50 Fun Facts About Video Game Consoles

Which Atari 2600 film tie-in, programmed in about five weeks for Christmas 1982, was dumped in a New Mexico landfill?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is often blamed for helping to trigger the 1983 games crash, and a 2014 dig at the Alamogordo site proved the burial legend true.

Which Nintendo handheld, bundled with Tetris at its 1989 American launch, was later carried into orbit by a cosmonaut?

The Game Boy flew with Aleksandr Serebrov, whose Tetris session is counted as the first time a video game was played in space.

Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell opened the first restaurant of which pizza-and-arcade chain in San Jose in 1977?

Chuck E. Cheese began as Pizza Time Theatre, a way for Atari to place its own arcade machines, and Bushnell later bought the rights from Atari for $500,000.

Nintendo began in 1889 as a maker of handmade playing cards in which Japanese city, still its headquarters?

Kyoto is where Fusajiro Yamauchi began producing hanafuda 'flower cards', which had become popular after Japan banned most forms of gambling in 1882.

Which Nintendo console, codenamed Revolution in development, launched in 2006 with a motion-sensing remote?

The Wii became the best-selling console of its generation within a year, and its lifetime sales passed 101 million.

Which computer company designed the Pippin, a games console that Bandai launched in Japan in 1996?

Apple named the Pippin after a small, tart apple variety related to the McIntosh, then left all of the marketing to Bandai.

Which Major League Baseball team did longtime Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi become principal owner of in 1992?

The Seattle Mariners were about to be moved to Florida when Yamauchi offered $75 million, a thank-you to the region that hosts Nintendo of America.

Which Sony console's built-in DVD player helped it sell roughly 160 million units, nearly triple its rivals combined?

The PlayStation 2 was so prized as a cheap DVD player that the best-selling disc of its Japanese launch period was The Matrix, not a game.

What nickname did players give the Xbox 360 hardware failure signalled by three glowing lights on the console's front?

The Red Ring of Death borrowed its name from a notorious Windows crash screen, and the fault pushed Microsoft to extend the console's warranty to three years.

Which Sega console, the first with a built-in modem for online play, was discontinued in 2001 as Sega quit hardware?

The Dreamcast sold 9.13 million units before Sega pulled the plug and reinvented itself as a maker of games for its former rivals' machines.

Which Nintendo console, launched in 2017, works both docked to a television and as a handheld with detachable Joy-Con?

The Switch took its name from that change of modes, and each Joy-Con can also work as a small controller in its own right.

Sega's 16-bit Mega Drive was sold under which name in North America, where it battled the Super NES?

Genesis machines sold in their millions in the US, yet the same hardware under its original name ran a distant third in its home market of Japan.

Which NES light-gun game, played with the Zapper, shared one cartridge with Super Mario Bros. in the Action Set bundle?

Duck Hunt sold over 28 million copies worldwide on the back of those bundles, helping to popularise light-gun shooting at home.

Which Bungie first-person shooter launched alongside the original Xbox in November 2001 and became its defining game?

Halo: Combat Evolved began life as a real-time strategy game, and Microsoft bought Bungie in 2000 to secure it for the console's launch.

Which disc format did Sony's PS3 use for its games, helping it defeat the rival HD DVD standard?

Blu-ray made the PS3 the first console to use the format as its main storage medium, and the costly machine was sold at a loss for several years.

Which Xbox 360 camera accessory, codenamed Project Natal, let players control games with body movements alone?

Kinect sold eight million units in its first 60 days on sale, and its codename came from the Brazilian city of Natal, picked by its Brazilian-born creator, Alex Kipman.

Which 1991 Sega release replaced Altered Beast as the title bundled with Sega's 16-bit console in North America?

Sonic the Hedgehog sold over 15 million copies on that console, and owners who had bought one before the swap could ask Sega for a free copy.

Which shape joins the triangle, circle and cross on the four face buttons of Sony's console controllers?

The square stands for a sheet of paper, designer Teiyu Goto explained, which is why it was meant to bring up menus.

Which 1972 machine, the first commercial home console, came with plastic overlays to stick on the television screen?

The Magnavox Odyssey could draw only three dots and a line in black and white, so the overlays had to supply every bit of scenery.

Which Atari arcade hit reached living rooms at Christmas 1975 as a dedicated console sold only through Sears?

Pong had been turned down by toy and electronics retailers as too expensive before Sears took it, and its success at home set off a wave of clones.

Which console of 2001 was Nintendo's first to take optical discs, using a miniature format instead of full-size DVDs?

The GameCube stuck to games alone, so unlike its rivals most models could not play DVD films or music CDs.

Which 1995 Nintendo console showed stereoscopic 3D images in a single colour on black and lasted barely a year on sale?

The Virtual Boy was discontinued in 1996 after only 22 games, with its display blamed for headaches, dizziness and eye strain.

Which handheld gaming computer did Valve release in February 2022 to run PC titles bought from its own storefront?

The Steam Deck runs on Linux-based software rather than Windows, and it built on lessons from the living-room PCs Valve tried in 2015.

Which series of group quiz and drawing games, launched in 2014, has players join on their own phones, not gamepads?

The Jackbox Party Pack bundles five games in each release, and the first included an updated version of the quiz You Don't Know Jack.

The NES, credited with reviving the American market after the 1983 crash, first went on sale in Japan under which name?

Famicom is short for Family Computer, and Nintendo kept the machine in production in Japan until 2003, eight years after the NES was retired.

Which Sony controller, introduced in 1997, was named for the two vibration motors housed in its handles?

The DualShock paired its twin motors with two analog sticks, and at first Sony sold it only as an optional add-on for the PS1.

Which engineer, often called the father of video games, built the Brown Box prototype of the first home console?

Ralph Baer wrapped his prototype in brown tape to imitate wood veneer, and he later helped design the electronic memory toy Simon.

Which Sony engineer designed the Super NES sound chip before leading development of Sony's first console, the PS1?

Ken Kutaragi built that chip in secret, and Sony's executives were furious when they found out; only the chief executive's backing saved his job.

Which ratings board did the games industry found in 1994 after congressional hearings on Mortal Kombat and Night Trap?

The ESRB was the industry's answer to the threat of government oversight, and US regulators later praised it as the strongest self-policing body in entertainment.

The name Xbox is a shortening of a working title built on which Microsoft technology for Windows games?

DirectX Box was the engineers' label, and marketing disliked the short form so much that it went into focus tests just to prove it would flop.

Which Sega console reached US shops four months early in May 1995, a surprise launch that angered left-out retailers?

The Saturn went on sale that day at only four chains, and one snubbed retailer, KB Toys, hit back by refusing to stock the machine at all.

Which 8-bit console lost to the NES in America and Japan yet thrived in Brazil and the United Kingdom?

The Master System found a second life in Brazil, where the toy company Tectoy distributed it and went on to sell its own licensed versions.

Which Sega handheld of 1990 had a full-colour backlit screen but drained six AA batteries in three to five hours?

The Game Gear outclassed Nintendo's monochrome handheld on paper, but that bright colour screen was exactly what ate the batteries.

Which publisher, founded in 1979 by former Atari programmers, became the first independent developer of console games?

Activision's founders quit Atari over the way they were treated there, then made hits such as Pitfall! for their old employer's own machine.

The Rumble Pak, which brought vibration to controllers in 1997, was first sold bundled with which Nintendo 64 title?

Star Fox 64 came with the add-on in the box, which needed two AAA batteries of its own and filled the controller's memory slot.

Which NES controller accessory, made by Mattel in 1989, drew attention for motion control but was panned as imprecise?

The Power Glove was licensed by Nintendo but designed without its involvement, and only two games were ever released with features built for it.

Which Nintendo president, a former HAL Laboratory programmer, voluntarily halved his own salary in 2011 and 2014?

Satoru Iwata took those cuts as Nintendo posted its first operating losses in 30 years, and he stayed its public face through his online broadcasts.

Which chip maker supplied the x86 processors at the heart of both Sony's PS4 and Microsoft's Xbox One?

AMD won both contracts as the two consoles dropped their predecessors' exotic chip designs for the same x86 architecture found in PCs.

Atari was named after a term from which strategy board game, a favourite of co-founder Nolan Bushnell?

In Go, atari describes a stone in imminent danger of capture, and the founders chose it after finding their first name, Syzygy, was already taken.

Which Xbox 360 feature, launched with the console in 2005, awards Gamerscore points and was answered by Sony's Trophies?

Achievements were the first such scheme to span every game on a console, and Valve copied the idea for PC players a year before Sony did.

Which 1982 console came bundled with the first home version of Donkey Kong and offered an Atari 2600 adapter?

ColecoVision promised graphics closer to the arcades than its rivals managed, and a later add-on turned the whole console into the Adam home computer.

Which 1990 SNK console came in matching arcade and home versions and was first offered only for rental in Japan?

The Neo Geo outpowered every other console of its day and cost so much to build that SNK put it on general sale only after the rental scheme drew heavy demand.

Which 1993 console did Atari market as the world's first 64-bit games machine, a claim that critics disputed?

The Jaguar came together so quickly that Atari cancelled its planned Panther console in 1991 to concentrate on it.

Which 1976 console was the first to play games from swappable ROM cartridges, which its maker branded Videocarts?

The Fairchild Channel F was also the first console built around a microprocessor, and its name was short for 'Channel Fun'.

Which Nintendo designer created the Ultra Hand toy and the Game & Watch handhelds before producing Metroid?

Gunpei Yokoi was doing maintenance work when the company president noticed the extending arm he had built for fun and ordered it turned into a product.

Which small optical disc format did Sony create for its PSP handheld, also used to sell feature films?

UMD stands for Universal Media Disc, and each could hold up to 1.8 gigabytes, enough for a feature-length film as well as games.

Which Philips multimedia player carried Hotel Mario and three Zelda games that Nintendo licensed but did not develop?

The CD-i got those games through a deal over a CD add-on for the Super NES that never went beyond the prototype stage.

Which 2003 Nokia device combined a mobile phone with a handheld games machine and was mocked as the taco phone?

The N-Gage sold its games on memory cards and drew over 50 titles in three years, but a redesign less than a year in could not save it.

The bulky original Xbox controller of 2001, nearly three times the size of Sony's pad, earned which nickname?

The Duke was never launched in Japan, where the console shipped with the smaller Controller S that was later released elsewhere too.

Which Sony trivia series, set in a fictional game show and launched in 2005, won a BAFTA for its second instalment?

Buzz! was dreamed up by a restaurant owner who sold the idea to Sony, and the series grew to 18 games.