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Analogously to What card or board game was first played in space? I'd like to ask what electronic game was first to be played in space.

It could be a handheld dedicated game or something running on a computer that was there for another reason, as long as it was played on electronics which operated in space.

So for example using a chessboard and a radio link to Earth would not count.

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    $\begingroup$ Please tell me it was Asteroids or Space Invaders! $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 10:11
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    $\begingroup$ I was sure astronauts on the STS missions might have been able to take some up over the years... oh well.. $\endgroup$
    – blobbymcblobby
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 12:21
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    $\begingroup$ I think we need a separate trivia stack for stuff like this. I mean, it's incidentally about space, but it's really just an obscure trivia question. The top answer even quotes from Guinness, which is not at all about space and is entirely about obscure and largely unrelated superlatives of human endeavour. Who brought the first golf club into space? What material were the first socks in space made of? Who used the toothbrush with the most bristles in space? I mean... does this really serve the point of this stack? $\endgroup$
    – J...
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 19:37
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    $\begingroup$ A minor quibble, but the title should really be "What electronic game was first to be played in space" or similar – otherwise answers are restricted to games which were never played on Earth before being played in space. $\endgroup$
    – dbmag9
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 21:45
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    $\begingroup$ To those voting to close this question, how does this question contravene site guidelines? If it is not against site guidelines to ask when & what an astro/cosmo/taiko -naut ate something during a mission, as asked by the question At what moment during his flight did Yuri Gagarin eat?, then why is it against guidelines to ask what such an individual did for entertainment or during downtime during a mission? $\endgroup$
    – Fred
    Commented Jun 24, 2021 at 10:34

1 Answer 1

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I thought it might have been earlier, you know, like Donkey Kong, but its the first that has a Guiness World Record.

guinnessworldrecords

Who ALEKSANDR SEREBROV

Where RUSSIAN FEDERATION

When 01 JULY 1993

Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov (b. 15 February 1944) became the first person to play a videogame in space when he packed a Game Boy and his personal copy of Tetris (Nintendo, 1989) for his trip to the MIR Space Station in 1993.

The game left Earth on 1 July 1993 aboard the Soyuz TM-17 rocket and was played during Serebrov's off-time while orbiting the planet.

"Like all cosmonauts, I love sport. My particular favorites are football and swimming. During flight, in rare minutes of leisure, I enjoyed playing Game Boy," wrote Serebrov in an autographed note that accompanied the game, and the Game Boy, in a 2011 auction.

Nintendo of America Senior Vice President, Howard Lincoln, met Alexey Pazhitnov, who created the game in 1985 on the Soviet Electronics-60 computer, in Moscow while securing the Tetris rights for home video game systems.

Lincoln also presented a Game Boy system with Tetris to Mr. A. A. Serebrov, a Cosmonaut and a big celebrity in the Soviet Union.

To demonstrate that Game Boy is the ultimate in portable video game systems, Serebrov will take it into orbit, and we believe that even in the absence of gravity, the Tetris block patterns will still fall into place.

sovietmag

serebrov

quiz

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    $\begingroup$ "we believe that even in the absence of gravity, the Tetris block patterns will still fall into place." - Now I'm imagining a modification to the GameBoy to somehow detect when Tetris is being played in Zero-G and so the bricks don't fall the way they're supposed to... $\endgroup$
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 21:01
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    $\begingroup$ @DarrelHoffman A modern smartphone could presumably do it with its accelerometer. $\endgroup$
    – Barmar
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 21:17
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    $\begingroup$ @Barmar indeed! How do iPads on the ISS know which way is “up” for their users? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jun 23, 2021 at 22:49
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    $\begingroup$ Sadly he forgot his headphones and became the first person to be ejected from an airlock after subjecting his crewmates to 4 hours of listening to that music on loop $\endgroup$
    – Machavity
    Commented Jun 24, 2021 at 19:16

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