June 19–21 — The 3rd annual E3 is held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
October 4 — Gunpei Yokoi (1941–1997) dies after a double car accident.
November – Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association (IEMA) launched.
TSR, Inc., the owner of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game, was acquired by Wizards of the Coast.
3D Realms begins production of the infamous Duke Nukem Forever, winner of numerous vaporware awards.
A scene from the Pokémon anime show (based upon the highly successful games) from December 16, 1997, causes 685 Japanese children to have seizures, causing Nintendo to make a statement proclaiming the safety of the Pokémon games from fear that the games would cause a similar effect, the episode to be permanently removed from circulation, and the featured Pokémon in the episode (Porygon) hasn't made an appearance in the Pokémon anime since.
March 1 — The Nintendo 64 is released in Europe and Australia
October 20 — Nintendo releases a smaller redesigned version of the SNES, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Model SNS-101) in North America.
Sony releases PlayStation development software for PC
Tiger Electronics releases the Game.com
Activision acquires CentreSoft Ltd. and Raven Software
Electronic Arts Inc. acquires Maxis
GameTek filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed its doors in July 1998
2015, Inc. founded
4D Rulers Software, Inc. founded
September — 4HEAD Studios created
Bungie Studios West formed by Bungie Software Products Corp.
Conspiracy Entertainment Corporation founded
Crave Entertainment, Inc. formed
August — Human Head Studios, Inc. formed
Illusion Softworks, a.s. founded
April 15 — Irem Software Engineering Inc. founded
Irrational Games LLC founded
Mythic Entertainment renames itself from Interworld Productions after name dispute with another "Interworld" company
THQ renamed from Toy Headquarters, Inc.
Warthog PLC founded
Nintendo vs Games City; Nintendo sues Games City for selling the Game Doctor and Doctor V64 backup devices for the SNES and N64 consoles. Nintendo wins the suit.
Nintendo vs Prima Publishing; Nintendo sues Prima over copyrights to maps of the N64 video game GoldenEye 007. Nintendo loses the suit
Nintendo vs Sony Video Games; Nintendo sues Sony over copyrights about Mario games
Sega announce that the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) has been discontinued.
Sega Game Gear discontinued.
1997 in video gaming Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
