May 22, 2020 at 12:00 AM EDT – Updated May 21 at 5:21 PM
(Gray News) – One of the most popular video games of all time is now 40 years old.
Pac-Man debuted at a Tokyo arcade on May 22, 1980, and it didn’t take long for it to become a global sensation. It would hit U.S. arcades in October, and parent company Namco would sell more than 100,000 machines in the first year.
The goal was for the yellow, pie-shaped title character to eat all the dots before being caught by the four ghosts named Blinky (red), Inky (light blue), Pinky (pink), and Clyde (orange).
Pac-Man became synonymous with 1980s culture, as the video game character would soon become a TV cartoon and the subject of a top-10 single on the Billboard Hot 100.
The popular sequel, Ms. Pac-Man, was created in 1981. Both arcade games are still staples at establishments around the world.
It took nearly 20 years before someone achieved a perfect game playing Pac-Man. Billy Mitchell of Florida would achieve the score of 3,333,360 points in 1999 by clearing all 256 stages without a single miss. He also got Pac-Man to consume all Pac-Dots, fruits and ghosts with the power pellet.
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