Historical Facts
The first commercial home video game console, this system required players to keep score as the machine couldn't do so manually.
What is the Magnavox Odyssey?
The original Magnavox Odyssey required players to keep score themselves because this functionality was absent from the console's hardware.
What is an automatic scoring system?
Often cited as the first true survival horror game, this 1996 Capcom title, set in the spooky Spencer Mansion, led to the creation of the ESRB rating system in the U.S.
What is Resident Evil?
The main overworld theme and the iconic "secret found" jingle from the 1986 original entry in this fantasy series have appeared in nearly every subsequent game.
What is The Legend of Zelda?
This 1982 console game, based on a popular film, was so notoriously bad that thousands of copies were famously buried in a New Mexico landfill, a physical symbol of the industry's crash the following year.
What is E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
This company, now a well-known name in tech, designed the logo for IBM in 1972, the same year the Odyssey was released.
What is IBM?
The Nintendo GameCube utilized a proprietary optical disc format with a capacity of 1.5 gigabytes, which was approximately 190 times more data than the previous Nintendo console's storage medium.
What is the Nintendo 64 (N64) cartridge?
Released in 1993, this first-person shooter from id Software, where the player slaughters demons on Mars' moons, was highly influential and had an "Eternal" version by 2020.
What is Doom?
Composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the operatic piece "One-Winged Angel" is arguably the most famous track from this 1997 Square Enix RPG.
What is Final Fantasy VII?
For years, Microsoft faced immense scrutiny and lawsuits over this specific widespread hardware failure on the Xbox 360, identified by a trio of glowing red lights that often necessitated a full console replacement.
What is the "Red Ring of Death"?
While the PS2 is the best-selling console overall, this console is the best-selling handheld console of all time, with over 154 million units sold.
What is the Nintendo DS?
The PlayStation 2 was the first major video game console to incorporate this widely adopted home entertainment technology for its game medium, helping to accelerate its market dominance.
What is DVD technology?
This 1980 game, originally called "Puck-Man" in Japan because its character's design was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, had its name changed to prevent vandalism of arcade cabinets.
What is Pac-Man?
This German musician, who goes by the alias C418, composed the minimalist, ambient soundtrack for the wildly popular sandbox game Minecraft
Who is Daniel Rosenfeld?
At the 1995 E3, a brief, one-word presentation by Sony executive Olaf Olafsson exposed Sega's attempt to one-up them with an early launch, a pivotal moment that effectively determined the winner of the fifth-generation console war. The word was this price point.
What is "$299"?
This "bit" type, referring to the CPU's architecture, characterized the third generation of consoles, famously used by the NES and the Sega Master System.
What is The Nintendo DS.
The N64 RAM Expansion Pack, which increased system memory, caused a specific, well-known N64 game to become unplayable or "broken" due to the way that game was coded.
What is Space Station Silicon Valley?
This 1998 Nintendo 64 game, the first 3D platformer in its influential series, is known for its vast open world and is frequently ranked among the greatest games of all time.
What is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?
Yoko Shimomura created the sweeping, Disney-infused orchestral score for this popular crossover RPG series, which first launched in 2002.
What is Kingdom Hearts?
Initially conceived as a CD-ROM add-on for Nintendo's SNES, this device's development collapsed after Nintendo abruptly partnered with Philips instead of Sony, leading Sony to develop its own competing console, the PlayStation.
What is the "Nintendo Play Station" (or "SNES-CD")?
This was the #1 selling item for the holidays in 1975, making it one of the earliest successful home video game consoles.
What is The Atari Pong home console.
The original NES version of The Legend of Zelda featured this hardware enhancement on its circuit board, a then-rare feature allowing players to save their progress directly to the cartridge.
What is a battery backup/save feature?
Before becoming a famous character in his own right in the game Donkey Kong, Mario was known as "Jumpman". What originally was his profession?
What is a carpenter?
Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori composed the Gregorian chant-inspired main theme for this iconic 2001 sci-fi first-person shooter.
What is Halo: Combat Evolved?
This feature, planned for the Xbox One, caused significant consumer backlash due to its requirements for online connectivity and restrictions on used games, leading Microsoft to reverse the policy before launch.
What is "always-on DRM" (Digital Rights Management) or "used game restrictions"?