This Month in Video Game History: June 22 - June 30

1979

 Software developer Infocom was founded by a group of programmers (instructors and students alike) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company would come to be known for it pioneering interactive fiction games, which included the popular game Zork. After its financial collapse in 1986, the company would be acquired by Activision. It's brand would be discontinued in 1989.

1996

GT Interactive released the wildly popular first-person shooting game Quake for personal computers. The game featured one the most highly-praised 3D graphics engines of its time and a sound track featuring Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. The game's online multiplayer component will make the game one of the most popular of all time. (ESRB: M)

2000

Eidos Interactive released the cyberpunk first-person shooter (FPS) Deus Ex for Windows in the U.S. The game will be widely acclaimed as one of the best first-person shooters of all time due to its complex storyline. (ESRB: M)

2001

Midway Games exits the coin-operated arcade game market in order to focus on developing games for home platforms, citing a "declining demand.”

Nintendo released its Game Boy Advance handheld video game system in Australia and the United Kingdom.

1982

Seventeen year-old Scott Carter set a new record high score of 179,600 points on Atari's Space Duel arcade game with a thirty-two minute game in Mountain View, California. The event will be recorded by the Twin Galaxies record-keeping organization.

1991

 Sega released its signature platform game Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis in North America and Europe. The title would became the "killer ap" for the Genesis, popularizing the platform in North America, where it had previously been all but unknown in the face of the market-dominating popularity of the Nintendo Entertanment System. After the game's break-out success, Sega would off the game in a bundle with the console, replacing the far less popular side-scroller Altered Beast. Sonic would appear in over eighteen game, three cartoons, and two comic series over the next eighteen years, becoming synonymous with Sega. The Genesis would go to sell over 29 million units.

1994

At the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the McCormick Place and Chicago Hilton in Chicago, Illinois, Nintendo introduces Donkey Kong Country, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and announces that the new name for its Project Reality console (the future Nintendo 64) will be "Ultra 64" or "U64" for short. Donkey Kong Country would go on to be one of the most popular titles released for the SNES, eventually selling over eight million copies worldwide.

At the same event, the Life Fitness company makes headlines by unveiling an exercycle that integrates a SNES system. Price: US$1,000 (Home) or US$3,000 (Club)

1996

Along with the Nintendo 64, Nintendo released the flight simulator PilotWings 64 and the platform game Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 in Japan.

Nintendo launched its long-anticipated Nintendo 64 video game console in Japan. The system featured a 64-bit RISC processor, 64-bit 62.5 MHz graphics and sound co-processor, 4.5 MB of RAM, 32-bit color, and four controller ports. Over three hundred thousand units of the system were sold in the first day, along with nearly as many units of the platform game Super Mario 64. By the end of the year, 1.3 million units of the system were sold, matching sales of the PlayStation for the entire previous year. Price: Y25,000

2003

 Linden Lab launched the immersive virtual world Second Life. Second Life was a multiplayer interactive environment where players could own virtual property and construct items. It would make headlines for years to come as business, social organizations, and even governments launched virtual presences within the game. It would also make headlines for a string of high-profile legal cases which blur the line between virtual and real property.

2006

Nintendo released the Nintendo DS Lite handheld video game system across Europe. The update on the Nintendo DS featured a slimmer, more aesthetic design, brighter screens, and improved Wi-Fi capabilities. Inside ten days, over two hundred thousand of the units will have been sold in Europe. Price: €149.99

1994

Ernest W. Adams founds the Computer Game Developers Association (IGDA) as a professional society for game developers with the purpose of promoting and supporting the art of game programming.

1995

GTE Entertainment released FX Fighter for personal computers. It was the first realtime 3D fighting game ever released for computers. The game, modeled, as were many fighting games of the time, after Mortal Kombat, featured eight playable characters, each with 40 attacks, and eight arenas for fighting. Like Mortal Kombat, the game centers around a tournament-style fighting competition.

1996

Electronic Arts released the third-person shooter Fade to Black for the PlayStation in the U.S. (ESRB: T)

GTE Entertainment released FX Fighter Turbo, the sequel to the first realtime 3D fighting game, for personal computers. The game was very similar to its predecessor, but it incorporates even more similarities to the blockbuster Mortal Kombat, including fatalities - featuring finishing moves that can be used to end a match.

1997

Nintendo released the racing game Mario Kart 64 for the Nintendo 64 in Europe.

The Supreme Court declines a request to review the case of Alpex Computer Corp. v. Nintendo of America, allowing a ruling in favor of Nintendo to stand. The prevailing ruling overturns a jury’s decision to award $208 million in damages to Alpex Computer, affirming that the company did not infringe on a 1977 Alpex patent for an entertainment device to display video images.

Video game developer 3DO exits the game console market, selling its hardware manufacturing facilities to Samsung for US$20 million.

1998

Midway released a port of the popular arcade game Mortal Kombat 4 for the Nintendo 64 in the U.S. The game is among the first to be described as "2.5D," a 3D fighting game designed so as to resemble 2D gameplay.

2003

Nintendo released the platform game Wario World for the GameCube in North America. It was both the first 3D game and the first platform game in the Wario series. (ESRB: E)

2004

Activision released an adaptation of the movie Spider-Man 2 for the Xbox in the U.S. (ESRB: T)2005 EA Games released the first-person shooter Battlefield 2 for Windows in Europe. The game would sell well over two million copies worldwide. (ESRB: T)