Per-platform catalogues of the games each console gave the world first: titles that debuted on that platform and launched nowhere else. Whether a game later escaped to other systems is recorded, but it never removes the game: the debut is permanent.
| Platform | Lifespan | Debut games | Stranded | Ported |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magnavox Odyssey | Sep 1972 – 1975 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Fairchild Channel F | Nov 1976 – 1983 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Atari 2600 | Sep 1977 – 1992 | 25 | 10 | 15 |
| RCA Studio II | Jan 1977 – 1979 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Bally Astrocade | 1978 – 1983 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Magnavox Odyssey² | 1978 – 1984 | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| Casio PV-1000, Bandai Super Vision 8000, Gakken TV Boy | 1979 – 1984 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Mattel Intellivision | 1979 – 1990 | 13 | 6 | 7 |
| Epoch Cassette Vision / Super Cassette Vision | Jul 1981 – 1987 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Atari 5200 | Nov 1982 – 1984 | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| ColecoVision | Aug 1982 – 1985 | 9 | 7 | 2 |
| GCE Vectrex | Nov 1982 – early 1984 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom | Jul 1983 (JP) – 1995 (NA) / 2003 (JP) | 62 | 26 | 34 +1 sim |
| Sega SG-1000 | Jul 1983 – 1985 | 10 | 9 | 1 |
| Atari 7800 | Designed 1984, shelved, released May 1986 – 1992 | 11 | 7 | 4 |
| Sega Master System | Oct 1985 – 1996 int'l, but manufactured in Brazil by Tectoy into the 2020s | 30 | 22 | 8 |
| NEC TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine | Oct 1987 – 1994 int'l / 1999 JP | 29 | 9 | 20 |
| Sega Genesis / Mega Drive | Oct 1988 – 1997 (Brazil: into the 2020s via Tectoy) | 48 | 14 | 32 +1 sim |
| Atari Lynx | Sep 1989 – 1995 | 15 | 10 | 5 |
| Nintendo Game Boy | Apr 1989 (JP) – 2003 | 37 | 11 | 22 +1 sim |
| Amstrad GX4000 | Sep 1990 – 1991 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Sega Game Gear | Oct 1990 – 1997 | 31 | 19 | 11 +1 sim |
| SNK Neo Geo | Apr 1990 – 2004 (final AES release) | 23 | 5 | 18 |
| Super Nintendo / Super Famicom | Nov 1990 (JP) – 1999 (NA) / 2003 (JP) | 61 | 16 | 40 +1 sim |
| Philips CD-i | Oct 1991 – 1998 | 9 | 8 | 1 |
| Watara Supervision | 1992 – 1996 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| 3DO Interactive Multiplayer | Oct 1993 – 1996 | 16 | 10 | 6 |
| Commodore Amiga CD32 | Sep 1993 – 1994 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Atari Jaguar | Nov 1993 – 1996 | 14 | 11 | 3 |
| Sega Pico | Jun 1993 – 2005 (Pico) / 2005–2013 (Beena) | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Bandai Playdia | Sep 1994 – 1996 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| NEC PC-FX | Dec 1994 – 1998 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| Sony PlayStation | Dec 1994 – Mar 2006 | 53 | 22 | 31 |
| Sega Saturn | Nov 1994 – 2000 (Japan) | 36 | 23 | 13 |
| Casio Loopy | Oct 1995 – 1998 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Nintendo Virtual Boy | Jul 1995 (JP) – Mar 1996 | 24 | 8 | 16 |
| Apple Bandai Pippin | Mar 1996 – 1997 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Nintendo 64 | Jun 1996 (JP) – 2002 | 62 | 23 | 38 |
| Tiger Game.com | Sep 1997 – 2000 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Sega Dreamcast | Nov 1998 – Mar 2001 (discontinued) | 40 | 17 | 20 |
| Nintendo Game Boy Color | Oct 1998 – 2003 | 17 | 11 | 6 |
| SNK Neo Geo Pocket / Color | Oct 1998 – 2001 | 17 | 6 | 11 |
| Bandai WonderSwan | Mar 1999 – 2003 | 15 | 12 | 3 |
| VM Labs Nuon | 2000 – 2002 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| Sony PlayStation 2 | Mar 2000 – Jan 2013 | 67 | 28 | 33 +6 sim |
| Nintendo GameCube | Sep 2001 (JP) – 2007 | 51 | 24 | 24 +3 sim |
| Nintendo Game Boy Advance | Mar 2001 (JP) – 2010 | 44 | 22 | 22 |
| Microsoft Xbox | Nov 2001 – 2009 | 35 | 21 | 10 +4 sim |
| LeapFrog Leapster / Didj / LeapTV | 2003 – 2016 | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Nokia N-Gage | Oct 2003 – 2005 (hardware) | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Nintendo DS | Nov 2004 – 2014 | 52 | 37 | 14 |
| Sony PlayStation Portable | Dec 2004 (JP) – 2014 (production ended) | 66 | 36 | 28 +2 sim |
| VTech V.Smile | 2004 – 2011 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| SSD Company XaviXPORT | 2004 – 2010 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Tiger Telematics Gizmondo | Mar 2005 – Feb 2006 | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Microsoft Xbox 360 | Nov 2005 – 2016 | 48 | 25 | 20 +3 sim |
| Sony PlayStation 3 | Nov 2006 – 2017 | 60 | 31 | 19 +10 sim |
| Nintendo Wii | Nov 2006 – 2013 | 51 | 37 | 14 |
| Nintendo 3DS | Feb 2011 (JP) – Sep 2020 (production ended) | 145 | 124 | 14 +7 sim |
| Sony PlayStation Vita | Dec 2011 (JP) – Mar 2019 (production ended) | 59 | 37 | 14 +8 sim |
| Nintendo Wii U | Nov 2012 – Jan 2017 (13.56M units sold) | 79 | 43 | 29 +7 sim |
| Sony PlayStation 4 | Nov 2013 – 2021 (production wound down) | 32 | 21 | 3 +8 sim |
| Microsoft Xbox One | Nov 2013 – 2020 | 32 | 22 | 7 +3 sim |
| Nintendo Switch | Mar 2017 – present (superseded by Switch 2, Jun 2025) | 51 | 41 | 5 +5 sim |
| Sony PlayStation 5 | Nov 2020 – present | 18 | 12 | 0 +6 sim |
| Microsoft Xbox Series X|S | Nov 2020 – present | 12 | 5 | 4 +3 sim |
| Panic Playdate | Apr 2022 – present | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| Nintendo Switch 2 | Jun 2025 – present | 9 | 6 | 0 +3 sim |
All 68 console and handheld platforms catalogued: every TV-connected and portable games system with a commercial software library, from the Magnavox Odyssey (1972) to the Switch 2 (2025). See ROSTER.md for what is included, excluded and folded in, and why.
1,755 debut games. 1,027 still stranded. Thirty of them can no longer be
bought through any public channel, marked Backup in the Availability column.
Hardware revisions are not platforms. Game Boy Pocket/Light, GBA SP/Micro, DS Lite, PS2 Slim and similar play identical libraries and have no exclusive software, so they get no catalogue. Only Game Boy vs Game Boy Color is a real split, because the GBC has its own exclusive cartridge library.
Each platform strands games for a different reason, which is the most useful thing the catalogues surface:
| Platform | Dominant stranding cause |
|---|---|
| NES / SNES | Dead licences. Film, comic, cartoon and fast-food tie-ins written for one cartridge run, with no digital rights. Plus, on SNES, Satellaview broadcasts that no longer fully exist. |
| N64 | Sports and wrestling licences, plus the Japan-only 64DD and its dead Randnet service. Its canon largely escaped via NSO and Rare Replay. |
| TurboGrafx-16 | Japan won, the West lost. ~85% of the library never left Japan, and the CD/Arcade Card add-ons fragmented it further. |
| Virtual Boy | Was hardware, until 2026. Nintendo solved a stereoscopic display problem by shipping a cardboard viewer with an NSO app, moving 14 of 24 entries to Ported in five months. |
| Master System | Brazil. Tectoy kept manufacturing the hardware for decades and made Brazil-only games, including Sega titles reskinned around local properties. |
| Genesis | Dead third-party licences. Sega reissues its own catalogue relentlessly, so what's left is Marvel, film and music tie-ins, plus the 32X, excluded from every collection. |
| Game Gear | Sega only reissued the Sonic games. Everything else (including a from-scratch M2 Gunstar Heroes) was left behind. |
| Saturn | Emulation difficulty. Eight processors make per-title reissue expensive, and two-thirds of the library never left Japan. |
| Dreamcast | Peripherals and dead servers. VMU minigames, microphones and maracas can't be reproduced; SegaNet closed in 2003. |
| GameCube | Rights tangles (Rare/Microsoft, Konami/Silicon Knights) and peripheral dependency (bongos, four linked GBAs). Skipped by Virtual Console entirely until Switch 2 in 2025. |
| Wii | The controller. Motion, MotionPlus and the Balance Board defined the library; Wii Sports (82.9M) can't be ported without becoming a different game. WiiWare died with the Shop in 2019. |
| Xbox / 360 | Backward compatibility instead of re-release, plus Kinect and licensed cars. Microsoft lets you run the old disc rather than selling a port, so nothing is technically re-released. |
| Xbox One / Series | PC was the escape hatch, and PC isn't a catalogued platform. Microsoft's 2024 pivot to PlayStation is now moving titles out. |
| Switch | Policy, not obstacle. Nintendo doesn't license its software to competing hardware, so every first-party exclusive is stranded by default. Peripherals (Ring-Con, Labo cardboard) do the rest. |
| Wii U | Hardware. The GamePad's second screen cannot be reproduced on a single-screen console. |
| PSP | Licensing. Anime tie-ins and licensed music tracklists whose rights are impractical to reassemble. |
| Nintendo 3DS | Commercial gravity: the inverse of the Wii U. It sold 75.94M, so the audience already owns the library and there is little money in re-selling it. Stereoscopic 3D and StreetPass block the rest. |
| PS Vita | Studio closure. Sony shut Bigbig, Zipper, Studio Liverpool and Guerrilla Cambridge, orphaning their games. One title (TxK) is stranded by injunction. |
A game qualifies on one test: did it debut here? The platform must be the game's first release anywhere, and the only platform it launched on.
Disqualified: ports, HD remasters, remakes, and any prior release on
another home platform. Arcades are out of scope; a cabinet is not a
collectable device, so Street Fighter II counts as an SNES debut.
Compilations count. A compilation is a new product and debuts where that product
first shipped; Super Mario All-Stars is an SNES debut, while the NES games inside it
keep their own NES entries. A compilation is also a re-release vehicle for its contents,
so both facts hold at once.
Not disqualified: same-day multiplatform launches (recorded as Sim-ship, and
listed in each platform's catalogue) or later ports. Mario Kart 8 reaching Switch in 2017 does not
remove it from the Wii U catalogue; it debuted there, and that is permanent.
Sequels don't count against a game either; Splatoon 2 is a new game.
Exclusivity is recorded as an attribute, not used as a filter.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Stranded | Never officially released anywhere else, in any form. |
| Ported | Since released elsewhere. Also On gives platform + year. |
Status decays one way. Xenoblade Chronicles X was stranded until March 2025,
The Wonderful 101 until 2020, Persona 3 Portable until 2023. Rows flip from
Stranded to Ported; they are never deleted.
Emulation never changes a status, and neither does backward compatibility: a Vita running a PSP game is running the PSP game. Only a build shipped for another console counts.
PC is not a catalogued platform. A later PC port leaves a game Stranded (the
PC release is noted, but Also On stays empty); a same-day PC launch still counts as
a console debut; but a game that appeared on PC first is excluded entirely.
RULES.md holds the full ruleset, the table schema, the
contested-case conventions, and the research method. Read it before adding a
platform or auditing an existing file.
Key research warning encoded there: "never ported to Switch" listicles are leads,
not facts. They routinely list multiplatform games (ZombiU, Watch Dogs,
Sonic Lost World) as exclusives. Verify every candidate individually.
./tools/validate.pyVerifies that each file has exactly one debut table, that every row has its
twelve cells and a known status, that Year and Availability are in the shapes
the ruleset gives them, that Also On agrees with Status, that the Summary
count matches the rows actually present, that no heading is glued to the end of a
table row, and that every relative link and heading anchor resolves. GitHub
renders all of those mistakes without complaint, so they look correct on the page
and are wrong in the data. The same script runs on every push and pull request.
./tools/selftest.pyReintroduces the fault each check was built for and confirms the validator
fails, restoring every file afterwards. A check that reports nothing looks
exactly like a check that cannot fire, and three drafts of one shipped in that
state. Run it after touching validate.py; the git hook does too, and so does
CI.
./install-hooks.shInstalls the pre-commit hook. Hooks live in .git/hooks/, which git does not
track, so a fresh clone has none until this is run.
It is a structure check only. Whether a game genuinely debuted on a platform is
a research question no script can settle; CONSISTENCY.md
covers the rule checks that go alongside it.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Copy it, adapt it, translate it, build on it, so
long as you credit this repo, share your version on the same terms, and do not
use it commercially. The full text is in LICENSE; the plain-English
summary is on Creative Commons' site.
The same terms cover tools/validate.py, which is too small to be worth a
second licence. The SPDX identifier is CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0. GitHub's sidebar
shows this as "Other" rather than by name, because its detector only knows the
licences listed on choosealicense.com, and non-commercial ones are not among
them. That is a limitation of the detector, not a problem with the licence.
Two things worth saying plainly. Individual facts, such as a release year or a publisher, are not copyrightable and nobody needs permission to state them; what the licence covers is the selection, the written notes and the ruleset. And a non-commercial clause is not an open-source licence by the OSI definition, which requires that commercial use be permitted, so projects such as Wikipedia cannot reuse this material.