It was conceptualized by restaurant owner Stewart Jones, who sold the concept to Sony.
: The BIG Quiz, won the BAFTA award for Best Casual and Social game.
The show uses a multi-round format with most games in the series featuring eight individual rounds.
Each game is hosted by the titular Buzz (voiced by Jason Donovan in the English versions).
In January 2008 California-based Buzztime Entertainment filed a legal suit, in the Southern District of California, against Sony Computer Entertainment Europe alleging that Sony had violated several of its trademarks.
The suit accused Sony of a "malicious, fraudulent, knowing, wilful, and deliberate" violation of its trademarks.
In the suit Buzztime is seeking the recall and destruction of all infringing products and is asking the court for actual damages, punitive damages, legal fees and an order to the US Patent and Trademark Office not to register Sony's pending Buzz trademarks.
The alternation between specialist subject and general knowledge continued for the next three games in the series; the sports based Buzz!
: The Mega Quiz, and then another single subject edition based around films, Buzz!
: Quiz World, expanded on Quiz TV by adding profiles to remember player's character & buzzer sounds, if players won or lost the previous game and call them by name.
In October 2006 a spin-off series of games designed for children started with the release of Buzz!
Junior: Jungle Party with 40 mini games (but 25 in The United States version).
Junior: Dino Den, is based around dinosaurs and was the second Buzz game to be developed by Cohort Studios and released in February 2008.
Junior: Ace Racers, again developed by Cohort Studios, was released in October 2008.
Junior series have been developed by Magenta Software, FreeStyleGames, and Cohort Studios.
The game features a single player game closely modelled on the original UK version of the TV show and a multi-player version with various modes like Multi-Millionaire where players take it in turns to answer questions with elimination the penalty for a wrong answer the winner being the last player left standing.
: Studio are quizzes made by PlayStation Network users who have submitted their quiz via the MyBuzz!
World Championships grand final at La Tomatina festival in Spain was shown during the event.
Users were able to take part in a virtual version of the real world event via the Buzz!
Users threw tomatoes at the enormous Buzz by answering quiz questions correctly.
[14] Pain – Buzz is a downloadable add-on characters for the game, and he has 2 different costumes to wear.
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale – Buzz is featured in the PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale level, Dreamscape, based on LittleBigPlanet which eventually gets invaded by Buzz!.
Buzz occasionally asks questions about PlayStation Trivia with the four answers being split up and attached onto four platforms on the level on which players must stand to indicate their choice, an incorrect answer results in a punishment such as a Cream-pie being thrown at the incorrect players.
Astro's Playroom – The Buzz peripheral is featured as an unlockable item for the 'Labo' room, an area used to display digital collectables from Playstation's history.
The Buzz collectible is unlocked by finding it hidden within the SSD Speedway level.