Mastertronic: Ricocheting the MAD Bulldogs of Entertainment (They Sold Millions, Part 2)

Entertainment USA Top 10

The Entertainment USA label is a real case of attempting to diversify, but with adding extra touches over in the UK to make the games more enjoyable.  Interestingly, after the first few releases were released on the label and had their own USA based catalogue numbers with suitable red, white, and blue packaging, whilst later releases had standard Mastertronic catalogue numbers. There is thankfully not too difficult a task to locate them overall, as the label ceased around late 1987.

A lot of the original releases were sourced via Sculptured Software and its programming teams in the USA, and over there these games were standardised Mastertronic releases – it was only in the UK and Europe that the different label was used, and enhanced somewhat, with the likes of Bump Set Spike and Ninja having Rob Hubbard soundtracks added in, no bad thing of course.

Unsurprisingly, as the Commodore 64 was well supported in the US, it was the only format that saw all seven Entertainment USA games released for that system, and this is reflected in the top 10 as you can see:

In fact, the only one of the seven Commodore 64 games that did not make it into the overall top ten was Intergalactic Cage Match, which still managed to sell 25,343 copies – I wonder how many of them were before any reviews of the game were read?  And if you really want to know how bad it is, feel free to read my review.  Ninja on the Atari XL/XE is a very welcome surprise in terms of sales, the second highest selling format for that game and one which did seem to find favour.

Entertainment USA Top Sellers by Format

As the Commodore 64’s top five is easily visible in the overall top 10, there is not a need here to show a list separately.   So how does it look on the Spectrum first, where most of the games were converted by UK programming teams from the original US releases?

Los Angeles SWAT only just missed out on the overall top ten by mere 340 copies, and solid sales for some of the other games too – with Bump Set Spike featuring a more isometric view than the Commodore 64 original had, and an interesting conversion.

There were only four Entertainment USA releases for the Amstrad so here they all are, with Ninja being far and away the best seller:

As for the other formats:

• The only other Atari XL/XE release not featured in the top ten was Panther, which sold 20,906.
• Both the Commodore 16 and Plus4, and the MSX, only got one game on this label – Las Vegas Video Poker. That sold 33,950 and 10,856 for their respective formats.

Final Thoughts

As you will see, some of the additional labels created by Mastertronic were more successful than others, with some being shelved relatively quickly, and others having a reasonable go before all being back to the main Mastertronic brand.  Whilst we can all applaud an attempt to diversify somewhat, it did have mixed results which is well worthy of note.

Next time around we will delve a little deeper in relative sales between formats for games, and some other more quirky statistics such as the lowest selling games too – and there are some surprises there.  So, stay tuned.

Special thanks to Anthony Guter, former Financial Controller for Mastertronic, for all of the statistical information used in the creation of this feature.

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