Mario was named after Mario Segale, the landlord of Nintendo’s first distribution warehouse.
Pac-Man was invented by designer Toru Iwatani while he was eating pizza.
The Sony Playstation was originally designed to be a console for Nintendo built with internal Sony components. When Nintendo scrapped the idea, Sony decided to sell it anyway. This time, under their own name.
When Super Mario Bros. was released in 1983, it was so popular that the year saw an explosion of babies named Mario.
Two-thirds of American households play some form of video games. 60% are male and 40% are female.
The best-selling consoles of all time are the Playstation 2 and the Nintendo DS, which are tied at about 155 million units sold.
The highest-grossing game of all time is World of Warcraft, netting over $10 billion since its release in 2004.
“Atari” is a real Japanese word that roughly translates to “Success”. The direct translation is “to hit the target” or to “receive fortuitously.”
Video games sold in the ’90s cost about $50, which would be about $90 today.
The first downloadable content appeared in 1999 for the SEGA Dreamcast. But internet connection was so poor that only small downloads were possible.
E.T. for Atari is considered the worst game of all time. Retailers shipped so many copies of the game back to Atari that millions can be found buried in a New Mexico landfill.
While World of Warcraft may be the highest-grossing game of all time, the best-selling game of all time is Tetris, designed in 1984 by a Russian researcher.
Fallout 3 creators asked Bill Clinton if he wanted to voice the dystopian president John Eden, but he declined.
Developers claim Lara Croft’s breast size was an accident. They had intended to bump her bust up 50%, but accidentally increased it 150%. They decided to keep it that way.
Conan O’brien and Andy Richter have a hidden cameo in Halo 4.
