1. The first example of a video game is an unnamed missile launch simulator from 1947 which was designed to run on a ‘Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device.’ A dot represented a missile and dials were turned to alter its trajectory. Paper overlays were needed to represent targets.
2. The first console was the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. The system took five years to develop and seven prototypes were born before its appearance on the market. It contained 40 transistors (an Xbox 360 CPU has 165 000 000).
3. The Sega Dreamcast was the first console to implement an online gaming feature. The feature was named SegaNet and allowed players to connect to central servers for some online action. Probably due to the Dreamcast’s dismal sales, the service lasted a mere 11 months before being shut down.
4. The Atari 2600 (1977 – 1990) console and the SNK NeoGeo AES (1991 – 2004) share the record for the longest supported console systems.
5. Atari Football, released in 1978, was the first game to introduce a side-scrolling screen mechanic. The game was actually developed in 1973 but it took Atari 5 years to figure out how to implement the side-scroll feature.
6. The Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is commonly regarded as one of the biggest video game flops in history and a major contributing factor to the gaming industry crisis of 1983. This is despite the fact that 1.5 million units were sold, beating Atari’s initial mega-hit, SpaceInvaders, which sold around 1 million units. Despite the sales figures, Atari had overproduced the product, and were left with up to 3.5 million units unsold, a large portion of which are rumoured to be buried in the New Mexico desert. The game was rushed out the door by the developer in about six weeks in order to meet a Christmas deadline, and was thoroughly panned by critics. Atari apparently lost around US$100 million.
7. The Sony Playstation was originally intended to be a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo. The two companies could not reach an agreement though, so Sony struck out on their own and the PlayStation was born.
8. The clouds in the original Super Mario Bros were the same shape as the bushes.
9. Chromosome 7 of the human genome was once named Sonic the Hedgehog. Scientists have since stopped using humourous names for genes and chromosomes.
10. Final Fantasy VII was originally developed for the N64, but the project was cancelled because the game would have required 13 cartridges. Square moved to the PlayStation One and never looked back.
11. The Final Fantasy series was apparently named thusly because Square thought it would be their last game ever, due to their poor catalogue of previous titles.
12. Guybrush Threepwood of Monkey Island fame is named for his artwork file extension. During game development, the protagonist had not been named, and the artists simply labelled his personal art sprites as ‘Guy’ with the extension ‘.brush’. The rest is history.
13. The record for rapidly pressing a button on a controller belongs to Japanese gamer Toshuyuki Takahashi, who can mash at a speed of 16 time per second.
14. Xbox game Gears of War was the first Western produced video game to break into the Japanese top 10 sales chart, entering at number 7 in January 2006 after selling 33 000 copies
15. StarCraft is the first computer game to be physically taken into space. It travelled aboard the Shuttle mission STS-96 on 27 May 1999 and was carried by astronaut Daniel T. Barry.
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