Curated category
Gaming
- Metal GearMetal Gear began not as a stealth game, but as a straightforward military action game. Hideo Kojima designed it for the MSX2 computer platform in 1987…
- Virtual realityVirtual reality has a stranger origin than most people expect. In 1938, a French playwright named Antonin Artaud described the illusory nature of theatrical…
- Sega SaturnOn the 11th of May, 1995, Tom Kalinske took the stage at the very first Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles and changed the course of video game…
- SegaSega is a Japanese video game company whose history reads like a map of the entire industry's evolution. It began not with video games at all, but with slot…
- Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto, the action-adventure series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly, takes its name from a term for motor vehicle theft in the United States.
- Game BoyThe Game Boy launched in Japan on the 21st of April, 1989, and its entire first production run of 300,000 units vanished from shelves within two weeks.
- Role-playing video gameRole-playing video games place the player inside a world where an ordinary person can become, over time, something extraordinary.
- Nintendo Entertainment SystemThe Nintendo Entertainment System launched in New York City on the 18th of October 1985, into a market that trade press had declared dead.
- Arcade gameArcade games began as coin-operated machines tucked into restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades, built to earn their keep one coin at a time.
- The Legend of ZeldaThe Legend of Zelda first reached players in Japan in February 1986, arriving on the Famicom Disk System as something few had seen before: a game with no…
- Street FighterStreet Fighter arrived in arcades in August 1987, the creation of Capcom designers Takashi Nishiyama and Hiroshi Matsumoto.
- Resident EvilResident Evil began not as a horror game but as a remake pitch. In 1993, Capcom producer Tokuro Fujiwara handed a directive to a young designer named Shinji…
- NintendoNintendo was founded on the 23rd of September 1889, not as a game company, but as a playing card business. Craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi set up shop in…
- PlayStationPlayStation entered the world in Japan on the 3rd of December 1994, and within a decade it had done something no console before it ever managed: ship more…
- XboxXbox began with a threat. When Sony Computer Entertainment announced the PlayStation 2 in 1999 and positioned it as a home entertainment centerpiece that…
- Mortal KombatMortal Kombat arrived in arcades in August 1992, and within months it had become one of the most debated video games in American history.
- Video gameOn the 25th of January 1947, two men named Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a patent for a "cathode-ray tube amusement device." Inspired by…
- AtariAtari began not as a company but as a word from an ancient board game. On the 27th of June 1972, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney incorporated Atari, Inc.
- Pac-ManPac-Man arrived in arcades on the 22nd of May 1980, and within two years it had earned more than a billion dollars in quarters from American players alone.
- Final FantasyFinal Fantasy began as a desperate gamble. In 1987, a Square designer named Hironobu Sakaguchi was convinced he was about to wash out of the video game…
- Space InvadersSpace Invaders arrived in Japanese arcades in July 1978, and within months the country was running out of places to put the machines.