Console Wars

Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

Hardcover

Published Nov. 10, 2014 by HarperCollins.

ISBN:
978-0-06-227669-8
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4 stars (5 reviews)

From the Forward...

Nintendo was king of home videogame entertainment systems, then Sega came in and was a contender for the crown. Sega almost toppled Nintendo with their subversive and more adult-oriented games, and these games have led us to a world where GTA and Call of Duty are the top games, and the next step is to have the games incorporate stuff about us and our personal lives, and then sentient technology will inevitably disassociate from mankind and some robot like Skynet will rise up and destroy us all. Hence: the “Console Wars” between Nintendo and Sega is what began a series of events that will lead to the end of humanity as we know it.

5 editions

The story continues...

4 stars

The most entertaining part of Blake J. Harris’s Console Wars is the forward by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. That isn’t a knock on the book — the forward is just really entertaining banter. The rest of the book is entertaining, too, and it should be, considering the subject matter: the video game industry, in particular the head-to-head battle between Nintendo and Sega during the SNES and Genesis years.

However, the story feels incomplete, as it ends with Tom Kalinske’s departure as the head of Sega of America (and it begins with his hiring there, so the book could have been more boringly but precisely titled Tom Kalinske’s Time at Sega), so it doesn’t cover anything after the Sega Genesis, including their last console hurrah the Dreamcast (the one Sega machine I owned), or what they’re doing now (I have some curiosity on the subject as I worked for a …

Review of 'Console Wars' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This was a fascinating time in history, and the book starts out with some great anecdotes, but the writing is terrible. I understand that history authors need to manufacture dialogue, but what he comes up with is chock-full of unbelievable cliches. And the entire 'war' is described only through the eyes of marketers, with everything else - the technological development, financial situation, view from the perspective of kids - elided.

Overall, not recommended. I hope someone writes a book about the same topic but spares us the dialogue.

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