- Google announced its new game-streaming platform, Stadia, along with a compatible controller on Tuesday at the 2019 Game Developers Conference.
- During the presentation, we noticed a popular gaming reference located on the back of Google's Stadia controller: The Konami Code.
- The cheat code (↑,↑,↓,↓,←,→,←,→,B,A) has been referenced in video games and pop culture for decades.
Keen-eyed gamers who watched Google's announcement of its new Stadia game streaming service on Tuesday will surely have noticed a tribute to historic video game lore.
The "Konami Code" is hidden in plain sight on the back of Google's new Stadia controller. It's a series of button presses that activates a cheat in certain games. That code is "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A."
The (upside down) view of the Konami Code located on the back of Google's Stadia controller.
It's most directly associated with the game "Contra" developed and published by Konami in 1987 on video arcade machines. The game was released on the Nintendo Entertainment System a year later in 1988.
It's a little piece of gaming culture that's pretty well known within the gaming community, but the sort of thing that could go easily unnoticed by anyone who's never played a video game before.
You can learn more about the history of the Konami Code in the video below, courtesy of the Gaming Historian YouTube channel.
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