Dance Dance Revolution (ダンスダンスレボリューション, Dansu Dansu Reboryūshon) (DDR), is a music video game, developed by Konami, released in arcades on September 26, 1998 in Japan. Dance Dance Revolution is a unique game involving dance and rhythm that defined the genre. It involves timing and balance by having players use their feet instead of their hands like typical video games. In March 1999, the game was released for North American arcades, and for European arcades under the name Dancing Stage. Players and game critics were caught off-guard by the game's addictive qualities winning the new franchise many merits to its design.
On Saturday, April 10, 1999, Dance Dance Revolution was released for the Japanese PlayStation, adding new music and gameplay elements. A console release was not made for any other region until 2001. Despite the popularity of DDR, the series remained relatively unknown outside Japan and few additional arcade releases of DDR were made elsewhere until the multi-regional release of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova in 2006.