Video Game Consoles
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50 free Video Game Consoles trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every games console tells a story: a gamble on new technology, a rivalry between giants, sometimes a spectacular misfire. Half a century of living-room hardware has left a trail of beloved machines, strange accessories and boardroom dramas that still shape how people play. This quiz asks you to name the console from its clues, then widens out to the world around the hardware. Expect questions on famous launches and notorious flops from Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft and Atari, on the controllers and add-ons that came with them, on the games bundled in the box, and on the engineers and executives who made the big calls. A few questions cover the quiz and group games that turn a console into a trivia night of its own. It is built for anyone who grew up with a controller in hand, for retro collectors testing their memory of the early years, and for hosts who need a ready-made gaming round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will pick up a story or two even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 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
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.
Q 02Which Nintendo handheld, bundled with Tetris at its 1989 American launch, was later carried into orbit by a cosmonaut?
Game Boy
The Game Boy flew with Aleksandr Serebrov, whose Tetris session is counted as the first time a video game was played in space.
Q 03Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell opened the first restaurant of which pizza-and-arcade chain in San Jose in 1977?
Chuck E. Cheese
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.
Q 04Nintendo began in 1889 as a maker of handmade playing cards in which Japanese city, still its headquarters?
Kyoto
Kyoto is where Fusajiro Yamauchi began producing hanafuda 'flower cards', which had become popular after Japan banned most forms of gambling in 1882.
Q 05Which Nintendo console, codenamed Revolution in development, launched in 2006 with a motion-sensing remote?
Wii
The Wii became the best-selling console of its generation within a year, and its lifetime sales passed 101 million.
Q 06Which computer company designed the Pippin, a games console that Bandai launched in Japan in 1996?
Apple
Apple named the Pippin after a small, tart apple variety related to the McIntosh, then left all of the marketing to Bandai.
Q 07Which Major League Baseball team did longtime Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi become principal owner of in 1992?
Seattle Mariners
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.
Q 08Which Sony console's built-in DVD player helped it sell roughly 160 million units, nearly triple its rivals combined?
PlayStation 2
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.
Q 09What nickname did players give the Xbox 360 hardware failure signalled by three glowing lights on the console's front?
Red Ring of Death
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.
Q 10Which Sega console, the first with a built-in modem for online play, was discontinued in 2001 as Sega quit hardware?
Dreamcast
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.
Q 11Which Nintendo console, launched in 2017, works both docked to a television and as a handheld with detachable Joy-Con?
Switch
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.
Q 12Sega's 16-bit Mega Drive was sold under which name in North America, where it battled the Super NES?
Genesis
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.
Q 13Which NES light-gun game, played with the Zapper, shared one cartridge with Super Mario Bros. in the Action Set bundle?
Duck Hunt
Duck Hunt sold over 28 million copies worldwide on the back of those bundles, helping to popularise light-gun shooting at home.
Q 21Which console of 2001 was Nintendo's first to take optical discs, using a miniature format instead of full-size DVDs?
GameCube
The GameCube stuck to games alone, so unlike its rivals most models could not play DVD films or music CDs.
Q 22Which 1995 Nintendo console showed stereoscopic 3D images in a single colour on black and lasted barely a year on sale?
Virtual Boy
The Virtual Boy was discontinued in 1996 after only 22 games, with its display blamed for headaches, dizziness and eye strain.
Q 23Which handheld gaming computer did Valve release in February 2022 to run PC titles bought from its own storefront?
Steam Deck
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.
Q 14Which Bungie first-person shooter launched alongside the original Xbox in November 2001 and became its defining game?
Halo: Combat Evolved
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.
Q 15Which disc format did Sony's PS3 use for its games, helping it defeat the rival HD DVD standard?
Blu-ray
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.
Q 16Which Xbox 360 camera accessory, codenamed Project Natal, let players control games with body movements alone?
Kinect
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.
Q 17Which 1991 Sega release replaced Altered Beast as the title bundled with Sega's 16-bit console in North America?
Sonic the Hedgehog
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.
Q 18Which shape joins the triangle, circle and cross on the four face buttons of Sony's console controllers?
Square
The square stands for a sheet of paper, designer Teiyu Goto explained, which is why it was meant to bring up menus.
Q 19Which 1972 machine, the first commercial home console, came with plastic overlays to stick on the television screen?
Magnavox Odyssey
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.
Q 20Which Atari arcade hit reached living rooms at Christmas 1975 as a dedicated console sold only through Sears?
Pong
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.
Q 24Which series of group quiz and drawing games, launched in 2014, has players join on their own phones, not gamepads?
The Jackbox Party Pack
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.
Q 25The NES, credited with reviving the American market after the 1983 crash, first went on sale in Japan under which name?
Famicom
Famicom is short for Family Computer, and Nintendo kept the machine in production in Japan until 2003, eight years after the NES was retired.
Q 26Which Sony controller, introduced in 1997, was named for the two vibration motors housed in its handles?
DualShock
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.
Q 27Which engineer, often called the father of video games, built the Brown Box prototype of the first home console?
Ralph Baer
Ralph Baer wrapped his prototype in brown tape to imitate wood veneer, and he later helped design the electronic memory toy Simon.
Q 28Which Sony engineer designed the Super NES sound chip before leading development of Sony's first console, the PS1?
Ken Kutaragi
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.
Q 29Which ratings board did the games industry found in 1994 after congressional hearings on Mortal Kombat and Night Trap?
ESRB
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.
Q 30The name Xbox is a shortening of a working title built on which Microsoft technology for Windows games?
DirectX
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.