A quick look at Video Game history before we begin with interesting facts about video games. Yes, video game history is all we are going to talk about in this article, bringing the best facts about video games.

Video gaming goes back to early 1950’s with the inventions of simulations, and artificial intelligence programs and simple games to begin with for computer science research.

However video games gained real popularity with the introduction of arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games in 1970s and 1980s. since then the video gaming world has evolved so much to see eight generations of video game consoles passing by with latest generation including Nintendo’s “Wii U” , Microsoft’s “Xbox One” , and Sony’s “PlayStation 4″.

1. Facts about Nintendo’s Mario Series

Mario was created by the Nintendo’s Japanese video game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto and is the best selling video game franchise of all time.

The character (Mario) first debuted as “Jumpman” in the arcade game Donkey Kong on July 9, 1981.

Mario in this game is a carpenter who has a pet ape named Donkey Kong, who later escapes and kidnaps Jumpman’s girlfriend. the game is all about to take the role of jumpman and to rescue the girl.

The character was later on renamed as Mr. Video Game and finally as Mario on the name of  the landlord of Nintendo’s first warehouse Mr. Mario Segale. the character mario has been present in more than 200 games.

2. The first coin operated video games

Arcade games or coin operated video games are usually installed in public business premises, such as restaurants, bars, and particularly amusement arcades. The first coin operated pinball machines emerged in 1930’s however the golden era for coin operated video games started in the late 1970s to the mid-1990s.

Space Invaders, Galaxian , Pac-Man , Battlezone , Defender and Bosconian were few of the most popular Arcade games of all times.

3. Game Controller or Input devices for Video Games 

A game controller is a device to control the game by providing inputs to control the character or an object in the game.

The earlier primary input for video games has been handheld controllers and since then it has evolved to cameras to detect motions , speakers or microphones for voice commands touch screens and more.

4. The Sony PlayStation

The Sony PlayStation was originally brought as a CD add-on to the Super Nintendo (a partnership between Nintendo and Sony). But Sony later decided to develop the playstation as a complete gaming console of its own after it started facing problems with licensing.

The original PlayStation was released on December 3, 1994. The PlayStation, was the first video game console to ship 100 million units within 9 years and 6 months after its initial launch.

5. Cheating in Video Games using cheatcodes

Cheatcodes, yes they have existed in video games for almost their entire history. Cheatcodes usually provide advantage to the gamer providing ease in the game.

The first cheat codes were put in place for play testing purposes. Playtesters had to rigorously test the mechanics of a game and introduced cheat codes to make this process easier.

6. Rovio’s Angry birds

Rovio’s Angry Birds mobile game took only 35 days to do what telephone took 75 years, Internet took 4 years and Facebook 3.5 Years in order to reach 50 million users.

The game was first released for Apple’s iOS devices in December 2009 and since October 2010, 12 million copies of the game were purchased from Apple’s App Store.

The game was later released for Android, Symbian, Windows platform, gaming consoles and PC’s.

The original Angry Birds has been called “one of the most mainstream games out right now”, “one of the great runaway hits of 2010″, and “the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far”.

7. Pac-Man

Pac-Man is an arcade game created by Namco and was released in Japan on May 22, 1980.

Toru Iwatani the man who developed Pac-Man earlier said that the idea about this game came into his mind while he was eating a pizza. he repeatedly stated that the character’s shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice. however he later confirmed that this was only the half fact and the character design was also inspired by the Japanese character for mouth, Kuchi.

8. Nintendo’s Gameboy sold more than 100 million units worldwide and is the worlds most successful game system ever.

9. Konami code 

Konami code or the gamers code is a set of cheat code which is present in most of theKonami games and some other games too.

The code was first released in the 1986 with shooting games of Konami however it gained popularity by the Nintendo Entertainment system version of contra named as “Contra Code” and “30 Lives Code”, the code provided a full set of power-ups to the player.

10. The Nintendo GameCube’s proprietary disc held 1.5 gigabytes of data which is 190 times more than what an N64 game cartridge could hold.

Hope you like reading about some rare facts about video games. Do drop in comments about what you think is a fact to remember from video gaming.