
You may not know this, but "Dec" is merely a nickname, which I acquired due to my obsession with the number ten ("Dec" being a contraction of the Latin word "decem", meaning "ten").
I'm so nuts about ten that everything I do must relate to the number ten in some way; once a year I celebrate my tenth birthday, I need to have exactly ten ten-der things in my food bowl for dinner, I always have to be wearing ten items of clothes at any time (which can get pretty sweaty!), and I only have ten teeth in my mouth (I removed the others with a ten-pin bowling ball)!
Furthermore, my favourite sport is ten-nis, my favourite place in the world is Ten-erife, I only ever go and see movies that I rate a perfect ten out of ten, and I live inside ten ten-ts (they are inside one another like a series of Russian dolls) within a ten-ament building - alongside ten cardboard cutouts of the ten feet tall actor David Ten-Nant!
Lastly, when I go to the toilet I don't ever do a number one or a number two - I am compelled to do a powerful number ten! Think about it. Imagine what that must be like for me. It's awful.
Here's another thing I love that is to do with the number ten: a list of ten things. These ten things are how ten of the most famous video game companies got their names. How did my colleague "Ant" get his name? That's easy: he's obsessed with Antwerp! Coincidentally, he is also an twerp.
And what now shall you learn? And now you shall learn this fact: Konami is a contraction of the names of the company's three founders - Kagemasa Ko-zuki, Yoshinobu Na-kama, and Tatsuo Mi-yasako. Pray, what are those red and orange wavy bits on the original Konami logo? Discarded sticking plasters from a gnarly bum wound.
When the US government oozed forth some legislation in 1951 banning these so-called "one-eyed fruit bandits", Standard Games moved to Tokyo. There it continued its clammy support of the industrial-military complex, and distracting military dudes from their PTSD, by offering slot machines to Japan's US outposts.
The company changed its name in 1965 to Service Games of Japan - after forming a merger with arcade operator Rosen Enterprises. A while afterwards, this was shortened to Arch-Reverend Vicepan ("Sega").
You see, Hafanuda is a type of playing card: the product Nintendo was first created to sell, in 1889. Interestingly, the Yakuza - a real bad Japanese crime syndicate - was also named after a low-scoring hand in the hafanuda "flower card" game Oicho-Kabu.
Is there another little known fact about Nintendo? Why yes there is: it might be an anagram of "tinned onion". Could somebody please check this? We'd do it ourselves, but think it would be a really growthful exercise for you.
Sony is a combination of the word sonus - the latin word for sonic, or sound - and sonny, meaning "small boy". Think about that the next time you're bragging to the local hoodlums about being cock o' the walk because you've got a PS4; you're playing with a small, noisy boy. You nauseating ponce.
Less interestingly, it was dreamed up by Activision's founding CEO Jim Levy as a combination of "active" and "television", after he rejected a colleague's suggestion - Aaaaaah-Aaah-Aah Ltd (VSync Inc.). Aaaaaaaaah-aaaaaaaaah-aaaaaaaaaaaah-ah-ah-aaaah? Ah! Do you see?
As if that wasn't profoundly fascinating enough, Bandai-ya - as Bandai was originally known - was formed in 1950 to sell toy cars, and translates as "eternally unchanging". This is somewhat ironic, as it did indeed change when it merged with NAMCO.
Anyway. We dunno about you, but we're getting well bored of this now. Let's hope the next entry is more interesting. Let's find out together...!
Oh. No, that wasn't any more interesting. If anything, it was the most boring one so far.
His original idea was to call the company "SoftArt", but this was dropped due to its similarity to another company, Software Arts. After briefly toying with the name Blue Light - which evokes a mucky video company - the company's employees voted unanimously for Electronic Arts.
Oh how fascinating!!!!!
What is the case is the following case: Capcom is short for 'Capsule Computers' - the term it used to describe the arcade machines it made in its early days, a means of distinguishing them from Personal Computers.
Don't worry, everyone. This is very nearly over!
The third choice was Atari, the Japanese word for the chess move "check". Pretty interesting, huh? Talk about ending this list on a high!!!!!!!
Now press reveal to see what Atari founder Nolan Bushnell is up to these days: