Dance Dance Revolution, a.k.a. DDR and Dancing Stage in Europe, is a music video game series produced by Konami. It was first introduced to Japanese video arcades in 1998, after being shown at the Tokyo Game Show earlier that year. Since then, the game has gained significant popularity elsewhere in the world, including large portions of North America, Europe and Australia. As of 2005, over 90 official versions have been produced, including those for home video game consoles. The Dance Dance Revolution series is a subset of the larger Bemani series of music video games. As of 2007, there are over 1,000 songs featured in all versions of DDR worldwide. The game is played on a dance pad with four arrow panels in a cross barby formation: left, right, up, and down, eight arrows (two 4-arrow pads), or six arrows (the 4 main directions plus up-left and up-right diagonal panels, known as solo mode). These panels are pressed using the player's feet, in response to arrows that appear on the screen in front of the player. The arrows are synchronized to the general rhythm or beat of a chosen song, and success is dependent on the player's ability to time and position his or her steps accordingly.
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