Customer Reviews

Nintendo Magic: Winning the Videogame Wars

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Books on the inner workings of Nintendo are few and far between. To-date, there have been two : "Game Over Press Start To Continue" by David Sheff and this. This book fills in a number of gaps left present in the "Game Over" book, most notably the underlying psychology and upbringing of former president Yamauchi, who almost never does interviews, and was largely responsible for Nintendo's success, and where Nintendo went after the N64 came out. The two books dovetail with each other so extraordinarily well, that reading one without the other will not present a complete picture of what led to Nintendo's previous and current success. This book also details the blunders along the way in off-shoot enterprises Nintendo tried to venture into to differentiate itself outside of the entertainment industry, which is also valuable information to the aspiring businessman.

Pros :
As far as this specific book is concerned, while the book is haphazard and scatterbrained in terms of what topic is brought up in what order, the actual *content* gives such tremendous insight into the philosophy that is Nintendo, that it is to any game developer or game businessman (or Nintendo fanboy) literal GOLD in book form. The strategies of Miyamoto, Yokoi, Iwata (current president), and Yamauchi (past president) are all here in transparent form. Anyone looking to capitalize on the mentalities that led to these men becoming the legends that they are will love this book. In succinct form, they, their personal philosophies, guiding principles, and lives are all mentioned and elaborated on with piercing consideration. Hows and whys of Nintendo's product releases (with main focus on Wii and DS-era) are covered in exhaustive detail. It's exceedingly rare that books like this, with this wealth of information and the joy that is Nintendo, are captured and bottled up into a nice volume like this. Get it while the getting is good.

Cons :
There are some *minor* mistakes in translation which will be obvious in their intended wording and there is at least one mistake I noticed on page 153 in a chart that reads millions of yen but should read *billions* of yen. The only negative I can really cite the book on is the cover has a weird waxy film over it that wears away as the book is handled, debatably Japanese in it's clear indication that the book has been read/devirginized. That's the best I can come up with for negatives. That's really it. Minimal in the absolute extreme.

Final analysis :
One of the best books on the business of and success in the game industry ever.

For decades, Nintendo has been synonymous with video games. Whether you're talking to a casual or die-hard gamer, grandparent or child, ask what the first thing is that comes to mind when your hear "video game", and they're likely to respond with "Nintendo" or one of its products. Now, especially, Nintendo is top of many people's minds thanks to the wild success of the Wii and DS. But it wasn't always that way, and that's what makes this book such a compelling read.

More than anything, Nintendo Magic reveals the people, philosophies, and business decisions behind the company's iconic characters and products, and even how it got into the video game business in the first place. Of course it covers the advent of the now iconic DS and Wii, but it just as importantly shows how a company that started out as a manufacturer of traditional Japanese trading cards became the king of a fledgling video game industry, only to fall from heaven at the hands of Sony, and how a shift in leadership and a re-emphasis on core principles allowed it to expand its audience to record-breaking size.

Along the way, a lot of interesting anecdotes are discussed about specific products and people that will particularly please Nintendo fans (like myself) but also give the general reader a more rounded understanding of such a mysterious company. For example, when the original DS was being developed, President Satoru Iwata demanded that it be durable enough to survive repeated falls onto concrete from up to five feet, highlighting Nintendo's obsession with durability. As explained in the book, that fixation on build quality stems from the company's core philosophy that as a toy company, a broken product is an invitation for a customer to never use it again.

As great as the book is, though, a few niggling details persist. Namely, there isn't much organization to the topics discussed, and chapters bounce around from present day to decades prior and beyond. Also, because it was originally written in Japanese, the translation results in some odd phrasing and occasionally bizarre choice of words.

Overall though, Nintendo Magic is a great book that pulls back the curtain on a company that has entertained countless children and adults alike. For nostalgia-seekers, you'll be rewarded with details you never knew about your favorite games and the people behind them. And for business readers, the author has done a thorough job of analyzing the philosophies and decisions that have brought a small company, relative to its competitors, so much success.

This was a book I bought with semi high expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. The book is extremely informative, explaining many of Nintendo's business strategies and the reasons and origins behind them, and does a good job of explaining the company's recent success and the famous figures at Nintendo. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to just about any one interested in Nintendo and how the company came to be. The only flaw I found was that the book can be a little too pro Nintendo, to the point where it makes you wonder how such a great company made such great mistakes with the Nintendo 64 and Nintendo Gamecube. But regardless, the book does an exceptional job at showing more light on the company we know so little about, and that everyone should know more of.

I recommend this book if your interested in understanding the "Nintendo Perspective". "Game Over" was a much deeper historical look at Nintendo (I recommend reading both) but due to the fact that Game Over was written in 1992 its very dated.

"Nintendo Magic" is obviously incredibly a pro Nintendo read although it there are a few chapters that really face some core issues (mainly with Japans slow adoption to change). This book definitely made me respect Iwata much more and understand the weight at which the new guard at Nintendo in many ways has made the games industry a much more profitable and better landscape.

Overall great read if you've got an airplane ride you need to fill with something.

-mtcs

Little has been published about the company Nintendo which has created an insatiable demand to learn more of the inner workings of this top Video Game Company. Osamu Inoue was allowed to write a series of articles for a Japanese magazine which detailed the history and business strategy of Nintendo giving one of the first looks into this secretive company. From its early history as a playing card manufacturer to its first foray into the Game and Watch series you can see the psyche of the company developing towards innovation and the personalities at the time. With Myiamoto taking the stage and launching Mario and Donkey Kong to the characters in the Legend of Zelda series you see a time where story and plot become prominent in addition to just graphics.
It is this idea of function over form that allows Nintendo to take a chance and scale back top line graphics in an effort to expand their market into those who don't play video games with the DS and Wi. The idea of the brain drain series, Wi fitness and Wi sports were all seen as ways to expand the target market and create new pockets of gamers that the competition of Sony and Microsoft were not going after. The sleek design of the Wi and friendliness of the Wi remote were all aimed in this effort to expand. The only complaint I have about the book is since it was a series of articles the book feels disjointed and there is some repetitiveness in the chapters that could have been avoided. Overall though it is still the first real look we have into the company and for Nintendo fans this is not one to miss.

Really informative book about the Nintendo company. I am a HUGE fan of Nintendo, from the playing card days to the Wii, and this book kept my interest all the way to the end.

This was my first purchase on amazon and i shall say i am very happy with it, this book covers the entire story of Nintendo since it's humble beginings till the success the Wii became, i really loved the 'straight to the point' style of writing since the book has a very unique pace and that make it an enjoyable reading wether you're a Nintendo fan or not. One of my favorite chapters was the one covering the story of Gunpei Yokoi wich i consider the truly videogame genius of the century, it goes since the day he was hired till he lef after the failure of the Virtual boy, nevertheless he is the creator of the Game and Watch, the Game Boy, father of the company as we know it today and Miyamoto's mentor.

The printing of the book is really neat as well, beautiful and well designed. I recommend this book to any fan of videogames.

"Nintendo Magic: winning the videogame wars" is a compilation and extension for a series of journalistic articles written by Osamu Inoue, a correspondent for the Nikkei Business Publications (Nikkei BP). Osamu conducted several interviews with past and present leading figures in Nintendo, a company that is often very considered very discrete with respect to involvement with the journalistic media.

In the different chapters Osamu leads us from the early days of Nintendo as a cards manufacturer company (more than 100 years ago). The company started growing and survived over the years due to its unique flexibility and innovative nature (similar to Apple's success in the last couple of years). The most interesting period is the 90th, as the company almost went under after two consecutive failures with the N64 and Game Cube, and manage to come back in the new millennia and take huge market share with the unique DS and Wii consoles. (DS is currently the most sold gaming device ever.)

One of the most interesting aspect for me was to encounter the unique and anti-western style of management, which can be mainly seen by Nintendo's managers ability to execute their personal vision, together with their lack of pretentiousness. The company's few managers, each ruling for a long period, had almost exclusive voice and ability to navigate the company to where they believe Nintendo should go. In the book there are examples of engineers working hard on a prototype just to see Miyamoto or Iwata throwing it away without a second though as it does not fit their vision. They were not afraid to make hard decisions, and embrace their responsibility for the company.

With respect to pretentiousness, the managers understand that a significant part of their success was,.. luck! In contrast to western style management that in times retrospectively builds a complete theory to explain their genius "business strategy", Nintendo's managers understand that luck had a large part in the success of their innovative ideas. It was extremely refreshing to see them admit in luck, which alongside their vision and innovative nature contributed to the company's success story. This also impact their business model as they keep a large amount of money aside for "dark hours" (instead of handing it over as dividends), in order to deal with future failures that will sure arrive.

The downside of the story is that the war is not over. I believe that Nintendo is currently in a crucial moment of their history, due to Apple's increasing dominance of the handheld gaming market. However, this aspect is not covered well in the book (we encounter it only in the last couple of pages of the book). It will be very interesting to follow the market in the next two years to see if Nintendo manages to reinvent itself, and see if the the newly announced "3DS" and the "Wii U" consoles are good enough answers.

Two other minor issues: first, the book is abit biased towards the company instead of taking a more critical views of some of their decisions. Secondly, there are some editorial problems with several repetitions and jumps from topic to topic. A better editorial work would have made the book more enjoyable.

Overall, pretty interesting book about a very interesting company. I recommend it to business managers as well as gamers.

Hot, insightful book that should not be missed by anyone who cares about
video games, and video game history.

Video Game History is a very important thing, and we are at the birth of it. Many books like this will be valuable in the future as
we are seeing the birth of a new generation. Much of this information will be lost unless we take care of it!

5 stars.