In the N64 version of Tony Hawk's Pro skater the game has removed blood and censored some gaps, also due to the small memory space of the cartridges there are no videos and the music is either looped or removed.

The game initially started life as a racing game inspired by the arcade game Top Skater.

In Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, the game was released as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding, as the word skater implies ice skating in those countries.