While Tetris is clearly a work of genius and would have been commercially successful no matter what systems it released on, few would have the courage to argue that, without Nintendo's seminal Game Boy version, the puzzler's fame would be quite as far-reaching today.

Alexey Pajitnov's iconic game was famously bundled with Nintendo's monochrome handheld, turning the portable into a must-have item for millions of people all over the world. The story of how Nintendo secured the rights has been told many times before (and was even transformed into a movie by Apple recently), and Henk Rogers—one of the key figures in the deal—has now told his version via a new memoir, The Perfect Game—Tetris: From Russia With Love.

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There are probably few people in this world you'd expect to know more about Tetris than Henk Rogers.

After all, the Dutch-American businessman was not only responsible for cutting the deal to bring Tetris to the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989 but also later co-founded The Tetris Company in 1996, and has served as the exclusive licensor of the Tetris brand over the past few decades.

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Update : After missing its original target of a March release date, Arika has revealed it will be bringing Tetris The Grandmaster 4 - The Absolute Eye to Steam on April 4th in Japan (h/t: Gematsu).

The game is expected to go live on the platform on April 3 at 8:00 p.m. PT / 11:00 p.m. ET / April 4 at 12:00 JST and will reportedly cost $34.99 / £29.50 / €33.99 / 3,900 yen. The Steam page is also live, just in case you want to wishlist tthe game ahead of its launch.

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Scrolling through Twitter today can often be a bit of a miserable experience today thanks to the countless ads for scam products and the abundance of AI-generated slop that tends to populate the newsfeed.

But every so often, it's still possible to come across something truly magnificent amidst all that other rubbish, with the latest example of this being a recently unearthed video with the Tetris programmer Vadim Gerasimov from an early '90s Japanese TV show.

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Pokémon may have ventured onto smartphones in recent years, but the core series is very much exclusive to Nintendo consoles – which makes the arrival of Tetris Forever all the more interesting.

Digital Eclipse's latest 'Gold Series' collection celebrates the famous Russian puzzler, including multiple variants of the game as well as an exhaustive amount of detail and information about its development, history and evolution.

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NES Tetris has been in the news a fair bit recently thanks to the fact that seasoned players have reached its "kill screen" and beyond.

However, a new piece of Tetris history has been made by two-time world champion @dogplayingtris, who has become the first person to get a "Tetris Rebirth" – basically reaching the end of the game and then forcing it to loop back to level zero.

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The Tetris Company and the Japanese developer Arika have announced that they've reached an agreement for a new Tetris The Grand Master game.

The news was shared via an English and Japanese press release, published earlier today (September 27th), and states that the project will introduce new ideas based on the concept of "Tetris that makes good at Tetris." Beyond that, very little else was revealed about the title, except that it is currently scheduled to be released during the fiscal year 2024, which is slated to end in March 2025.

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It looks like Arika is about to release Tetris: The Grand Master 3 - Terror Instinct on modern-day systems.

The company's Tetris: The Grand Master Twitter account has posted the following cryptic message:

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Yesterday's Nintendo Direct double-bill gave us plenty of cool announcements, with the impending arrival of Tetris Forever on Switch, PS4 and PS5 being a highlight.

A collection of 15 games – including lesser-known entries in the franchise such as Super Bombliss DX, Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss and Hatris – the collection will also include more than an hour of documentary footage.

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ModRetro's Chromatic FPGA handheld is coming later this year and will offer a new way to enjoy Game Boy and Game Boy Color games – but it's also getting its own titles (which, in turn, will be compatible with existing Game Boy hardware).

One of the most notable Chromatic games is going to be bundled with the device: Chromatic Tetris. Just as the original Game Boy included Tetris, ModRetro is hoping that this pack-in game will propel the Chromatic to bumper sales – as well as become a new standard in the competitive Tetris scene.

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You may have seen a few sites reporting earlier this month that the world-famous puzzler Tetris has turned 40 years old this year – you may also have noticed that we weren't one of them.

The Russian-made game is one of the most famous brands in the industry, and the fact that it has reached such a ripe old age is certainly news-worthy – but a quick glance online seems to present some red flags when it comes to its official release date. Wikipedia, for example, lists 1985 as the year of Tetris' launch, as does MobyGames.

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While Tetris well over 35 years old, arguably the most significant version of the game hits that milestone today.

The Game Boy version of Tetris – which was subject to a heated rights battle (recently turned into a movie by Apple) and effectively helped the handheld become a million-selling commercial success – launched in Japan on June 14th, 1989.

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Earlier this year, teenage Tetris player Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson made headlines by becoming the first person to reach the NES version's "kill screen" in 34 years – a point in the game where a crash means further progress isn't possible.

While Gibson's achievement has been overtaken since then, with fellow teen Alex Thach (AKA Alex T) setting an insanely high score on the game by avoiding the kill screen trigger, he's become something of an internet celebrity off the back of his feat, something that was achieved in the wake of his father's tragic death.

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When Apple released its iPod MP3 player, it was quick to find other uses for that LCD display, one of which was games.

The company even went as far as to develop its own version of Tetris, named Stacker, which was intended to be released alongside the 3rd-generation iPod in 2003.

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Although most people will connect Tetris with Nintendo thanks to the iconic Game Boy and NES versions, its one-time rival Sega also has a long association with the Russian puzzler.

Sega created an arcade version of the game prior to the rights situation being sorted out (the events of which are dramatised in Apple's Tetris movie), as well as a Mega Drive port – the latter of which was manufactured but never sold as a direct result of the rights being illegally sub-licensed at the time.

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The Tetris Company is teaming up with US retailer 7-Eleven to produce a range of exclusive merchandise based on the famous puzzle title (thanks, VGC).

Items will include shirts, hats, and other clothing featuring both the Tetris and 7-Eleven branding, and are currently exclusive to the US.

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Remember when we reported on the incredible achievements of Alex Thach (AKA Alex T), a 15-year-old Tetris prodigy who recently became the first person to pass 10 million points on the game (he actually reached over 16 million points). Well, he's back and has basically broken every retro going on the 'classic' NES version of the game.

Alex T's record was actually set on a modded version of the game – commonly used in the competitive Tetris community – so he then decided to set a record on the original cart, just for fun.

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The following article originally appeared on the website Fanbyte back in 2020 but has since been removed as part of an SEO cull. Given its one of the only interviews we're aware of with the composer Jim Andron about his work on Tetris CD-i and considering is not available elsewhere through Wayback Machine, we've decided to republish it here with some minor edits so that people can learn about how the remarkable soundtrack came to be.

The video game composer Jim Andron isn’t the easiest person in the world to contact. Unlike his contemporaries, he doesn’t have a strong social media presence, an easily accessible contact email, or even many pictures of himself online. But if you ask around, you'll likely find a lot of fans of his work on the soundtrack for Tetris CD-i on the Philips CD-i.

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Tetris and Minesweeper must rank as two of the most-played video games in the world in terms of the sheer number of hours invested in them, so the idea of fusion them together strikes us as a pretty interesting one.

That's precisely what developer Kertis Jones has done with Tetrisweeper, "an addictive and mind-bending fusion of two classic puzzle games, offering a refreshing twist that challenges your strategic thinking and reflexes in a seamless blend of block stacking and mine sweeping."

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There's been an awful lot of activity in the world of competitive Tetris high scores lately.

Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson became the first person to "beat Tetris", and then Gibson's record score – 6,850,560 points – was surpassed by PixelAndy, who achieved a 8,952,432 game.

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When Tetris became a pack-in title for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989, it also became a global smash hit, selling millions of copies and establishing itself as the world's favourite puzzle video game.

Its success also created the desire for a sequel, and while we got spin-offs like Hatris, Welltris and Wordtris – as well as iterative follow-ups such as Tetris 2, Tetris DS and, more recently, Tetris Effect – it's now become apparent that there's another sequel to the game was never actually realised (thanks, GamesBeat).

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Everyone accepts that Tetris is one of the world's most perfect video games. It's just a fact; there's no point in debating it any longer. The fact that the Game Boy shipped with the iconic Russian puzzler played a massive role in its success, and even today, Tetris continues to be enjoyed and savoured by millions of people around the world via releases such as Tetris Effect and Tetris 99.

Sadly, not all game consoles have Tetris – and (officially, at least) the Playdate falls into that unfortunate category. However, thanks to the fact that it's possible to side-load games onto the yellow portable, we've seen indie developers step in to produce the next best thing – and Ted Brakob has produced the closest we're ever likely to get to Alexey Pajitnov's masterpiece on Playdate.

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Update : YouTube channel Ici Japon Corp. has posted a video showing the Tetris Game & Watch prototype in action:

Original Story : Nintendo's line of Game & Watch LCD handhelds gave the company a foothold in the world of portable gaming which would prove to be invaluable by the time it launched the Game Boy in 1989.

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The world of 'classic' Tetris (the NES version, basically) has been chewing up column inches of late thanks to the news that the game has finally been "beaten" after 34 years.

That feat was achieved by Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson, who managed to reach the game's kill screen and "beat Tetris". That feat has since been repeated by other players, including a player called P1xelAndy.

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Just before Christmas, 13-year-old Willis Gibson – also known as Blue Scuti – became the first person to "beat" the 1989 NES version of Tetris, one of the most popular variants of the game on the competitive circuit.

Gibson – who dedicated the achievement to his father, who passed away a week before – managed to trigger the game's "kill screen" on level 157, making history in the process (as well as being told to "go outside" by a British news reporter).

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