This Week in Video Game History witnesses the birthdays of three very different people, the untimely death of a CD-ROM heroine, a totally botched console, and the beginning of two dominant genres. By the end of this week's anniversaries, we'll have you saying, in the immortal words of Kaz Hirai: "Remember that one? Alright!"

May 2

1995 -- 3DO reveals the M2 console on this appropriate date, but it would never see release. The M2's history is long and convoluted. Panasonic would eventually cancel it after acquiring it from 3DO, but its legacy lives on -- in ATMs and coffee machines. Hey, it's a recession, so we're all underemployed.

May 3

2004 -- Red Dead Revolver rides into town. Its sequel, Red Dead Redemption, will be released soon, so this may be a good excuse to go back and play this cowboy-inspired title.

May 4

1998 -- The "other video game webcomic," PvP, debuts. Popular in its own right, it debuted months before Penny Arcade. May I point out that Penny Arcade is so popular that they host North America's largest gaming convention and have enough development experience that they have a canceled video game under their belt. Sometimes I wonder if PvP creator Scott Kurtz ever says to himself "But I was first!" He's made a living out of what he does, so good on him.


May 5

1959 -- Happy birthday Peter Molyneux! The world must have seemed so full of potential to this future designer of the Fable franchise! Actually, knowing you, it still does. Let's start making good on that, shall we? I kid, I kid.

1970 -- Happy birthday Kenji Eno! If you're unfamiliar with the name, you are excused. It's been some time since he's been involved in video games, and when he was in the industry...he made weird-ass games, most of which didn't make it out of Japan. He also discovered Fumita Ueda of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus fame. He's recently returned to video games, and you can check out his latest game, Newtonica, on the iPhone by clicking here.

1980 -- On-Line Systems (later known as Sierra) releases Mystery House. It's credited as the first graphical adventure game, and it helped Sierra become the computer game developer of the '80s and '90s -- although you could argue that 1981's Softporn Adventure featuring a tastefully nude Roberta Williams on the cover helped. If it didn't, I will say it did, because I just like talking about Roberta Williams in the nude.

1992 -- Wolfenstein 3D ushers in the era of first-person shooters with its release. It also popularized killing Nazis in video games. That stated, it wasn't the first game to use Hitler as an overpowered end boss. And, gosh, it wouldn't be the last.

2009 -- Dan Hsu posts the first article on Bitmob. Happy birthday! (Thanks Toby!)

May 6

2003 -- Eve Online launches. MMOs have come and gone, but Eve Online keeps on chugging. Personally, it's one of my favorite games of all time, and I have never even played it. The stories of year-long espionage and assassination plots in a world completely created by the players are endlessly fascinating to me. And they are the exact reasons why I will never touch the goddamned thing.

May 7

1946 - Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita found Sony Corporation, although its current name isn't used until 1958. It's a good thing they changed the name. The Tokyo Telecommunication Engineering PlayStation 3 doesn't have quite the same ring.

May 8

1965 -- Happy Birthday Kenji Inafune! The creator of Mega Man and current head of research & development and online business and global head of production at Capcom. The more important you are to video game history, the longer your title is.

1999 -- Dana Plato, star of the terrible Sega CD game Night Trap, passes away from a drug overdose. The game came out during her downward spiral, appearing somewhere between her Playboy pictorial and her career as a soft-porn actress. I guess that says something about how video games were regarded in the early '90s.

2006 -- Kaz Hirai, chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, immortalizes and embarrasses himself while demonstrating Ridge Racer for the PSP. You can barely mention Hirai's name on a message board without someone responding with "Riiiiiiiidge Racer!"

Question of the Week: What is your favorite instance of a member of the vide game industry embarrassing him or herself on stage? Post your thoughts in the comments!