This Day in Video Game History: October 7

This Day in Video Game History: October 7
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This Day in Video Game History

1968

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) publicly adopts its own self-regulating film ratings systems, which will be the model for the later self-regulatory system implemented by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in the nineties.

1998

At 11am ET, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) representatives helped supervise the destruction of forty thousand pirated games on Compact Discs (CD). The Paraguay-bound shipments from Taiwan and Singapore were uncovered by United States Customs Inspectors in Miami, Florida during the course of routine inspections. Following the supervised destruction, the discs are recycled by GreenDisk. Forty-four different first and third-party PlayStation titles are represented in the pirated lot, including” PARAPPA THE RAPPER, RALLY CROSS and NBA SHOOT-OUT ‘98 with a retail value greater than $1.5 million.

1999

3D graphics accelerator card manufacturer 3Dfx Interactive announces that L. Gregory Ballard had resigned as president and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company effective as of Sunday, October 31, 1999.

EA releases the single-player hack and slash game Xena: Warrior Princess, based on the television series, for PlayStation in the U.S. (ESRB: T)

The Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun publishes an article reporting that the AI Cube Company has promised to reduce the time required to develop the software for the PlayStation 2 (PSX2) by six months or more with a Windows compatible development system that will cost as little as three million yen. The same edition of the paper reports on a survey conducted by the ASCII Corporation in which seventeen percent of Japanese consumers responded that they would consider a price of 39,800 yen for the upcoming video game console reasonable.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) marks the fourth anniversary of the release of the PlayStation video game console with a celebration for their employees. The party is held at The Player’s Billiard and Volleyball Club in Belmont, California, where each employee received a hearty congratulations, a t-shirt, wristwatch, and UmJammer Lammy, the most recent PlayStation title.

2000

Atlus released the single-player Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber real-time strategy game of the Nintendo 64 in North America. (ESRB: T)

2002

Microsoft Game Studios released the Blinx: The Time Sweeper platform game for the Xbox in the U.S. Microsoft markets the game as “’the world’s first 4D action game,” due to it time elements. The game received a tepid reaction from critics, who largely felt the game had been over-hyped by Microsoft. GameSpy even went so far as to lump it into its list of the “Most Overrated Games Ever.” (ESRB: E)

Nokia N-Gage

2003

Nokia released the N-Gage handheld video game system globally, featuring a 104MHz ARM processor, 64MB RAM, full cell phone functionality, wireless Bluetooth connectivity, a USB port, and a stereo FM radio. The system also features support for email, instant messaging, MP3 playback, and an XHTML web browser. Price: $300

2004

Nintendo announced the launch titles of its upcoming Nintendo DS handheld video game system. The company promises ten to twenty games will be available and that the number of available titles wil double by year’s end. Among the launch titles were: Madden NFL 2005, The Urbz: Sims in the City, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Golf from Electronic Art; Mr. DRILLER: Drill Spirits from Namco, Super Mario 64 DS from Nintendo; Feel the Magic XY/XX from SEGA; Ping Pals from THQ; and Asphalt Urban GT from Ubisoft.

Playmore released the SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos versus fighting game for the Xbox. (ESRB: T)

2005

Black & White 2

EA Games released Black & White 2 for Windows in the U.S. The game is a hybrid real-time strategy game and god game, building the genre established the such games as Sim City by adding a moral axle and allowing players to decide for themselves whether they chose to play the part of a benevolent or malicious deity. (ESRB: T)

Nintendo released Geist for the GameCube in Europe. (PEGI: 18+)

Nintendo released the Nintendogs real-time pet simulation video game for the Nintendo DS in PAL regions. The game was widely acclaimed by critics, and received a large number of awards, including the Associated Press’ “Best Game of 2005,” GameSpot: Editors’ Choice award, and IGN: Editors’ Choice Award. It became one of the best-selling games for the DS, increasing sales of the system to over 4.2 times their prior levels. (PEGI: 3+, OFLC: G)