History Trivia / Tetris

** Many people consider Tengen's NES version of Tetris, a port of an arcade game programmed by longtime Atari engineer Ed Logg, to be superior to the NES version produced by Nintendo. It also featured nearly arcade-perfect renditions of the four musical tracks used in the arcade version, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Troika," and "Kalinka." A court injunction favoring Nintendo forced the recall and destruction of all unsold copies of Tengen's Tetris, but 100,000 copies still managed to be sold before that happened.

** Many people consider Tengen's NES version of Tetris, a port of an arcade game programmed by longtime Atari engineer Ed Logg, to be superior to the NES version produced by Nintendo. It also featured nearly arcade-perfect renditions of the four musical tracks used in the arcade version, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Troika," and "Kalinka."

* DuelingWorks: An unusual case of two versions of the same IP. [[Creator/{{Atari}} Atari Games]], through its subsidiary Tengen, released a port of Ed Logg's arcade version of Tetris for the NES in 1989. As with most of Tengen's other NES games, it was produced outside of Nintendo's licensing system for the NES, which had already led to a number of legal battles between Atari Games and Nintendo. This also conflicted with the NES version of Tetris produced by Nintendo's in-house development team in Japan that was released later that year. Nintendo had obtained the legal rights to Tetris on consoles produced outside of Japan. The courts found in favor of Nintendo, and Tengen was forced to recall and destroy all unsold copies of its version of Tetris. The 100,000 or so copies that Tengen managed to sell before the court-ordered recall are among the most sought-after rarities for NES collectors. The Tengen version features nearly arcade-perfect renditions of the four arcade tracks, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Troika," and "Kalinka."

* DuelingWorks: An unusual case of two versions of the same IP. Creator/{{Atari Atari Games}}, through its subsidiary Tengen, released a port of Ed Logg's arcade version of Tetris for the NES in 1989. As with most of Tengen's other NES games, it was produced outside of Nintendo's licensing system for the NES, which had already led to a number of legal battles between Atari Games and Nintendo. This also conflicted with the NES version of Tetris produced by Nintendo's in-house development team in Japan that was released later that year. Nintendo had obtained the legal rights to Tetris on consoles produced outside of Japan. The courts found in favor of Nintendo, and Tengen was forced to recall and destroy all unsold copies of its version of Tetris. The 100,000 or so copies that Tengen managed to sell before the court-ordered recall are among the most sought-after rarities for NES collectors. The Tengen version features nearly arcade-perfect renditions of the four arcade tracks, "Loginska," "Bradinsky," "Troika," and "Kalinka."

** ''Tetris'' was going to have a UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch port. It was touted as "Coming Soon" when ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' was released but cancelled because Nintendo thought it would hurt sales of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy version. It was eventually released as part of the Mini Classics line in 1999.

* GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld: Nintendo, Sega, and Jaleco have all made ''Tetris'' games that they cannot rerelease due to violating the current guidelines on ''Tetris'' games, among other things. While games can have visual themes styled after these games, they still must use the current mandated game rules. However, Sega did manage to get a port of their 1988 arcade game released on the Genesis Mini in 2019, without having to add anything mandated by TTC (the most it adds is clockwise rotation and hard drop).

** If The Tetris Company had failed to acquire the rights to Korobeiniki, the music on the Game Boy version of Tetris would've been a slow-paced Minuet piece.

* GodDoesNotOwnThisWorld: Nintendo, Sega, and Jaleco have all made ''Tetris'' games that they cannot rerelease due to violating the current guidelines on ''Tetris'' games, among other things. While games can have visual themes styled after these games, they still must use the current mandated game rules. However, Sega did manage to get a port of their 1988 arcade game released on the Genesis Mini in 2019.

''Tetris'' was going to have a UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch port. It was touted as "Coming Soon" when ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' was released but cancelled because Nintendo thought it would hurt sales of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy version. It was eventually released as part of the Mini Classics line in 1999.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[https://www.4gamer.net/games/449/G044993/20190513034/ An interview]] with ''Tetris 99''[='=]s director, Ryuichi Nakata, reveals that ''Tetris 99'' was originally supposed to have 100 players, but they got rid of the 100th player because the last player would stick out on their own given the display.

** And the ultimate "keep circulating the tapes" example: the Mega Drive version from Sega themselves. While Atari Games had produced the North American arcade version (which also saw release in Europe), they didn't bother exporting it to Japan, instead sub-(sub-sub-)licensing the Japanese arcade rights to Sega, which released their version in 1988, just before BPS released their Famicom version. Their arcade version was a big hit, and Sega planned to release a port of it for their just-released Mega Drive, but after Nintendo locked up exclusive worldwide console rights, Sega cancelled it shortly before release. However, a small number of cartridges had already been manufactured, and perhaps a dozen of those survive, making it the world's rarest Tetris (Chinese bootleggers somehow managed to get a copy at the time, which led to the game being distributed on bootleg cartridges as well). While the Genesis Mini does have a ''Tetris'' game based on the 1988 Sega version, it's not this particular version, but rather a new port written from whole cloth by M2.

** And the ultimate "keep circulating the tapes" example: the Mega Drive version from Sega themselves. While Atari Games had produced the North American arcade version (which also saw release in Europe), they didn't bother exporting it to Japan, instead sub-(sub-sub-)licensing the Japanese arcade rights to Sega, which released their version in 1988, actually the first version of ''Tetris'' released in Japan. Their arcade version was a big hit, and Sega planned to release a port of it for their just-released Mega Drive, but after Nintendo locked up exclusive worldwide console rights, Sega cancelled it shortly before release. However, a small number of cartridges had already been manufactured, and perhaps a dozen of those survive, making it the world's rarest Tetris. While the Genesis Mini does have a ''Tetris'' game based on the 1988 Sega version, it's not this particular version, but rather a new port written from whole cloth by M2.

** Most versions based on Sega's original arcade version.

** And the ultimate "keep circulating the tapes" example: the Mega Drive version from Sega themselves. While Atari Games had produced the North American arcade version (which also saw release in Europe), they didn't bother exporting it to Japan, instead sub-(sub-sub-)licensing the Japanese arcade rights to Sega, which released their version in 1988, actually the first version of ''Tetris'' released in Japan. Their arcade version was a big hit, and Sega planned to release a port of it for their just-released Mega Drive, but after Nintendo locked up exclusive worldwide console rights, Sega cancelled it shortly before release. However, a small number of cartridges had already been manufactured, and perhaps a dozen of those survive, making it the world's rarest Tetris.

** The pieces are officially named after the English letters they most closely resemble: L, J, S, Z, I, O, and T. The S and Z blocks are often called "squigglies", the O is called "square" (because it's perfectly square and utterly unlike the perfectly round letter O), and the I is called "line piece".
** There's also "zig-zags" for S and Z, "long block" for I, and "big block" or "fat block" for O.
** ''Tetris 99'' instantly picked up the nickname ''Tetris: Battle Royale'' when it was revealed due to essentially being a battle royale-styled competitive Tetris game.

** In Japan, ''99'' has been nicknamed ''Donkatsu Tetris'', as a reference to the Japanese localization of the victory catchphrase from ''VideoGame/PlayerUnknownsBattlegrounds''.

** The pieces are officially called L, J, S, Z, I, O, and T. The S and Z blocks are often called "squigglies", the O is called "square", and the I is called "line piece".

** As the years went on that led the Tetris Company having a stronger oversight over licensed Tetris games and the consumer markets preferring digital storefronts over retail stores, it's become common to see when newer releases of Tetris games come out, older releases go out of print at retail stores and are pulled from digital storefronts. Want UsefulNotes/GameBoy ''Tetris''? It's no longer available legally outside used game sales. There are a number of mandatory rules to follow when making an official Tetris game, meaning that making a new Tetris game with the style of an old one or even a rerelease of an older game is generally not allowed, as it wouldn't fit with the new rules.
** Similarly, both Ubisoft's ''Tetris Ultimate'' and EA's mobile Tetris were pulled from online storefronts when their respective licences expired.

*** The 2019 Genesis Mini version of 1988 Sega ''Tetris'' seems to have slipped past the Guideline, being the first new ''Tetris'' release in ''13 years'' not to use the Super Rotation System or other Guideline staples.

** Beginning in [[TurnOfTheMillennium the 2000's]], the Tetris Company began enforcing guidelines on what a game carrying the ''Tetris'' name should be like, such as exact playfield dimensions, piece colors, and piece behavior, especially piece rotations. This proved to be a problem for developers like Arika that have [[VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster their own ideas]] on ''Tetris'' games.

** [[https://web.archive.org/web/20040502042412/http://www.fatbabies.com:80/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3649&amp A post in this forum thread]] describes problems caused by Henk Rogers during the development of Tetris Worlds.

*** In episode 51 of ''Mighty Little Defenders'', big colorful blocks resembling tetrominoes are sent falling on Wolffy.

* ReferencedBy: ''Series/TreehouseMasters: Out On a Limb'' had music from the game play during a scene in the episode "Mindbending Silver Maple".

* UncreditedRole: Arika, the development team for ''Tetris 99'', is not mentioned anywhere in the game's information or copyright screen. They were credited as developer in the Nintendo's game store website however. And this was eventually inverted with the 2.0.0 update, which included "Staff Credits" in the options menu.

** The fates of the Tengen version of NES ''Tetris'' and the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Genesis/Mega Drive]] port of Sega's arcade version of ''Tetris''.

*** The Genesis Mini version of 1988 Sega ''Tetris'' seems to have slipped past the Guideline, being the first new ''Tetris'' release in ''13 years'' not to use the Super Rotation System or other Guideline staples.