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The first version of Tetris released under Henk Rogers, for PCs in Japan in 1988. Rogers discovered the game, which had been circulating in Eastern Europe, at a consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. He flew back to Japan where he was living at the time with a plan to make Tetris an international sensation.

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Tetris for the original Nintendo Game Boy; released in 1989. Rogers knew that Nintendo was planning to launch a new hand-held system in the U.S. – the Game Boy – and was looking for a game to package with it. Rogers convinced Nintendo that Tetris would have broader appeal than a game aimed primarily at boys like Super Mario World.

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Ten years later, Tetris had found its way from the Game Boy to cell phones. Japanese mobile communication giant NTT Docomo employee Yoshie Iijima displays a "Tetris" game on a protype model of Docomo's mobile phone on Sept. 21, 1999 in TokyoYoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images

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After 25 years, more than 140 million copies of Tetris have been sold worldwide and it has consistently ranked as one of the greatest video games ever produced.Mark Lennihan

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