The history of video games is not complete without mentioning the best-selling racing franchise of all time: Super Mario Kart.
The original game, released on the Super Nintendo (SNES), and its 14 sequels or spin-offs to date, redefined how gamers could interact with vehicles careering around pixilated tracks, trying to finish first.
Mario Kart first hit the shelves in Japan and the US in August and September, 1992 respectively.
UK players had to wait another month until October before they could get their hands on this brightly-coloured game that saw Super Mario and his cohorts packed into go-karts with 20 unique courses to tackle.
By today's slick graphic-driven standards, Mario Kart looks heavily dated.
It was built to show off Nintendo's 3D capabilities via its Mode 7 graphics card and as a two-player counter to F-Zero, the SNES's flagship, single-player racing game released in 1990.
But Mario Kart's gameplay and mechanics remain revolutionary within the racing genre.
Features such as the power slide and the use of weapons to attack fellow racers had either been done before or dappled with in games.
Mario Kart, however, was the first to make them an intrinsic - and importantly, fun - part of the experience.
Its killer move, though, was its split-screen multiplayer abilities that went beyond the tracks.
Aside from the racing, the Battle Mode allowed users to forget about crossing the finishing line first and instead zoom around arenas trying to pop each other's balloons tied to their vehicles.
This added a completely new dimension and felt like two games in one.
The zany idea of lobbing bananas and various coloured shells at opponents could only have come out of the mind that gave the world a mushroom-stomping Super Mario Bros.
Though Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, initially conceived of the racing game without its main character until around three months into its development.
He said: "At first, no racing was involved. It was just two karts moving around freely.
"Then we noticed that it looked neat if you stopped one car and looked at the other car flying by.
"We decided to see what it would look like with Mario in one of the karts, and everyone thought that looked even better."
In 2009, the Guinness World Records labelled the Mario Kart franchise as the most influential video game in history, beating the likes of the ubiquitous Tetris.
As of March this year, the games have sold a combined 166.41million copies - making it the most successful racing franchise ever.
Mario Kart 8/Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch and Wii consoles respectively, are in the top 10 best-selling video games of all time.
Every new Nintendo console since the SNES has seen a version of Mario Kart, plus even a smartphone iteration, such is the ongoing demand for it.
The games are not only confined to the small screen, either.
Super Nintendo World opened in Universal Studios in Japan last year, bringing to life the gaming company's character and worlds.
One of its biggest draws is Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge where visitors can sit inside life-size Mario karts and ride around a track with an augmented reality headset on, putting them as inside the game as possible.
For a video game that was met with some initial scepticism by fans who were suspicious that Nintendo's mascot, known for platformers, was about to don racing gear, Mario Kart has done remarkably well.
