Binge Gamer's Top Ten list for 2001 is released today, from the weekly series that will have a grand finish at the end of the year. This list contains a good amount of 'firsts' in some series. Nice variety.

2001 was a pioneering year for video games. Nintendo released it’s GameCube console, and Microsoft entered the video game market with the Xbox. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 2 continued to dominate the market while Sega announced that they would be pulling out of the console business, killing support for the Dreamcast to focus on software. On the handheld front, Nintendo released their Game Boy Advance.

Before the Dreamcast went away, though, it did see a few milestones. 800,000 people found themselves connecting to Sega.net to play games like NFL2K online, and Phantasy Star Online saw some 300,000 users logging in at any one time. Lindsay Gall also won the second annual SEGA Dreamcast Championship, winning $15,000 and a trip to Jamaica.

Midway announced that they would be quitting the business of building and releasing arcade games, and Activision purchased Treyarch, the developer who would go on to release Call of Duty: World at War.

And in what could be argued as the weirdest lawsuit in the history of the video game industry, Hungarian magician Uri Geller sued Nintendo for copyright infringement. Geller argued that a character in Pokemon resembled him and that Nintendo did this intentionally. Thankfully, the case was thrown out.

PacoDG via bingegamer.net »