Ms. Pac-Man is NOT the first playable female video game character.
Chun-li is. She is feminine, sexy, and has personality.
Ms. Pac-Man is just a yellow ball. It is clearly genderless. You could never play as her in the game while daydreaming about how you want to marry her and have her kiss you or strangle you with her strong legs like Chun-li.
I know they tried to portray Ms. Pac-Man as female by illustrating it with bare feminine legs, but that doesn’t really cut it, does it? You can’t just add feminine legs onto a genderless object and call it female. That’s really lazy IMO.