1999 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as ''

Heroes of Might and Magic III ''Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia'' (commonly referred to as ''Heroes of Might & Magic 3'', or ''Heroes 3'', or abbreviated HoMM 3) is a turn-based strategy game developed by Jon Van Caneghem through New World Comput ...

'', ''

System Shock 2 ''System Shock 2'' is a 1999 action role-playing survival horror video game designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during produ ...

'', '' Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver'', ''

Final Fantasy VIII is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the eighth main installment in the ''Final Fantasy'' series. Set on an unnamed fantasy world with science fiction elements, the game follo ...

'', '' Age of Empires II'', '' Crash Team Racing'', '' Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!'', '' Grand Theft Auto 2'', '' Resident Evil 3: Nemesis'', ''

Chrono Cross is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. It is set in the same world as ''Chrono Trigger'', which was released in 1995 for t ...

'', ''

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a 1999 first-person shooter game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Windows, and later released on the P ...

'', ''Pokémon Gold'' and ''Silver'', and '' Donkey Kong 64'', along with new titles such as '' Super Smash Bros.'', ''

Silent Hill is a horror media franchise centered on a series of survival horror games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. The first four main games—'' Silent Hill'', '' Silent Hill 2'', '' Silent Hill 3'', and '' Silent Hill 4: The ...

'', ''

Syphon Filter ''Syphon Filter'' is a third-person shooter video game series created by Bend Studio (formerly Eidetic) and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP ...

'', '' Driver'', ''

EverQuest ''EverQuest'' is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North America, ...

'', '' Homeworld'', '' Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'', and '' Planescape: Torment''. The year's most critically acclaimed video game was the Dreamcast title ''

Soulcalibur is a fighting game franchise developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. There are a total of seven main installments and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books in the ...

'', which remains among the highest-rated games of all time on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. The best-selling home video game worldwide was the

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

title '' Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

'' for the second year in a row, while the year's highest-grossing

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

in Japan was

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

's '' Virtua Striker 2''.

Events

British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

hosts the 2nd annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards. *March – '' Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children'' is republished as ''Game Over: Press Start to Continue''. *March 15 – Game Network hosts the 1st annual

Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, ...

(IGF) at GDC. *March 15–19 –

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year, Game Developers Choice Awards and ...

(formerly Computer Game Developers Conference); moves to

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

where it stays for six consecutive years; hosts the 1st annual

. *May 12 –

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

has started working on what will eventually be the

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

, under the codename "Project Dolphin". *May 13 –

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain Summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentation ...

hosts 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (at E3); inducts Sid Meier of

Firaxis Games Firaxis Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Sparks, Maryland. The company was founded in May 1996 by Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs, and Brian Reynolds (game designer), Brian Reynolds following their departure from MicroProse, Meie ...

to the AIAS Hall of Fame. *May 13–15 – 5th annual

Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo) was an annual Trade fair, trade event for the video game industry organized and presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It was held principally in Los Angeles from 1995 to 2019, wit ...

(E3); the 2nd annual Game Critics Awards for the Best of E3. *September 7 - The

SegaWorld London SegaWorld London was an indoor theme park located inside the London Trocadero in London, England. The venue opened in September 1996 and operated as a joint-venture between Chorion (company), Chorion, then-owners of the Trocadero, and Sega. At 1 ...

amusement park shuts down for good exactly three years after its original opening date in 1996. The bottom two floors of the park continue to operate as a generic arcade until 2011.

Hardware

Top-rated games

Game of the Year awards

The following titles won Game of the Year awards for 1999.

Critically acclaimed titles

Metacritic and GameRankings

(MC) and

GameRankings GameRankings was a video gaming review aggregator that was founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 video games. GameRankings was discontinued in December 2019, with its staff bei ...

(GR) are aggregators of

video game journalism Video game journalism (also called games journalism or video game criticism) is a specialized branch of journalism that covers various aspects of video games, including game reviews, industry news, and player culture, typically following a core ...

reviews.

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

The following video game releases in 1999 entered ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving Famitsu scores of at least 35 out of 40.

Financial performance

Best-selling video game consoles

Best-selling home video games

The following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games (

console games A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connec ...

computer games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

) of 1999 in Japan, the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. The following titles were the top ten highest-grossing home video games of 1999 in the United States and Europe.

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1999.

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the top ten best-selling home video games of 1999.

Europe

In Europe, the following titles were the top ten highest-grossing home video games of 1999. In the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, the following titles were the best-selling home video games of 1999.

Australia

In Australia, the following titles were the top ten best-selling

of 1999.

Highest-grossing arcade games in Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the top ten highest-grossing

arcade games An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade ...

of 1999.

Notable releases

Business

*February 22 – Sierra reorganizes to cut costs in what is widely referred to as the "Chainsaw Monday" Layoffs, closing several studios and their iconic former headquarters in Oakhurst,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Some employees were given the option to relocate to their new headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. *

Midway Games Midway Games Inc. (formerly Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known simply as Midway) was an American video game company that existed from 1958 to 2010. Midway's franchises included ''Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage (franchise), Ra ...

stops using the

Atari Games Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade video games, active from 1985 to 1999, then as Midway Games West Inc. until 2003. It was formed when the coin-operated video game division of Atari, Inc. was transferred by its owner Wa ...

brand. *New companies: 3d6 Games, 7 Studios, BAM!, Liquid Entertainment,

Bohemia Interactive Bohemia Interactive a.s. is a Czech video game developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Prague. The company focuses on creating military simulation games such as ''Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis'' and the ''Arma (series), A ...

, 7FX

Acquisitions

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

acquires Elsinore Multimedia, Expert Software, and

Neversoft Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the st ...

Entertainment *

Infogrames Entertainment, SA Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA ()), also known as Atari Group, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns mainly video gaming-related interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA's core subsidiaries include t ...

acquires

Accolade The accolade (also known as dubbing, adoubement, or knighting) () was the central act in the rite of passage Ceremony, ceremonies conferring knighthood in the Middle Ages. Etymology The term ''accolade'' entered English by 1591, when Thomas ...

(Renamed Infogrames North America), Gremlin Interactive (renamed Infogrames Sheffield House),

GT Interactive Atari, Inc. is an American video gaming company based in New York City, and a subsidiary of the Atari SA holding company. It is the main entity serving the commercial Atari brand globally since 2003. The company currently publishes games based o ...

(GTIS), and

Ozisoft is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game video game publisher, publisher, and the video game branch of the wider Bandai Namco Holdings group. Founded in 2006 as it is the successor to Namco's home and arcade video game ...

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns three major Imprint (trade name), publishing labels, Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K ...

acquires TalonSoft *

ZeniMax Media ZeniMax Media Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded in 1999 by Christopher Weaver and Robert A. Altman as the parent company for Weaver's video game publisher Bethesda Softworks. ...

acquires

Bethesda Softworks Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a Division (business), division of Media Technology Limited. In 1999, it became a subsidiary of Z ...

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports ...

acquires

Sensible Software Sensible Software was a British software company founded by Jon Hare and Chris Yates which was active from March 1986 to June 1999. It released seven number-one hit games and won numerous industry awards. The company used exaggeratedly small sp ...

Lawsuits

v. Bung Enterprises Ltd.; Nintendo sues Bung over patent infringement *

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

Corporation v. Bleem LLC

Notes

References

{{History of video games Video games by year

Events

Hardware

Top-rated games

Game of the Year awards

Critically acclaimed titles

Metacritic and GameRankings

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

Financial performance

Best-selling video game consoles

Best-selling home video games

United States

Japan

Europe

Australia

Highest-grossing arcade games in Japan

Notable releases

Business

Acquisitions

Lawsuits

See also

Notes

References