Video Game Facts for Kids

A Picture of a Video Game Console

This web page contains video game facts for kids and is an excellent resource for anyone of any age looking to learn about video games and video game consoles. Our goal is to provide you with accurate, up to date facts on video games. In addition to video game facts, you can find pictures of the best-selling video game consoles of all time and additional resources on video games.

The video game facts below will help you learn about the history of video games, how video games are made, what are the best video game consoles by units sold and other video game related facts. We hope these facts about video games are entertaining and help you learn more about this revolutionary entertainment product.

If any of the below video game facts are inaccurate, please contact us and let us know.

19 Video Game Facts for Kids

  1. A video game is played on a video game console.
  2. A video game console is a device that can output a video and audio signal to a TV, monitor or other projection device that one or more people can play.
  3. The first commercial home video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey. It was sold by Magnavox between 1972 and 1975, selling around 350,000 units.
  4. There are three main types of video game consoles and they are home video game consoles, handheld video game consoles and hybrid video game consoles.
  5. A home video game console connects to a TV (Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, etc.).
  6. A handheld video game console is portable and can be played anywhere (Game Boy, Nintendo DS, etc.).
  7. A hybrid video game console has elements of the first two previous mentioned consoles (Nintendo Switch).
  8. The media type used to store video games has changed over the generations. These media types include cartridges, chip cards, magnetic media (floppy disks, tape drives), optical media (CDs) and downloadable media via the internet.
  9. Nintendo’s famous video game character Mario was named after Mario Segale, the landlord who rented a warehouse to Nintendo.
  10. The first console to have an internal memory storage was the SEGA Saturn.
  11. A video game is rated using the ESRB system (Entertainment Software Rating Board).
  12. A video game is assigned an ESRB rating based on the appropriate age range for that game.
  13. The ESRB system was designed to help parents decide if a video game was to violent or explicit for their child.
  14. The highest grossing video game of all time is World of Warcraft. It has generated more than $10 billion dollars since it was launched.
  15. The best-selling home video game console of all time is the Sony PlayStation 2. As of March 31st, 2012, they sold over 155 million consoles worldwide.
  16. The best-selling single platform video game of all time is Wii Sports. It was released on November 19th, 2006 and has sold over 82 million copies.
  17. The best-selling single platform video game of all time that was not bundled with a video game console sale was Wii Play. It was released on December 2nd, 2006 and sold over 28 million copies.
  18. The best-selling multi-platform video game of all time is Minecraft. It was released on November 18th, 2011 and has sold over 176 million copies.
  19. The best-selling multi-platform video game of all time that was not bundled with video game consoles was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was released on October 26th, 2004 and has sold over 27 million copies.

Additional Resources About Video Games

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