Microsoft Solitaire celebrates 30th anniversary

[Shawn Knight]

Did you know: It may come as a surprise to some that Solitaire is still immensely popular to this very day. According to Microsoft, the Microsoft Solitaire Collection hosts over 35 million players each month across more than 200 countries in 65 different languages. Each day, more than 100 million hands are played.

Ask a group of veteran computer users about their earliest gameplay memories and you’ll likely hear fantastic tales about the first time they killed a baddie in Doom, explored the lush worlds of Myst or went hunting in The Oregon Trail.

But for many others, the first game they ever took for a spin on a PC was a much simpler affair that came bundled with Windows. I’m of course referring to Solitaire.

Also read: The Story of Solitaire, One of the World's Biggest Video Games

The version of Solitaire we all know and love debuted 30 years ago today, on May 22, 1990, as part of Windows 3.0. Not only was the game a great way to pass the time, it also helped scores of people learn how to drag and drop on-screen items using a mouse which was a rather novel tool at the time. I can only imagine how many games I played after finishing my assignments in computer class each day.

Microsoft Solitaire was even inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame by the Strong National Museum of Play in 2019.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/85344-microsoft-solitaire-celebrates-30th-anniversary.html

 

[Freddie159]

If they'd stopchanging the damn thing more people would play it, but every few months they make changes to how it works and things like automatically advancing you to the next level, that's BS!! I just want to mindlessly play the damn games without them getting harder each time I want to waste time!! I pick the easiest level and play fine for about 3 months then BAM I get auto updated to the next level with NO WAY to go back to the old level without starting all over again, that's why it's now GONE from my pc's!!!

 

[R00sT3R]

It's the only thing I play on my Samsung Tablet because gaming with a touch screen, utterly sucks for anything more complicated.

 

[Lew Zealand]

35M players? I believe it.

My mom still plays solitaire on her iPhone. You know, when it was just the iPhone, no numbers or anything else. I think she's at 40K hands with a 79% win ratio. It's almost 13 years old now and she's gonna be *pissed* when it croaks.

 

[candle_86]

Meh the fact it now has adds makes me not want to touch it

 

[pcnthuziast]

I still have the Win 7 versions of that and mahjongg on my win 10 installation.

 

[p51d007]

I used it for my parents in the XP days. It's intended purpose was to help "teach" people how to use a mouse, click, drag etc

 

[RickSteele]

Browsing around the electronics stores in the early 90s, judging system performance by how fast it would render the bouncing cards. good times!

 

[Aux101]

I'm pretty sure I remember correctly being able to finish it under a minute.
Also, was the first thing I'd do to test a new graphics card, lol.

 

[Bamda]

This is what impressed me; "Microsoft Solitaire Collection hosts over 35 million players each month across more than 200 countries in 65 different languages. Each day, more than 100 million hands are played." Wow that is a lot of old ladies gaming! LOL

 

[lazer]

As a Solitaire addict, I do not want to brag, but no one has ever beat me in this game....