2001 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as ''

Capcom vs. SNK 2 ''Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001'', known in Japan as , is the sequel to the fighting game ''Capcom vs. SNK''. It was originally released on NAOMI hardware in arcades. As in the original, players select a team of fighters from vario ...

,'' ''

Dead or Alive 3 is a 2001 in video games, 2001 fighting game, fighting video game developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo for the Xbox (console), Xbox console as one of its launch titles. It is the third main entry in the ''Dead or Alive (franchise), Dea ...

'', ''

Final Fantasy X is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square as the tenth main entry in the ''Final Fantasy'' series. Originally released in 2001 for PlayStation 2, the game was re-released as '' Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster'' for PlaySt ...

'', '' Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec'', ''

Grand Theft Auto III ''Grand Theft Auto III'' is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It is the third main entry in the '' Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 1999's '' Grand Theft Auto 2'', and the fifth instalme ...

'', '' Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'', '' SSX Tricky'', ''

Super Smash Bros. Melee ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' is a 2001 Fictional crossover, crossover fighting game, fighting video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It is the second installment in the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series. I ...

'', ''

Sonic Adventure 2 is a platform video game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega. It was the final ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' game for the Dreamcast after Sega left the home console market. It features two good-vs-evil stories: Sonic the Hedgehog, ...

'', '' Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3'', and '' Virtua Fighter 4''. New intellectual properties include ''

Ace Attorney ''Ace Attorney'' is a series of visual novel adventure video games developed by Capcom. With storytelling fashioned after legal dramas, the first entry in the series, '' Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'', was released in 2001; since then, fiv ...

'', '' Advance Wars,'' ''

Animal Crossing is a social simulation video game series developed and published by Nintendo. The series was conceptualized and created by Katsuya Eguchi and Hisashi Nogami. In ''Animal Crossing'', the player character is a human who lives in a village inh ...

'', ''

Burnout Burnout or burn-out may refer to: Entertainment * ''Burnout'' (film), a 2017 Moroccan film * ''Burn Out'' (film), a 2017 French film * Burnout (ride), a Funfields amusement ride in Australia * ''Burnout'' (series), a racing game series created by ...

'', ''

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

'', ''

Black & White Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. H ...

'', ''

Devil May Cry is a series of action-adventure games created by Hideki Kamiya. It is primarily developed and published by Capcom. The series centers on the demon hunter Dante and his efforts to thwart various demon invasions of Earth. Its gameplay consists ...

'', ''

Fatal Frame ''Fatal Frame'', titled in Japan and ''Project Zero'' in Europe and Australia, is a Japanese survival horror video game series created, published and developed by Koei Tecmo (originally Tecmo). Debuting in 2001 with the first entry in the serie ...

'', '' Ghost Recon,'' ''

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * Halo (franchise), ...

'', ''

Jak and Daxter ''Jak and Daxter'' is an action-adventure video game franchise created by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The series was originally developed by Naughty Dog with a number of installments being outsourced ...

'', '' Max Payne'', ''

Oni An is a kind of '' yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni posses ...

'', '' Onimusha: Warlords'', '' Operation Flashpoint'', ''

Pikmin is a real-time strategy and puzzle video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, and published by Nintendo. The games focus on directing a horde of plant-like creatures called Pikmin in order to collect items by destroying obstacles, avoidi ...

'', ''

Pro Evolution Soccer ''eFootball'', formerly known as ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' (''PES'') internationally and in Japan and North America, is a series of association football simulation video games developed and published by Konami since 1995. The series consists ...

'', '' Red Faction'', '' Serious Sam'', and '' Tropico.'' The year has been retrospectively considered one of the best and most important in video game history due to the release of numerous critically acclaimed, commercially successful and influential titles across all platforms and

genres Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

at the time. It was the peak year for the

sixth generation of video game consoles In the history of video games, the sixth generation era (sometimes called the 128-bit era; see #Bits and system power, "bits and system power" below) is the era of personal computer game, computer and video games, video game consoles, and handhel ...

, with the launch of the

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the W ...

and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by th ...

, the latter focusing on

online games An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, and sp ...

(following

SegaNet The Dreamcast is a home video game console by Sega, the first one introduced in the sixth generation of video game consoles. With the release of the Dreamcast in 1998 amid the dot-com bubble and mounting losses from the development and introducti ...

the previous year), and the

Dreamcast The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, N ...

's last year of production with Sega's exit from console manufacturing. Storytelling and mature themes also became a more mainstream trend. The year's best-selling video game worldwide was '' Pokémon Gold/Silver/

Crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macr ...

'', the fourth year in a row for the ''

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

'' series ( since 1998). The year's most critically acclaimed titles were ''Gran Turismo 3'' and ''Final Fantasy X'' in Japan, and ''Halo'' and ''Grand Theft Auto III'' in the West.

Top-rated games

Major awards

Critically acclaimed titles

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

In Japan, the following video game releases in 2001 entered ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the ...

'' magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" for receiving

Famitsu scores The Japanese video game magazine ''Famitsu'' reviews video games by having four critics each assign the game a score from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest score. The scores of are then added together for a maximum possible score of 40. , twenty- ...

of at least 35 out of 40.

Metacritic and GameRankings

In the West,

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

(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 is a branch of journalism concerned with the reporting and discussion of video games, typically based on a core "reveal–preview–review" cycle. With the prevalence and rise of independent media online, online publicat ...

reviews.

Financial performance

Best-selling home video games

Japan

United States

PAL regions

Highest-grossing arcade games in Japan

Major events

Events

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 the 4th Annual

Interactive Achievement Awards The D.I.C.E. Awards (formerly the Interactive Achievement Awards) is an award show in the video game industry started in 1998 and commonly referred to in the industry as the "video games Oscar". The awards are arranged by the Academy of Int ...

; inducts

John Carmack John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related discip ...

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

to the AIAS Hall of Fame. *

British Academy of Film and Television Arts British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

(BAFTA) hosts the 4th annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards for multimedia technologies; 15 of 21 awards go to video games. * March 21 – The

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...

handheld is released by Nintendo. Also to back-up the GBA's identical graphics to the SNES an enhanced remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 was launched. * May 17–19 – 7th annual

Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publish ...

(E3); the 4th annual

Game Critics Awards The Game Critics Awards are a set of annual awards held after the E3 video game conference since 1998. The awards are given to products displayed at E3 with the title Best of E3 of their category. Format The nominees and winners of the awards a ...

For The Best Of E3 * June 23 –

Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' games are platformer ...

celebrates its 10th anniversary. * July – IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 2nd annual Executive Summit. * Gama Network hosts the 3rd 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). *

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 Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...

hosts the 1st annual

Game Developers Choice Awards The Game Developers Choice Awards are awards annually presented at the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games. Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were ...

. * Spring – Reuters reports that the

console has an estimated 800,000 online users playing its various online games already by midyear. *

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

cooperates with AOL to incorporate Internet features with the PlayStation 2 console; which include a browser, email, and instant messaging capabilities. * August – 2nd annual Dreamcast Championships (featuring the '' Crazy Taxi 2'' video game). * Nikkei News reports that the video game '' Phantasy Star Online'' (for

) has had 300,000 worldwide users login already by midyear. * September 14 – Nintendo releases the

and its launch titles

Luigi's Mansion is a 2001 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo. The game was a launch game, launch title for the GameCube and was the first game in the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise to be released for the console; it was released ...

and Wave Race: Blue Storm. * November 15 – The Microsoft

is introduced. * November 18 – Nintendo releases the

in North America with launch titles

and Wave Race: Blue Storm. *November 23 – Game Park releases the GP32 wireless-multiplayer multimedia handheld console in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. * December 31 – Jez San is awarded an

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in the New Year Honours, becoming the first person awarded specifically for services to

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games 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 gener ...

s. *December –

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

releases the GameCube-based Q multimedia console.

Business

* Defunct companies:

Bullfrog Productions Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, '' Populous'', and is also well know ...

, Indrema,

Dynamix Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of video games from 1984 to 2001, best known for the flight simulator ''Red Baron'', the puzzle game '' The Incredible Machine'', the ''Front Page Sports'' series, ''Betrayal at Krondor,'' and the online ...

, Sanctuary Woods,

SNK is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...

. * After

(1984–2001) is closed as part of Sierra's restructuring under

Vivendi Universal Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...

, several veterans of the studio found GarageGames. * Sega announces that it will no longer develop home consoles, to focus on game development. The

is discontinued in May, but games including ''

'' will continue to be released. *

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 ...

acquires

Treyarch Treyarch Corporation ( ; formerly Treyarch Invention LLC) is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1996 by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü, it was acquired by Activision in 2001. The studio is known for ...

Invention LLC. * PCCW Japan (Pacific Century CyberWorks Japan Co., Ltd.) acquires VR1 Entertainment. *Long-time arcade developer

Midway Games Midway Games Inc., known previously as Midway Manufacturing and Bally Midway, and commonly known as simply Midway, was an American video game developer and publisher. Midway's franchises included '' Mortal Kombat'', ''Rampage'', '' Spy Hunter'' ...

announces that it will no longer manufacture arcade games. *August –

Loki Software Loki Software, Inc. (Loki Entertainment) was an American video game developer based in Tustin, California, that porting, ported several video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux. It took its name from the Norse deity Loki. Although successful ...

declares Chapter 11 Bankruptcy over internal financial troubles, before going defunct next January. In response Michael Simms of the Tux Games retailer and former Loki

game tester Game testing, a subset of game development, is a software testing process for quality control of video games. Moore, Novak 2010, p. 95 Oxland 2004, p. 301-302 The primary function of game testing is the discovery and documentation of software ...

founds

Linux Game Publishing Linux Game Publishing (sometimes also referred to as LGP) was a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ported, published and sold video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsored the deve ...

alongside ex-Loki employee Mike Philips on October 15 to keep games coming to

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

. *October –

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive#Infogrames subsidiary, Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. (1993–present), Atari, Inc. It ...

announces to revive Atari as a sub-brand of Infogrames.

Splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a body of water. It was used by crewed American space capsules prior to the Space Shuttle program, by SpaceX Dragon and Dragon 2 capsules and by NASA's Orion Multipurpose ...

, MX Rider and TransWorld Surf were the first 3 games to receive this treatment.

Lawsuits

*Sega of America Inc. v.

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inco ...

Corporation; Sega sues Kmart over an unpaid debt of over US$2 million *

Uri Geller Uri Geller ( ; he, אורי גלר; born 20 December 1946) is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other ...

v. Nintendo; Geller sues Nintendo over his resemblance to a

character. The suit is dismissed.

Notable releases

Trends

Video game consoles

The dominant

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

s in 2001 were: *

's PlayStation 2 Additionally, Nintendo released the

Nintendo GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the ...

on September 14 in Japan ( North America on November 18 and in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

on May 3, 2002).

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

released the

video game console in North America on November 15 (in Europe on March 14, 2002). File:GameCube-Set.jpg, The

File:Xbox-console.jpg, The

Handheld game systems

The dominant handheld systems in 2001 were: * Nintendo's

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

Additionally, Nintendo released the

(GBA) in Japan on March 21 (in North America on June 11 and Europe on June 22). File:Nintendo-Game-Boy-Advance-Purple-FL.jpg, The

Births

Deaths

*March 16 –

Isao Okawa (May 19, 1926 – March 16, 2001) was a Japanese businessman and the former Chairman of Sega. History Okawa was born in Osaka, Japan. As a young adult, he studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. After graduating from Waseda, he formed C ...

, 74, chairman of Sega.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2001 In video games Video games by year

Top-rated games

Major awards

Critically acclaimed titles

''Famitsu'' Platinum Hall of Fame

Metacritic and GameRankings

Financial performance

Best-selling home video games

Japan

United States

PAL regions

Highest-grossing arcade games in Japan

Major events

Events

Business

Lawsuits

Notable releases

Trends

Video game consoles

Handheld game systems

Births

Deaths

See also

Notes

References