1984 in video games
overview of video gaming-related events during the year of 1984
1984 saw many sequels and prequels along with new titles such as 1942, Boulder Dash, Cobra Command, Jet Set Willy, Karate Champ, Kung-Fu Master, Yie Ar Kung-Fu and Punch-Out!! The year's highest-grossing arcade video games were Pole Position in the United States, for the second year in a row, and Track & Field in the United Kingdom. The year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom), which was only sold in Japan at the time.
Financial performance
In the United States, home video game sales fall to $800 million ($2.5 billion adjusted for inflation).
Highest-grossing arcade games
Japan
In Japan, the following titles were the top-grossing arcade video games of each month on the Game Machine charts in 1984.
United Kingdom and United States
The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1984 in the United Kingdom and United States.
Best-selling home systems
Best-selling home video games in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home computer games of 1984, according to N.O.P. Market Research.
Major awards
The fifth Arcade Awards are held, for games released during 1982–1983. Pole Position wins Coin-Op Game of the Year, Ms. Pac-Man and Lady Bug win console Videogames of the Year, Lode Runner wins Computer Game of the Year, and Q*bert wins dedicated Stand-Alone Game of the Year.
“1984 in video games” enters the record as overview of video gaming-related events during the year of 1984. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what video, games and overview can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2539219. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1942, 1982 and 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “1984 in video games” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.