In 1990 Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.
The battle was vicious, relentless and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.
Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It's the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.
Top comments
mrew42
31 May 1625#14
Of course it was. Oh wait is that 1992 the year you were born?
That'll be history for you then :smiley:
Graham1979
31 May 1614#22
Meh all the poor kids had console the greatest kids had an Amiga with 16.8 million colours, upgradeable RAM, a mouse for more accurate control and a cool floppy diskette drive. Games weren't 50 quid each.
haritori
1 Jun 1614#56
This thread is full of gaming babies, who cant remember a time before the internet or at least browsing on a 28k connections and the web consisted of a few pages of text with links to links, have no idea what a newsgroup is or an imageboard. porn would consist of a 10 minute download of badly handheld scanner image from escort magazine all stretched with conspicuous marks, it would be quicker to imagine..
It would do you good to read about a time before watching Pewdiepie or Nerd3 play games for you, and when the yearly console release schedule consisted of about 12 games, and if you were lucky enough to get a hold of one, you would play it until your fingers bled, you learned the level back to front and there was no such thing as throwing it on the pile, no one could afford a pile! well that was unless you had a Spectrum or C64, you go go to your local market (google it) and find the guy who sold Vinyl LP's (Google it) and he woudl prob have a collection of manic miners and horace goes skiing or dizzy for about £2.50-£3.50 each, of course you would have to wait 10 minutes while the game loaded from a cassette tape (google it) only for it to fail and then have to start again..
if you had even less money you could buy a magazine from the cornershop with a tape full of rubbish indie games and maybe one gem, or even better code your own game in the back pages, woudl take you about 3 hours to do it, and then another hour to realise where you went wrong.. but the joy of coding your own pong
nah if your under 30 you dont know you have been born with todays gaming.
ST3123
31 May 168#1
Heated, absolutely superb book, a gripping read from start to finish for anyone with a interest in gaming. Great to see a videogames related book discounted on Kindle too, as it's a rare occurrence.
All comments (103)
ST3123
31 May 168#1
Heated, absolutely superb book, a gripping read from start to finish for anyone with a interest in gaming. Great to see a videogames related book discounted on Kindle too, as it's a rare occurrence.
Horzey
31 May 164#2
Really good read. Gives you a great insight into the best games console battle ever!!!
bigbak
31 May 16#3
Sega Dreamcast?
greysquaill
31 May 161#4
Hey what the heck. Bought.
Since I got the £39 Kindle Paperwhite recently, might as well pick up some cheap summer reading material :stuck_out_tongue:
gaelforce
31 May 16#5
Cheers for this, OP!
RidleyDeckard
31 May 16#6
Cheers for this, I had a £1 credit at Amazon, this will do nicely.
sneakyduck
31 May 164#7
> IMPLYING THE CONSOLE WARS EVER ENDED
ReviewChimp
31 May 16#8
Thanks OP, I too had a £1 credit thingy kicking around so cost me nowt. :smile:
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Opening post
The battle was vicious, relentless and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.
Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It's the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.
Top comments
That'll be history for you then :smiley:
It would do you good to read about a time before watching Pewdiepie or Nerd3 play games for you, and when the yearly console release schedule consisted of about 12 games, and if you were lucky enough to get a hold of one, you would play it until your fingers bled, you learned the level back to front and there was no such thing as throwing it on the pile, no one could afford a pile! well that was unless you had a Spectrum or C64, you go go to your local market (google it) and find the guy who sold Vinyl LP's (Google it) and he woudl prob have a collection of manic miners and horace goes skiing or dizzy for about £2.50-£3.50 each, of course you would have to wait 10 minutes while the game loaded from a cassette tape (google it) only for it to fail and then have to start again..
if you had even less money you could buy a magazine from the cornershop with a tape full of rubbish indie games and maybe one gem, or even better code your own game in the back pages, woudl take you about 3 hours to do it, and then another hour to realise where you went wrong.. but the joy of coding your own pong
nah if your under 30 you dont know you have been born with todays gaming.
All comments (103)
Since I got the £39 Kindle Paperwhite recently, might as well pick up some cheap summer reading material :stuck_out_tongue: