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Contents

Events

Notable releases

Hardware

Business

Lawsuits

Events

★ May 11-13 — 6th annual E³ (Electronic Entertainment Expo); the 3rd annual Game Critics Awards for the Best of E³

★ June 26 — International Game Developers Association renamed from Computer Game Developers Association

★ July - IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 1st annual Executive Summit

★ Reuters reports that the Sony PlayStation 2 console will export controls by Trade Ministry of Japan since the PS2 is sophisticated enough for military application

★ NPD Group, Inc. reports that Electronic Arts ranks 1st in third-party video game publishing in the USA, ahead of Infogrames Entertainment SA

★ Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards inducts Hironobu Sakaguchi of Square Enix to the AIAS Hall of Fame

★ BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) hosts the 3rd annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards for multimedia technologies; 7 of 20 awards go to video games; awards David Bowie in part for his contributions to the video game '' (for PC)

★ Gama Network hosts the 2nd annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)

★ Nintendo sells its 100,000,000th Game Boy handheld console

★ Sega.com launches SegaNet, their online console gaming network

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★ 1st annual Sega Dreamcast Championships (featuring the ''Sonic Adventure'' video game)

Notable releases

★ January 31 - ''The Sims'' (PC)

★ February 29 - ''Dead or Alive 2'' (DC)

★ February 29 - '' (DC)

★ February 29 - ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'' (GBC, N64)

★ March 31 - ''EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark (PC)

★ April 30 - '' (PC)

★ May 15 - ''Vagrant Story'' (PS)

★ May 22 - ''Perfect Dark'' (N64)

★ June 1 - ''Evolva'' (PC)

★ June 13 - '' (PC)

★ June 26 - ''Deus Ex'' (PC)

★ June 29 - ''Diablo II'' (PC)

★ June 29 - ''Icewind Dale'' (PC)

★ June 29 - ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'' (DC)

★ June 30 - '' (PC)

★ July 7 - ''Final Fantasy IX'' (Japan) (PS)

★ August 16 - ''Chrono Cross'' (PS)

★ August 24 - '' (PC)

★ August 27 - '' (PC)

★ September 19 - ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'' (PS)

★ September 24 - '' (PC)

★ September 30 - ''RollerCoaster Tycoon: Loopy Landscapes'' (PC)

★ October 15 - ''Pokémon Gold and Silver'' (Game Boy Color)

★ October 21 - '' (PC)

★ October 22 - ''Quake III Arena'' (DC)

★ October 25 - '' (PS2)

★ October 26 - ''

★ October 26 - ''Tekken Tag Tournament'' (PS2)

★ October 31 - ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'' (PC)

★ November 7 - ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'' (DC)

★ November 8 - ''Counter-Strike'' (PC retail version)

★ November 8 - ''Escape from Monkey Island'' (PC)

★ November 9 - ''The Operative: No One Lives Forever'' (PC)

★ November 13 - ''Kessen'' (PS2)

★ November 13 - ''Skies of Arcadia'' (DC)

★ November 14 - ''Final Fantasy IX'' (North America) (PS)

★ November 16 - ''Sacrifice'' (PC)

★ November 16 - ''The Longest Journey'' (PC)

★ November 20 - ''Banjo Tooie'' (N64)

★ November 23 - '' (PC)

★ December 4 - ''EverQuest: The Scars of Velious'' (PC)

★ December 18 - ''Quake III: Team Arena'' (PC)

Hardware

★ Bandai's WonderSwan Color handheld in Japan

★ SEGA's Naomi 2 arcade console

★ Sony's PlayStation 2 (PS2) home console

★ Toymax's Activision TV Games controller/console

Business

★ Electronic Arts Inc. acquires DreamWorks Interactive, LLC (games division of DreamWorks SKG)

★ Infogrames, Inc. acquires Hasbro Interactive, Inc. (including the Game.com division and the rights to the Atari label); Infogrames also acquires Paradigm Entertainment, Inc.

★ Microsoft Corporation acquires Bungie Software Products Corp.

★ nVidia Corporation acquires 3Dfx Interactive, Inc.

★ Sony Corporation acquires Verant Interactive, Inc.

★ Looking Glass Studios goes out of business.

★ THQ Inc. acquires Volition

★ Ubi Soft Entertainment, Inc. acquires Red Storm Entertainment, Inc.

★ SNK goes out of business

★ Summer — 21-6 Productions founded

★ Sega Rosso renamed (formerly SEGA's AM5 team)

★ Smilebit founded (formerly SEGA's AM6 R&D division)

★ Yeti Interactive founded

★ Mattel, Inc. sells Learning Co. to Gores Technology Group

★ All of SEGA's the internal consumer research & development divisions become individual developer companies

★ Midway / Williams announces to cease the Atari Games label

Lawsuits

★ Nintendo of America, Sega America, Electronic Arts, Inc v. Yahoo!, Inc.; The lawsuit is over piracy negligence and profiting from counterfeit video game products sold on Yahoo! Auctions. The lawsuit is fully dropped in 2001 in order to cooperate against piracy.

★ Nintendo commits over USD$80 million to issuing gloves to over 1,000,000 children after numerous reports of serious hand injuries from the controllers while playing certain stages of ''Mario Party'' (for N64).