"GuitarFreaks" was released on February 16, 1999. It included a dozen of songs and uses the Bemani System 573 Analog hardware. "DrumMania" was released on July 10, 1999 along with "GuitarFreaks 2ndMix". These versions included 26 and 33 songs, respectively, and could be linked together to play 14 common songs. Subsequent versions used digital hardware and featured larger song lists, eventually surpassing 120 songs. The "GuitarFreaks" version number continued having an increment of one compared to the equivalent "DrumMania" version until "GuitarFreaks 11thMix" and "DrumMania 10thMix" on April 22, 2004.