear

Top-rated games

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

The following video game releases in 1995 entered Famitsu magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving Famitsu scores of at least 35 out of 40.

Title	Platform	Publisher	Genre	Score
Virtua Fighter 2	SAT	Sega	Fighting	39
Ridge Racer Revolution	PS1	Namco	Racing	39
Tekken	PS1	Namco	Fighting	38
Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Furai no Shiren	SNES	Chunsoft	Roguelike	38
Sega Rally Championship	SAT	Sega	Racing	36
Virtua Fighter Remix	SAT	Sega	Fighting	35
King's Field II	PS1	FromSoftware	RPG	35
Boxer's Road	PS1	New Corporation	Sports	35
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner	SAT	Atlus	RPG	35

Financial performance

Highest-grossing arcade games

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1995, according to the annual Gamest and Game Machine charts.

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1995, according to the American Amusement Machine Association and Amusement & Music Operators Association.

Best-selling home video games

The following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1995 in Japan and the United States.

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1995.

Rank	Title	Platform	Publisher	Genre	Sales
1	Dragon Quest VI: Maboroshi no Daichi	SNES	Enix	RPG
2	Chrono Trigger	SNES	Squaresoft	RPG	2,000,000+
3	Virtua Fighter 2	SAT	Sega	Fighting	1,500,000+
4	Derby Stallion III	SNES	ASCII Corporation	Simulation	1,086,141
5	Super Mario: Yoshi Island	SNES	Nintendo	Platformer	1,000,000+
6	Super Donkey Kong 2: Dixie & Diddy	SNES	Nintendo	Platformer
7	Tekken	PS1	Namco	Fighting	942,000
8	Romancing SaGa 3	SNES	Squaresoft	RPG	786,000
9	Arc the Lad	PS1	Sony	RPG	697,000
10	Mobile Suit Gundam	PS1	Bandai	FPS	668,242

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1995.

Rank	Title	Publisher	Genre	Platform	Sales
1	Mortal Kombat 3	Williams Entertainment	Fighting	SNES, GEN	+
2	Donkey Kong Country	Nintendo	Platformer	SNES	1,000,000+
3	Killer Instinct	Nintendo	Fighting	SNES	1,000,000+
4	Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest	Nintendo	Platformer	SNES	1,000,000+
5	Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island	Nintendo	Platformer	SNES	1,000,000+
6	Madden NFL '96	EA Sports	Sports	GEN	rowspan="5"
7	NBA Jam: Tournament Edition	Acclaim Entertainment	Sports	GEN	-
8	NBA Jam: Tournament Edition	Acclaim Entertainment	Sports	SNES	-
9	Mortal Kombat II	Acclaim Entertainment	Fighting	GEN	-
10	The Lion King	Virgin Interactive	Platformer	SNES	-

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the following titles were the best-selling home video games of 1995.

Events

January or February – Stars! is released as shareware.
April 6 – Funco Inc., parent company of video game retailer FuncoLand, announces that vice president and director Stanley Bodine is promoted to president and chief operating officer, replacing founder David R. Pomije, who will remain as chairman and chief executive. Financial controller Robert Hiben is also named chief financial officer, while vice president of merchandising and information systems Michael Hinnenkamp resigns from the company to pursue other career opportunities.
May 11 – Introduction of trade magazine GameWeek.
May 11–13 – The 1st annual Electronic Entertainment Expo is held in Los Angeles, California.
November 5 – GameFAQs debuts on the web, as an archive of video game FAQs.
November 24 – Nintendo unveils a playable version of the Nintendo Ultra 64, later renamed the Nintendo 64, at the 7th Annual Nintendo Space World Software Exhibition in Japan. Thirteen games were demonstrated but only two were in playable form, Kirby Ball 64 and Super Mario 64.

Business

New companies: BioWare, Frog City, Interworld Productions, Remedy, TalonSoft
Defunct: Cyberdreams
Nintendo v. Samsung Electronics; Nintendo sues Samsung for promoting software piracy. The suit is settled.
Nintendo of America, Inc. v. NTDEC

Games released in 1995

Release Date	Title	Platform	Developer/Publisher	Genre
January 1	Battle Arena Toshinden	PS1	Tamsoft/SCEA	Fighting
January 13	Bust-a-Move	SNES	Taito
February 15	Star Wars: Dark Forces	DOS	LucasArts	FPS
February 16	Ristar	GEN	Sonic Team/Sega	Platformer
February 24	Front Mission	SNES	G-Craft/Squaresoft
March 10	Panzer Dragoon	SAT	Team Andromeda/Sega
March 11	Chrono Trigger	SNES	Square
March 14	Mario's Picross	GB	Jupiter/Nintendo	Puzzle
March 17	Descent	DOS	Parallax Software
March 17	Discworld	DOS, MAC, PS1	Psygnosis
March 21	Kirby's Dream Land 2	GB	HAL Laboratory/Nintendo
March 24	Mega Man 7	SNES	Capcom
April	Jagged Alliance	DOS	Madlab Software/Sir-Tech
April 15	Mortal Kombat 3	Arcade, SNES, PS1, GB, GEN
April 27	Jumping Flash!	PS1	Exact/SCEA
April 28	Super Bomberman 3	SNES	Hudson Soft
April 30	Full Throttle	DOS, MAC	LucasArts	Adventure
May 25	Light Crusader	GEN	Treasure/Sega
May	King Arthur & the Knights of Justice	SNES	Enix
June 5	Street Fighter Alpha	Arcade	Capcom
June 7	Flight Unlimited	DOS, WIN	Looking Glass Studios
June 21	Tekken 2	Arcade	Namco
June 30	Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity	DOS, MAC	Spectrum HoloByte
July 11	Space Quest 6	DOS, MAC	Sierra Online	Adventure
July 21	Castlevania: Dracula X	SNES	Konami
July 24	MechWarrior 2	DOS	Activision
July 25	The King of Fighters '95	Arcade	SNK
July 31	Phantasmagoria	DOS, WIN, MAC	Sierra Online	Adventure
August 2	Comix Zone	GEN	Sega	Brawler
August 5	Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island	SNES	Nintendo	Platformer
August 11	Shining Wisdom	SAT	Camelot/Sega	Action-adventure
August 31	Command & Conquer	DOS, MAC	Westwood Studios	RTS
August 31	Fade to Black	DOS	Delphine Software International	TPS
August 31	Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest	DOS	New World Computing	TBS
September	Wild Woody	SCD	Sega
September 9	Rayman	PS1, SAT, JAG	Ubisoft
September 22	Exector	PS1	Arc System Works
October 1	Secret of Evermore	SNES	Square
October 6	Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together	SNES	Quest Corporation
October 13	Hyper Iria	SNES	Banpresto
October 15	Hexen: Beyond Heretic	DOS, MAC	Raven Software/id Software
October 20	Terranigma	SNES	Quintet
October 27	Panel de Pon	SNES	Intelligent Systems/Nintendo
October 31	Destruction Derby	PS1	Reflections Interactive/Psygnosis
October 31	I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream	DOS, MAC	Cyberdreams	Adventure
October 31	Star Wars: TIE Fighter (Collector's CD-ROM)	WIN, MAC	LucasArts
November 5	Twisted Metal	PS1	SingleTrac/Sony Computer Entertainment	Vehicular combat
November 11	Romancing SaGa 3	SNES	Square
November 20	Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest	SNES	Rareware/Nintendo
November 24	Battle Arena Toshinden 2	PS1, Arcade	Tamsoft/Capcom
November 24	Marathon 2: Durandal	MAC	Bungie
November 30	The Dig	DOS, MAC	LucasArts	Adventure
December	Soul Edge	Arcade	Namco
December	Worms	AMI	Team17	Artillery
December	Time Crisis	Arcade	Namco	light gun
December 1	Mega Man X3	SNES	Capcom
December 9	Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation	SNES	Heartbeat/Enix
December 9	Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness	DOS, MAC	Blizzard
December 15	Tales of Phantasia	SNES	Namco
December 15	Suikoden	PS1	Konami
December 15	Brain Dead 13	DOS	ReadySoft	Adventure
December 22	Final Fight 3	SNES	Capcom
December 29	Eko Eko Azarak: Wizard of Darkness	PS1	PolyGram	Visual novel
December 31	The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery	DOS, WIN, MAC	Sierra On-Line	Adventure
December 31	King's Field II	PS1	From Software