Star honours for video game icons

Mario is the world's most famous electronic plumber

Pong creator Nolan Bushnell and Donkey Kong maker Shigeru Miyamoto have received the first-ever 'Walk of Game' stars for video games in San Francisco.

The two men were honoured at a ceremony on Tuesday for their services to the video game industry.

Pong was one of the first video games and was made by Bushnell while at Atari. Miyamoto's Donkey Kong helped usher in a golden age of gaming.

Video game characters Link, Mario and Sonic were also inducted.

Bungie's masterpiece Halo became the first video game to have its own star on the Walk of Game - a riff on the Walk of Fame stars in Hollywood.

"Thank you very much for this honour. It's always fun to be walked on wherever you can be," said Bushnell.

The Atari legend also said he had not lost his love of video gaming - confessing to a 16-player session of Halo at home with his children and their friends.

"What I leave behind in reaction time I make up for in stealth and guile," he said.

Nolan Bushnell founded Atari

Pong was created in 1972 but it was not until 1981 and the arrival of Donkey Kong in arcades that video gaming began to enter the mainstream.

A variant of tennis - Pong was played with two "paddles" controlling on-screen bats to serve an electronic ball to your opponent.

Video games are now a $20 billion-a-year business and remain the fastest growing sector of the entertainment industry.

The two men had metal stars embedded into the floor of the Metreon Center, a Sony-branded shopping mall.