October 10, 1980: Pac Man North American Release

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Pac Man Released in US

1980– The video game that changed it all debut in North America. The infamous yellow pie chart gobbling up little dots and avoiding ghosts for top scores was released to the Japanese arcades in May, but finally made it to North America in 1980.

Toru Iwatani developed the game with a nine-person team. The game was first called “Pakkuman”, inspired by the paku-paku phrase (which is what Pac-Man says whilst chomping Blinky (Oikake), Pinky (Machibuse), Inky (Kimagure), and Clyde (Otoboke). 

The game had a major glitch at level 256, since it was never expected someone would get that far. 

The 80’s era officially was in full swing. Pac Man fever was on the loose.

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