Welcome to This Week in Video Game History, your guide to the anniversaries of note for the coming week. As this is a new feature, it's coming in a day late. Going forward you'll see it every Sunday. Let's go back to yesteryear (and in one instance, the future) and get started on this week's anniversaries, including exclusivity deals, Animal Crossing, and a not-so-happy first for Jack Thompson.

April 11

2005 -- EA and the NCAA sign an exclusive six-year deal that will see EA be the sole developer of college football video games. This move put a stranglehold on the football video game market, as EA had previously signed an exclusive contract with the NFL. The good: fewer sports games on shelves. The bad: fewer sports games on shelves.

April 12

2005 -- Jade Empire is released for the Xbox. Bioware takes its Knights of the Old Republic-style RPG to ancient China (or at least a fictional world inspired by the culture). While it certainly has a following, it may have been the least talked-about game developed by Bioware, a company known for making a huge splash for each release.

April 13

1992 -- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is released in North America. Consider this post your link to the past. Oh, shit just got real.

1999 -- Jack Thompson launches his first video-game-related lawsuit, the first of many. He filed it on behalf of the victims of of the Heath High School shooting, a tragedy that killed three young people and injured five. The court dismissed the lawsuit, but it was the first in many incidents were Thompson would exploit the victims of tragedy to serve his own agenda.

April 14

1998 -- Netflix begins sending discs in the mail, beginning a trajectory that would see its offerings available on every single piece of consumer electronics ever.

1999 -- Nintendo releases the first Animal Crossing game on the Nintendo 64 in Japan as Dōbutsu no Mori. This iteration wouldn't make it to America, with Nintendo waiting until the next generation of consoles to bring the quirky life game to stateside.

April 15

2010 -- Hey, wait a minute! This isn't the past at all. In fact it's the future! Some history news is coming down the pipeline, though...today is the last day Xbox Originals will be supported by Xbox Live.

April 16

1971 -- Sunsoft, popular maker of video games in the 1980s, is founded in Japan as a division of Sun Electronics.

April 17

2006 -- Light day in video game history, as the only release of note is Dreamfall: the Longest Journey, sequel to The Longest Journey. It's notable for harkening back to adventure games of yore and for being Norwegian-developed. I mean, c'mon, how many games are developed in Norway?

That was an alright week, but what happens in April, really? On tap for next week: Super Metroid, Seinfeld, Okami, the Game Boy, and Psychonauts.

Nothing happens in April, eh?