1992 in video gaming

Events

Mortal Kombat featured digitized character sprites rather than typical hand-drawn ones.

• Street Fighter II wins Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards.
• Street Fighter II wins Game of the Year at the last Electronic Gaming Awards.

Notable releases

• January 1 – Dune II was released by Westwood Studios, creating the template for the modern real-time strategy genre.
• January 15 - Mega_Man_4 was release in the US.
• March – Blue Sky Productions releases Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, the first ever first-person 3D role-playing video game.
• Broderbund Releases Living Books with Just Grandma and Me
• April 16 – Origin Systems releases Ultima VII: The Black Gate for the PC.
• April 27 – Nintendo releases Kirby's Dream Land for the Game Boy, the first game in the series and the first appearance of the character Kirby.
• May 5 – id Software releases Wolfenstein 3D, which popularized the first-person shooter genre for the PC.
• June – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was released by LucasArts. It was considered one of the most advanced adventure games of the time and was a breakthrough for LucasArts' SCUMM games
• June 9 – Guardians of the 'Hood arcade game is released. It is one of the few beat 'em ups to feature pre-rendered sprites and a maximum of 3 simultaneous players. There were many fighters with this art style though.
• July 29 – Ecco the Dolphin is released, the first in the series.
• August 27 – Super Mario Kart (Nintendo, Super Famicom/SNES), the first in the Mario Kart series, spawned the mascot/go-kart subgenre of racing games
• September 1 – Domark releases Championship Manager for the Amiga and Atari ST.
• September 24 – SNK releases Art of Fighting for the arcades.
• October – Sega releases Virtua Racing by Yu Suzuki and AM2 in the arcades, laying the foundations for subsequent 3D racing games and popularizing 3D polygon graphics among a wider audience.
• October – Gremlin Graphics releases Zool, Amiga's answer to Mario and Sonic. It goes on to become the best selling Commodore Amiga game, boosting the already popular computer to be the leading gaming machine in Europe.
• October 8 – Midway Games releases the Mortal Kombat arcade game in North America, which features bloody "fatalities", digitized characters, and started a franchise of games and movies.
• October 15 – Sega releases the controversial Night Trap video game for the Mega-CD console.
• October 21 – Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is released for the Game Boy. The final boss Wario would later go on to star in his own games and start a new series separate from Mario.
• November – Accolade releases Star Control II, widely viewed today as one of the greatest games ever made.
• November 21 – Sega publishes Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, Game Gear). Major innovations include the Spin Dash which lets Sonic launch himself at full speed even after coming to a stop, and Super Sonic a stronger form Sonic can take once he has collected the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Sonic's sidekick Miles "Tails" Prower is introduced allowing for multiplayer co-op and versus modes.
• Interplay publishes Alone in the Dark, widely considered the first survival horror and one of the first 3D polygon games, I, Robot and Hard Drivin' being notable exceptions.
• Flashback/Flashback: The Quest For Identity was released by Delphine Software International on the Amiga, later released on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Super Nintendo in 1993. The game was praised for its rotoscoped animation, giving movements fluidity unusual for the time. It is listed in the Guinness World Records as the best-selling French game of all time.
• December 4 - Mega_Man_5 was released in Japan. On December 31 Mega_Man_5 was released in the US.

Hardware

• January 1 – Atari Corporation drops support for the Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit family, Atari 7800, and software for those systems.
• October – Sega releases the Model 1, an arcade system board that popularizes 3D polygon graphics.
• December – the Apple IIgs is discontinued, ending the Apple II line.
• Namco releases the System 22, an arcade system board that introduces 3D texture mapping and Gouraud shading.
• JVC releases the Wondermega console in Japan, a Sega Mega Drive and Sega Mega-CD put into one console (later released as the X'eye in North America)
• Philips releases the CD-i multimedia home console
• Super Nintendo Entertainment System released in Europe and Australasia
• Sega releases the Mega-CD as Sega CD (an add-on for the Sega Genesis) in North America, almost a year after the equivalent Japanese launch
• Taito Corporation creates the Wowow home console (unreleased)
• TTI (Turbo Technologies Inc.) releases the TurboDuo home console
• Commodore releases the Amiga 1200 home computer
• Nintendo Super Scope is released for the SNES.

Business

• Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc.
• Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.
• Activision (as Mediagenic) files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection
• New companies: Wow Entertainment Inc. (Sega AM1) Humongous Entertainment