October in gaming history

OCTOBER

1st --
1979 – Former Atari programmers David Crane, Alan Miller, Jim Levy, Bob Whitehead, and Larry Kapland form Activision, the industry's first third-party developer. They start making games for the Atari 2600, and later move on to other platforms.

4th --
1995 – Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is released for the SNES.
1997 – Gunpei Yokoi is killed in a car accident. Yokoi worked at Nintendo where he created various toys, before creating the Game & Watch series of LCD handheld games. He was assigned as General Manager of Research & Development 1, where he helped create the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Virtual Boy. He was also the producer of the Metroid games. After the failure of the Virtual Boy, he left Nintendo and started Koto Laboratory, where he started development on the WonderSwan. He died before the final product was released.

7th --
2003 – Nokia releases the N-Gage, a cellphone capable of playing cartridge-based games.

10th --
1980 – Pac-Man is released in arcades in North America. It goes on to become the most successful coin-operated game ever.

11th --
1994 – Final Fantasy VI is released in North America as Final Fantasy III, for the SNES.

18th --
1985 – The Nintendo Entertainment System is released in select markets in North America. Super Mario Bros. is among the launch titles, along with 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew. Two configurations of the NES were available at launch. The Control Deck ($199.99) had the NES, two controllers, and Super Mario Bros. The Deluxe Set (249.99) had the NES, R.O.B., a Zapper, Duck Hunt, and Gyromite. Nintendo would release several more bundle pack configurations in the lifespan of the NES.
1994 – Sonic & Knuckles is released for the Sega Genesis (aka Sega Mega Drive).

26th --
2000 – Sony releases the PlayStation 2 in North America.