Donkey Kong 64 has a mixed reputation these days, thanks to its often bloated design and downright dizzying array of collectables. But while there were certainly some people who were complaining about those things back in the day, it didn't stop Donkey Kong 64 from becoming the best-selling game of 1999 on any platform, dethroning even the millennial monster of Pokemon Red and Blue.
"According to Circana's Retail Tracking Service, Donkey Kong 64 was the #1 best-selling video game of 1999 in the US market in dollars, besting Pokémon Red/Blue," according to Mat Piscatella on Bluesky. The OG Pokemon games had launched a year earlier in the US, but the nation was still fully in the hold of Pokemania in 1999 – the notion of any game dethroning Red and Blue at the time is absolutely wild.
Other 1999 releases that Donkey Kong 64 beat include Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Gran Turismo 2, Resident Evil 3, Tomb Raider 3, Driver, Super Smash Bros., and any Dreamcast launch game. Final Fantasy 8 also failed to beat the DK crew, though, again, these numbers are just about US sales – the story would almost certainly be different if you took Japan into account.
These days, games tend to accrue the bulk of their sales in the days and weeks following launch, but that often wasn't the case in the '90s. In fact, Donkey Kong 64 is itself something of an outlier, since it topped the full-year chart despite launching in late November and having just a few weeks worth of sales counted. "Games sold at a different cadence in the late 90s than they do today," as Piscatella puts it.
"US lifetime sales of the N64 version exceeded 2.3M units and $130M," Piscatella adds. That makes Donkey Kong 64 the ninth best-selling US N64 game of all time, and helpfully, he's also provided a full list of the top ten.
- Super Mario 64
- GoldenEye 007
- Mario Kart 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Super Smash Bros.
- Pokemon Stadium
- Diddy Kong Racing
- Star Fox 64
- Donkey Kong 64
- Pokemon Snap
That's actually a pretty excellent list of games – clearly us N64 kids had excellent taste. It is a bit surprising to see Donkey Kong 64 in the top 10 above the likes of Banjo-Kazooie, which is by pretty much all accounts Rare's far better N64 platformer.
That said, despite the memes, I'm not going to dunk on anyone with nostalgia for Donkey Kong 64, because I'm right there with ya. I was sent that infamous Hot Newz 64 tape, instantly fell for the hype, and spent months convincing my parents that I needed a new console and a copy of Donkey Kong 64 – which, coincidentally, launched right around my birthday.
These days, I absolutely understand why the difficulty spikes, the labyrinthine levels, and all those damned bananas have put people off of Donkey Kong 64, but I loved it at the time and I still have a soft spot for it now. I'm a little frightened to see what the discourse is going to look like when Donkey Kong 64 hits Nintendo Switch Online, but at least we'll be looking at the game with fresh eyes rather than 27 years of pent up nostalgia (or animosity).
Donkey Kong 64 did not make our list of the best N64 games of all time.
