Short answers, pulled from the story.
Shigeru Miyamoto's team developed the smooth side-scrolling engine for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1984. They created this engine for the side-scrolling racing game Excitebike in 1984 and later employed it for Super Mario Bros. in 1985.
Epic Games debuted its Unreal Engine in 1998. Tim Sweeney founded Epic Games, which has become far more popular than id Tech 4 and its successor, id Tech 5.
A single license for a high-end commercial game engine can range from $10,000 to millions of dollars. The number of licensees can reach several dozen companies, as seen with the Unreal Engine.
Four widely used middleware packages include RAD Game Tools' Bink, Firelight FMOD, Havok, and Scaleform GFx. RAD Game Tools develops Bink for basic video rendering along with Miles audio and Granny 3D rendering.
On PlayStation 3, physics ran in Need For Speed at 100 Hz versus Forza Motorsport 2 at 360 Hz. Separate threads of execution within a game engine manage intensive operations including rendering, asset streaming, audio playback, and physics simulation.