Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French company Atari SA through a U.S.-based subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes and releases both video games and video game consoles.
The Nintendo 64 (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was the last major home console to use cartridges as its primary storage format until the Nintendo Switch in 2017. As a fifth-generation console, the Nintendo 64 primarily competed with Sony's PlayStation and the Sega Saturn.
Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released on 29 November 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania and 1993 in South America. In Japan, it is called the Super Famicom (SFC). In South Korea, it is called the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. In Russia and CIS, the system was distributed by Steepler from 1994 until 1996. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in other versions.
A platformer is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels with uneven terrain and suspended platforms of varying height that require jumping and climbing to traverse. Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay, such as swinging from vines or grappling hooks, jumping off walls, gliding through the air, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines.
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific, would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year.
Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario,The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.
The fifth generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld gaming consoles dating from approximately October 4, 1993, to March 23, 2006. The best-selling home console was the Sony PlayStation, followed by the Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn. The PlayStation also had a redesigned version, the PSone, which was launched on July 7, 2000.
In the history of video games, the sixth generation era is the era of computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld gaming devices available at the turn of the 21st century, starting on November 27, 1998. Platforms in the sixth generation include consoles from four companies: the Sega Dreamcast (DC), Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), Nintendo GameCube (GC), and Microsoft Xbox. This era began on November 27, 1998, with the Japanese release of the Dreamcast, which was joined by the PlayStation 2 on March 4, 2000, the GameCube on September 14, 2001 and the Xbox on November 15, 2001, respectively. On March 31, 2001, the Dreamcast was among the first to be discontinued. Xbox in 2006, GameCube in 2007 and PlayStation 2 was the last, in January 2013. Meanwhile, the seventh generation of consoles started on November 22, 2005, with the launch of the Xbox 360.
Retro Studios, Inc. is an American video game developer and subsidiary of Nintendo based in Austin, Texas. The studio is best known for its work on the Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong series and has contributed to several other Nintendo-developed projects, such as Mario Kart 7.
Krome Studios Melbourne, originally Beam Software, was an Australian video game development studio founded in 1980 by Alfred Milgrom and Naomi Besen and based in Melbourne, Australia. Initially formed to produce books and software to be published by Melbourne House, a company they had established in London in 1977, the studio operated independently from 1987 until 1999, when it was acquired by Infogrames, who changed the name to Infogrames Melbourne House Pty Ltd.. In 2006 the studio was sold to Krome Studios.
Archer Maclean was a British video game programmer. He was the author of Dropzone which he developed for the Atari 8-bit computers and was ported to other systems. Maclean also developed the Commodore 64 version of International Karate and the sequel, IK+ which was developed for the Commodore 64 and ported to other systems. He was also known for his series of snooker and pool games, which commenced with Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker in 1991.
Creatures Inc. is a Japanese video game company affiliated with Game Freak and Nintendo, and is one of the owners of the Pokémon franchise. It was founded by Tsunekazu Ishihara in November 1995, with the assistance of then-president of HAL Laboratory, Satoru Iwata, as a successor to Shigesato Itoi's company Ape Inc.
Freescape is a video game engine, an early 3D game engine used in video games such as 1987's Driller. Graphics were composed mostly of solid geometry rendered without shading.
Jeffery Spangenberg is an American retired video game producer and entrepreneur who founded video game developers Punk Development, Iguana Entertainment, Retro Studios, and Topheavy Studios.
There have been numerous Monopoly video games based on the core game mechanics of Parker Brothers and Hasbro's board game Monopoly. They have been developed by numerous teams and released on multiple platforms over 35+ years.
Ever since Pole Position in 1982, Formula One (F1) has always played a part of the racing genre in video games. Early Formula One games were typically arcade racing games, before Formula One Grand Prix (1991) popularized Formula One racing simulations on home computers.
Sega Corporation is a Japanese multinational video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. It produces several multi-million-selling game franchises for arcades and consoles, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Angry Birds, Phantasy Star, Puyo Puyo, Super Monkey Ball, Total War, Virtua Fighter, Megami Tensei, Sakura Wars, Persona and Yakuza. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed its own consoles.
