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 history of video games began in the 1950s and 1960s as computer scientists began designing simple games and simulations on minicomputers and mainframes. Spacewar! was developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student hobbyists in 1962 as one of the first such games on a video display. The first consumer video game hardware was released in the early 1970s. The first home video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey, and the first arcade video games were Computer Space and Pong. After its home console conversions, numerous companies sprang up to capture Pong's success in both the arcade and the home by cloning the game, causing a series of boom and bust cycles due to oversaturation and lack of innovation.
In the history of video games, the fourth generation of video game consoles, more commonly referred to as the 16-bit era, began on October 30, 1987, with the Japanese release of NEC Home Electronics' PC Engine. Though NEC released the first console of this era, sales were mostly dominated by the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo across most markets: the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo. Cartridge-based handheld game consoles became prominent during this time, such as the Nintendo Game Boy, Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear and TurboExpress.
Edge is a multi-format video game magazine published by Future plc. It is a UK-based magazine and publishes 13 issues annually. The magazine was launched by Steve Jarratt. It has also released foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console, augmented reality, and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.
Alten8 Ltd. was a British video game developer and publisher. It produced both licensed retro games and current format video games, including the emulation code for C64 titles on Nintendo's Virtual Console service.
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, and Yakuza. From 1983 until 2001, Sega also developed its own consoles.
In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media such as ROM cartridges, magnetic storage, optical discs and flash memory cards. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband Internet.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
CD Projekt S.A. is a Polish video game developer, publisher and distributor based in Warsaw, founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. Iwiński and Kiciński were video game retailers before they founded the company, which initially acted as a distributor of foreign video games for the domestic market. The department responsible for developing original games, CD Projekt Red, best known for The Witcher series, was formed in 2002. In 2008, CD Projekt launched the digital distribution service Good Old Games, now known as GOG.com.
Gamer Network Limited is a British digital media company based in Brighton. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and other video game businesses. Its flagship website, Eurogamer, was launched alongside the company. It began hosting the video game trade show EGX in 2008. ReedPop acquired Gamer Network in 2018 and sold it to IGN Entertainment in 2024.
In the video game industry, AAA (Triple-A) is an informal classification used to classify video games produced or distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher, which typically have higher development and marketing budgets than other tiers of games. In the mid-2010s, the term "AAA+" was used to describe AAA type games that generated additional revenue over time, in a similar fashion to massively multiplayer online games, by using games-as-a-service methods such as season passes and expansion packs. The similar construction "III" (Triple-I) has also been used to describe high-production-value games in the indie game industry.
Nacon is a French video game company based in Lesquin. It designs and distributes gaming accessories, and publishes and distributes video games for various platforms. In 2020, Bigben Group was consolidated to form Nacon.
In the video game industry during 2019, both Sony and Microsoft announced their intent to reveal their next-generation consoles in 2020, while Nintendo introduced a smaller Nintendo Switch Lite, and Google announced its streaming game platform Stadia. The controversy over loot boxes as a potential gambling route continued into 2019, with some governments like Belgium and the Netherlands banning games with them under their gambling laws, while the United Kingdom acknowledging their current laws prevent enforcing these as if they were games of chance. The first video cards to support real-time ray tracing were put onto the consumer market, including the first set of games that would take advantage of the new technology. The Epic Games Store continued its growth in challenging the largest digital PC game distribution service Steam, leading to concern and debate about Epic Games' methods to seek games for its service. Dota Auto Chess, a community-created mod for Dota 2, introduced a new subgenre of strategy games called auto battlers, which saw several games in the genre released throughout the year. Blizzard Entertainment faced criticism due to their involvement in the Blitzchung controversy, which began after they had banned a Hearthstone player for making comments during a tournament regarding the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.
Game Pass is a subscription service as part of Xbox and offered by Microsoft Gaming. Launched on June 1, 2017, the service allows users to download and play video games for Xbox video game consoles or Microsoft Windows PCs from a rotating library, with the games remaining accessible as long as the user has an active subscription. Game Pass subscribers also receive discounts on purchases of games from the service's library and their respective downloadable content (DLC).
Hardlight is a British video game developer founded by Sega and based in Leamington Spa, England. Revealed in January 2012, it is focused on mobile games for smartphones and became a part of Sega Europe in 2019.
Polymega is a home video game console developed by American company Playmaji, Inc. It is a retro gaming console offering backwards compatibility with several CD-based and cartridge-based platforms: PlayStation, TurboGrafx-CD, Neo Geo CD, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Sega Genesis, Sega 32X, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and Nintendo 64. It includes a built-in CD drive, while separate add-ons known as Element Modules provide support for cartridge-based games.
Proletariat, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded by Seth Sivak and former Zynga industry veterans in 2012. The company was acquired by Blizzard Entertainment in 2022. Proletariat, Inc. has developed multiple independent games and launched its best-known game, Spellbreak in September 2020.
Bluey: The Videogame is a 2023 adventure video game developed by Artax Games and published by Outright Games. It is based on the television series Bluey, and was released on 17 November 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is an upcoming platform beat 'em up game developed by A Heartful of Games and published by Outright Games. The story is set in the universe of the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) and takes place shortly after the film's events. It follows the Turtles, who, after being accepted into society and achieving their dreams of attending high school, must deal with a new wave of mutants causing havoc across New York City.
