Some games are ported. A few get to the point where they can be played on virtually anything with a screen. No matter what system you own, it probably has some of these games on it. This page lists those games which have reached an absurd level of ubiquity in the video game industry, to the point where a platform's library feels incomplete without it.
All of the following games have been commercially released on at least 12 (one dozen) different platforms. The easiest way to see if a game qualifies for this page is to run it through the GameFAQs search engine, or Mobygames
's. Also, a game's Wikipedia page will often give an exhaustive list of its ports.
Finally, do note that there's a funny line between a port, an Updated Re-release and a Video Game Remake. Particularly with 2D games, the process of redoing every sprite to work on different hardware would technically be considered a remake or a Video Game Demake these days, but is ignored here. So in most cases, all of the releases on this list came out at about the same time. For example, in the page image the Game Boy Advance version of Ratatouille is very different from the Xbox 360 one, but counts because of recency. For later releases, Updated Re-releases count, while remakes and Recycled Title examples do not because they're ultimately not the same game.
See also Capcom Sequel Stagnation.
Examples:
- 1942
- Adventureland
- After Burner
- Alien Syndrome
- Altered Beast
- Angry Birds
- Another World
- Arkanoid
- Asphalt
- Asteroids
- Attack of the PETSCII Robots
- Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
- Battle Chess
- Bomberman
- Bonanza Bros.
- Boulder Dash
- Bubble Bobble
- Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
- BurgerTime
- Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble
- California Games
- Centipede
- Chase HQ
- Choplifter!
- Chuckie Egg
- Columns
- Commando
- Congo Bongo
- Corpse Partynote
- Contra (1987)
- Defender
- Defender of the Crown
- Dig Dug
- Donkey Kong
- Doom (1993) and Doom II: The Trope Codifier. As the video game equivalent of "Hello World" due to its open source code, if it has a processor, Doom can and will be programmed to run on it
.
- Double Dragon I
- Dragon Quest
- Dragon Quest II
- Dragon's Lair (1 & 2)
- Earthworm Jim
- Elevator Action
- Elite
- Enchanter
- F-15 Strike Eagle
- Fatal Fury: King of Fighters
- Fatal Fury 2
- Fatal Fury Special
- FIFA 14: Possibly the first game to be this from release, having a simultaneous release on 12 different platforms spanning three console generations.note
- Final Fantasy
- Final Fantasy II
- Final Fantasy IV
- Final Fantasy V
- Final Fantasy VI
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy VIII
- Final Fight
- Flashback
- Football Manager (1982)
- Fortnite
- Frogger
- Galaga
- Galaxian
- Garou: Mark of the Wolves
- Gauntlet
- Gemfire
- Ghosts 'n Goblins
- Golden Axe
- Gradius (1985)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)
- Hostages
- Human: Fall Flat
- Hydlide
- Ishido: The Way of the Stones
- Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf
- The Jackbox Party Pack
- James Pond 2: Robocod
- Jet Set Willy
- Joust
- Klax
- Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
- Lemmings
- Life Is Strange
- Lode Runner
- Loopz
- Lunar Lander
- Madden NFL 08, which has exactly 11 versions.note
- Magical Drop II
- Magical Drop III
- Manic Miner
- Marble Madness
- Mario Bros. (not Super) note
- Metal Gear
- Metal Slug
- Metal Slug 2
- Metal Slug X
- Metal Slug 3 note
- Micro Machines (first game only)
- Might and Magic I
- Might and Magic II
- Minecraft
- Miner 2049er
- Missile Command
- Mortal Kombat (1992)
- Mortal Kombat II
- Ms. Pac-Man note
- Myst
- Nethack
- The NewZealand Story
- Nobunaga's Ambition (1986)
- Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
- Operation Wolf
- The Oregon Trail
- Outrun
- Pac-Land
- Pac-Man
- Pac-Mania
- Pang/Buster Bros.
- Paperboy
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney trilogy
- Pipe Dream
- Pit-Fighter
- Planetfall
- Pole Position
- Populous
- Prince of Persia (1989)
- Puyo Puyo (1992)
- Puyo Puyo Fever
- Puyo Puyo Tsu
- Puzznic
- Q*bert
- Qix
- Quake
- Quake II
- Rainbow Islands
- Rayman 2: The Great Escape
- Rampage
- Rampart
- Ratatouille
- Resident Evil 4 (was ported to Windows twice due to the first being a Porting Disaster; this one is especially egregious because Shinji Mikami originally wanted it to be a Nintendo GameCube exclusive)
- Retro City Rampage (living up to its name, its ports include MS-DOS in 2015... 3 years after the original release on Windows. It and its successor were the last games released on the Wii in PAL territories.)
- Rod Land
- Rolling Thunder
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Koei) (1985)
- R-Type
- Rush'n Attack
- Samurai Shodown (1993)
- Shadowgate
- Shanghai
- Shantae: Risky's Revenge
- Shin Megami Tensei I
- Shinobi (1987)
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
- SimCity (1989)
- SimCity 2000
- Snake
- Snood
- Sokoban
- Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2
- Sonic CD
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
- Sorcerer
- Space Ace
- Space Harrier
- Space Invaders
- Speedball
- Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
- Spy vs. Spy (1984)
- Star Wars: The Arcade Game
- Steamworld Dig
- Street Fighter II
- Strider (Arcade)
- Super Off Road
- Syndicate (1993)
- Tapper
- Tempest
- Terraria
- Tetris
- Theme Park
- The Tower of Druaga
- Tomb Raider
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
- Track & Field
- Ultima III
- Ultima IV
- Vectorman
- Vectorman 2
- Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego (1985)
- Winter Games
- Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
- Wolfenstein 3-D
- Xeno Crisis
- Xenophobe
- Xevious
- Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished ~ Omen
- Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter
- Zaxxon: This game, originally an arcade box, has been reproduced on many consoles; Apple ][, Atari 5200, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Colecovision, IBM Personal Computer, Sega Genesis, and TRS-80. There were also ports to Atari 2600 and Intellivision, which change the Isometric Projection to a third-person, behind-the-ship perspective.
- Zool
- Zork