Its almost Christmas, folks!
All joking aside, August seems rather busy compared to the quieter months we've just had. This month sees a fair few birthdays for Nintendo, namely the GameBoy's 22nd birthday, the SNES hitting the big two decade mark, and Super Mario Sunshine almost making it to double figures with its 9th birthday.
Seems just like yesterday I was running around putting out fires left right and centre... actually, it was. Zack's at that age now where he knows what matches do...
Anyways, on with the show!
1st
1989 - Nintendo releases the GameBoy in the US. 40,000 sell on the first day.
1992 - Nintendo releases Mario Paint for the SNES in the US. It comes bundled with the SNES Mouse.
1993 - Nintendo releases Super Mario All Stars for the SNES. Its a bundle of the original Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario: The Lost Levels, which was known as SMB2 in Japan. All games are upgraded to 16 bit quality.
6th
1986 - Nintendo releases Metroid for the NES in Japan.
1999 - NeoGeo release the NeoGeo Pocket Color in the US. It doesn't sell well, despite being bloody awesome. I still have mine.
8th
2001 - Microsoft announce it is making a sequel to the Xbox hit Halo.
2006 - Capcom release Dead Rising on the Xbox 360 in the US.
9th
1992 - Midway introduce Mortal Kombat v1.0 to arcades in the US. The 18th sees MK v2.0 released, and the 31st for MK v3.0. Not sure what the differences were...
10th
1994 - Square releases Breath Of Fire for the SNES in the US.
11th
1995 - Square releases Chrono Trigger on the SNES in the US.
13th
1993 - Capcom releases Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting on the SNES in the US. Entering the Capcom cheat at the intro no longer allows both players to choose the same character, as this is now standard. Instead, the cheat disables all special moves! Entering the code on the second pad ups the speed from 5 stars to 10.
16th
2000 - Square EA release Chrono Cross for the PlayStation in the US.
17th
1999 - Eidos release The Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver for the PlayStation in the US. This is the second game in what is undoubtedly the greatest game series ever, and has the best voice acting you will ever hear.
2005 - Microsoft unveils the Xbox 360 at the Hot Chips conference in the US.
18th
1982 - Atari announces it has obtained worldwide exclusive rights to market videogames based on the smash movie E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. We all know how this turns out...
1995 - The movie adaptation of Mortal Kombat hits cinemas in the US.
21st
1995 - Nintendo introduces the Virtual Boy system in the US. Only 770,000 are sold worldwide.
2009 - Microsoft gives a demonstration of its new "Natal" motion control system at the Gamescon Videogame Convention in Liepzig. It later gets renamed "Kinect".
22nd
2005 - Nintendo release Nintendogs for the DS in the US. It soon becomes the number one game that men play but don't admit to.
23rd
1991 - Nintendo releases the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES to normal folk) in the US, bundled with Super Mario World. Total lifetime sales in North America alone top 22,000,000, with over 700 games released. Other games at release include Gradius III, SimCity, and F-Zero.
24th
2000 - Big day for Nintendo, as they unveil the GameCube and the GameBoy Advance in Japan.
25th
2009 - [/b[Eidos release Batman: Arkham Asylum for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in the US. Square-Enix also release the Disiddia: Final Fantasy beat-em-up slash RPG game for the PSP, bringing together the main heroes and villans of every FF game in the main series to date.
[b]26th
2002 - Nintendo release Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube in the US.
2003 - Namco release Soul Calibur II on Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. Each iteration has its own exclusive character. Xbox has Spawn from the Macfarlane comics. PS2 has Heihachi Mishima from the Tekken series. GameCube has Link from the Legend Of Zelda series.
27th
1997 - Sony releases the Dual Analog Controller for the PlayStation in the US. On the same day, Nintendo releases GoldenEye on the Nintendo Sixty FOOOOOOUUUUUURRRRRR in the US. Over 8,000,000 copies sell making this the biggest selling game on the machine.
2004 - After finding itself unable to secure funding, Acclaim Entertainment closes down. It was 17 years old. The severity of the situation isn't realised for another three days...
29th
2006 - THQ releases Saints Row for the Xbox 360 in the US. Some consider it to be a serious contender for Grand Theft Auto's crown.
30th
1995 - Nintendo releases Killer Instinct for the SNES in the US.
2004 - Acclaim Entertainment files for bankruptcy, with a debt of over $100,000,000 (one hundred million). Bad times.
31st
1997 - Acclaim release Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero for the PlayStation in the US. The game is an abomination. That is all.
1998 - Activision release Tenchu: Stealth Assassins for the PlayStation in the US. Its awesome.
Bwokah fix: Correct year for Super Mario Sunshine and the bold formatting for Batman:AA fixed. Thanks folks!