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Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation Paperback – Illustrated, June 2, 2015

by Blake J. Harris (Author)

3,758 ratings

Goodreads Choice Award nominee

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Now a documentary on CBS All Access.

Following the success of The Accidental Billionaires and Moneyball comes Console Wars—a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video game industry.

In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just 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 videogames 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.

Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, 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.

A best book of the year: NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Goodreads

Editorial Reviews

Review

A riveting story full of colorful characters… a fascinating, illuminating history… an essential read. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A highly entertaining behind-the-scenes thriller. — Kirkus Reviews

It’s far and away one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. — Forbes

Like the pixels that together create a larger picture, Harris presents the various elements of the business in vivid color...remarkably detailed and fast paced. — Booklist

Fast, fluid, and startingly accessible. — Entertainment Weekly

A fast-paced page-turner...it’s exciting to finally get a no-holds-barred account of a history that has largely been kept secret from the public eye. — Wired

A must-read. Period. — IGN

From the Back Cover

Named a "Best Book of the Year" by NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, and Goodreads

It was a once-in-a-lifetime battle that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the United States against Japan. . . .

In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the videogame industry. Sega was a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of former Mattel executive Tom Kalinske. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat, and bold ideas of his renegade employees, completely transformed Sega and led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with Nintendo. But Sega's success would create many new enemies and make Nintendo stronger than ever.

Blake J. Harris brings into focus the warriors, the strategies, and the battles and explores how they transformed popular culture forever. Ultimately, Console Wars is 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, give birth to a sixty-billion-dollar industry.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dey Street Books; Illustrated edition (June 2, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0062276700
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062276704
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.34 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.6 x 5.9 x 9.1 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #115,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15 in Entertainment Industry
- #38 in History of Engineering & Technology
- #131 in Company Business Profiles (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3,758 ratings

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Blake J. Harris

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Blake J. Harris is the two-time bestselling author of Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that Defined a Generation (2014) and The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook and the Revolution that Swept Virtual Reality(2019). His first book, Console Wars, is currently being adapted for television by Legendary Entertainment, and producers Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg and Scott Rudin; in addition to serving as an executive producer on the adaptation, Harris also co-directed the CONSOLE WARS documentary (2020).

Harris has written pieces for Fast Company, ESPN, /Film, Complex and a variety of other publications.

He is currently working on his third book right now: a biography about the great Larry David.

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Customers find this book an engaging and fast-paced read that provides a fascinating look at video game history, particularly the console wars era. Moreover, the writing style receives mixed reactions - while some find it superbly written, others note the dialogue feels far-fetched. Additionally, the book offers extensive background information and goes into more detail than other works on the subject. However, the narrative quality receives criticism, with customers describing it as an exciting story that feels incredibly boring.

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Readability History Insight Look Pacing Enjoyment Writing style Narrative quality

317 customers mention "Readability"304 positive13 negative

Customers find the book engaging and well worth their time, with a compelling narrative that makes it a must-read for video game enthusiasts. One customer notes that the story moves along at a lively pace.

"...book covers a massive amount of content in a very easy-going, novel-narrative style...." Read more

"...be interested in any fiction of his, but this particular subject matter is rich enough that my issue with his authorial indulgences is just a quibble..." Read more

"...A must read for any console gamers like myself that feverishly read Nintendo Power and Electronic Gaming Monthly cover-to-cover back in the late 80..." Read more

"...The book was entertaining, and I couldn't put it down. So in the end, I guess that's all Harris wanted...." Read more

100 customers mention "History"87 positive13 negative

Customers praise this book as a great piece of video game history, providing an excellent recount of the console wars era, with one customer noting how it marries nostalgia with business insights.

"...The book covers a massive amount of content in a very easy-going, novel-narrative style...." Read more

"A great account of the Nintendo/Sega wars of the early nineties...." Read more

"...Regardless of being a gamer fan or not, it stands as a great reflection of the 90s and how companies were figuring out advertisement agendas and..." Read more

"...Anyway, a fantastic book that will stir up your greatest childhood memories and pull back the curtain on the Wizards of these great lands in Oz." Read more

98 customers mention "Insight"86 positive12 negative

Customers appreciate the book's insights, finding it informative without being boring and providing a deeper analysis than other books in the genre.

"...This is a detailed and far-reaching look at how video games went from a failed toy in the 70's to dominant media in 2000, and how influential just..." Read more

"...That said, the information and voluminous research this book does contain is incredibly valuable, and makes for a truly rewarding read...." Read more

"...Some of the themes of the book are still very relevant and visible today, like the cultural gulf between Japan and the US...." Read more

"...It goes to great lengths humanizing the team at Sega of America, providing background and personal developments like marriages and the birth of..." Read more

33 customers mention "Look"28 positive5 negative

Customers appreciate the book's behind-the-scenes look at the console wars, describing it as a fascinating and colorful journey.

"...This is a detailed and far-reaching look at how video games went from a failed toy in the 70's to dominant media in 2000, and how influential just..." Read more

"...When the book arrived I noticed the great printing job, nicely designed dust jacket and the soft touch coating that gave the cover that nice, “suedey..." Read more

"This book provides a very detailed background of the Sega/Nintendo console wars of the late '80s and early '90s...." Read more

"...that the only redeeming quality this book has to offer is the behind the scenes look of how this industry operated back then...." Read more

29 customers mention "Pacing"21 positive8 negative

Customers appreciate the book's pacing, describing it as lively and fast, with one customer noting that 600 pages went quickly.

"...This gave Sheff's book a journalistic crackle, keeping the pace moving, the flow of information constant, and the level of authorial distance..." Read more

"...While the first two thirds are well paced and fascinating, the last third is by far the weakest feeling drown out by its constant use of full length..." Read more

"...with tons of flashbacks which feel like double flashbacks, jumping around time, segwaying into personal scenes, focusing on scenes unrelated to the..." Read more

"...The industry seemed simple and fast paced. Smaller and easier to make games for and this is told subtly through the book...." Read more

27 customers mention "Enjoyment"27 positive0 negative

Customers find the book extremely enjoyable and engaging.

"...this book does contain is incredibly valuable, and makes for a truly rewarding read...." Read more

"I'm torn here. I liked the book and it was entertaining like a movie. But the truth is still out there...." Read more

"...The introduction by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg was witty and enjoyable. And the book itself started off promising...." Read more

"Wow! I really enjoyed reading this book!..." Read more

129 customers mention "Writing style"81 positive48 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style of the book, with some finding it superbly written and drawing them in, while others point out issues with poorly written sentences and dialogue that feels far-fetched.

"...The book is written like historical novel from a specific persons perspective and not in a traditional non-fiction third person...." Read more

"...This book is told in a VERY similar format and I happen to LOVE it!..." Read more

"...The fictionalized dialog can get a little awkward at times, but it doesn't detract from the whole...." Read more

"...Excellent writing! I wish there was also books about Sega and Nintendo of Japan" Read more

35 customers mention "Narrative quality"0 positive35 negative

Customers find the narrative quality of the book disappointing, describing it as an exciting story that is incredibly boring and heavy on story content.

"...jumping around time, segwaying into personal scenes, focusing on scenes unrelated to the theme, and shifting POVs without revealing who is the focus..." Read more

"...I think, aside from the meandering sense of storytelling and the fact that the book just abruptly ends and doesn't have anywhere near a satisfying..." Read more

"...you just have to weed through a lot of nonsense, goofy dialogue, extraneous scenes and poor structure to get to it." Read more

"...However, this story is so poorly told, attempting to be a long-form screenplay rather than a quality telling of the history of Sega and their fight..." Read more

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Detroiter
Missing history of an entire industry
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2015
Verified Purchase

Loved it. Absolutely loved it. But then again, I was a diehard Sega kid growing up.

If you didn't play video games in the 90s this might not have much for you. But, if you did, this is the story of how all that business came together.

The book covers a massive amount of content in a very easy-going, novel-narrative style. It covers Nintendo's entrance into the long-dead video game market, then Sega's weak early attempts to compete, and then chronicles the entire business of video games developing into the modern era. The scandals that took them to senate hearings- and the ratings system that they had to create- are huge parts of the story.

Sega is the main character of the book- or rather, Sega of America President Tom Kalinske, who is given the difficult job in the first chapter and leaves it in the last. Kalinske was clearly the biggest influence on the research, because it's primarily from his point of view.

Nintendo isn't a villain, mind you- plenty of the story is dedicated to the massive work they put into creating an industry that had ceased to exist after the Atari crash. Their on/off relationship with Sony and the creation of the Playstation also play a large role.

In the end the villain is Sega of Japan, who seem to grow more and more resentful of Sega of America's eclipsing success while they struggled at home. The book paints a picture of a jealous, even bigoted Sega of Japan that undermines SOA at every step. How much is hard truth and how much is Kalinske's own memoirs of it is impossible to say.

Even with a grain of salt for that it's a fantastic read. The stretch of time from 1985 to 1995 was chaos for video games, and this book takes that history and spins it, Mad Men or Moneyball-style, as the trials and tribulations of a small group of marketing and designing underdogs. In the course of the story Sega goes from a struggling upstart with 5% control of the games market to a powerhouse with 55%... only to lose it all just as quickly. If you ever wondered why Sega went from being on top of it all to last place, the answers are here.

The fictionalized dialog can get a little awkward at times, but it doesn't detract from the whole. This is a detailed and far-reaching look at how video games went from a failed toy in the 70's to dominant media in 2000, and how influential just a handful of people were to it.

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Yagi
Fascinating information and absolutely worth reading; however, the authorial presence is far too strong
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2014
Verified Purchase
Console Wars largely chronicles the period between 1989 and 1995, when Sega battled Nintendo for dominance in the home console market, ending as Sony displaces Sega in the 32-bit era as Nintendo's main competitor. In a sense, it does serve as a sort of sequel to David Sheff's gold-standard account in "Game Over" of the rise of Nintendo in the 80's, which left off at the point where Sega's Genesis had just started to get a serious foothold in the market. However, the styles in which the two authors approach their subjects are very different, and it's interesting to compare them.
Sheff's Game Over contained very little conversational dialogue. He wrote his book like a reporter: documenting scenes and incidents by describing the people and particulars involved, the content of what they said, and the effect of their interactions. His book was full of individual quotes, but the large majority of them were presented matter-of-factly as accounts made by the subject either directly to the author in interview, or to another source of record which Sheff was citing. In-scene "dialogue" was used sparingly, and mostly limited to short lines that reflected exactly what was known by the subject or other observers to have been said, or something very close to it. This gave Sheff's book a journalistic crackle, keeping the pace moving, the flow of information constant, and the level of authorial distance removed enough that the reader always maintained a panoramic view of the bigger picture, and didn't get bogged down in superfluous, artificial detail.

In contrast, Harris's book is written like a screenplay, with full "scenes" that progress via elaborate, lengthy dialogues between "characters", while novel-esque, detailed stage directions record their precise movements and interior thoughts, all of which can only have been manufactured by the author (as he himself loosely admits in his author's note) based on the factual framework of an interaction that did occur. Where Game Over was a documentary, this book is much more a historical re-enactment. It's obvious that Harris already had a film in mind when he was writing, and the cinematically styled sharp, pithy dialogue (or at least, attempts at such), and conversational set-ups and payoffs were designed to translate easily to the eventual film. This may make the book more engaging than Sheff's reserved style for some, but I found it distracting and a little gratuitous. Irrelevant detail often gets in the way of what's interesting and entertaining about the information.

That said, the information and voluminous research this book does contain is incredibly valuable, and makes for a truly rewarding read. The saga of the Sega and Nintendo battle in the US is as fascinating and provoking as any story the business world has to offer, and there's more than a little tragedy in seeing how Tom Kalinske and Sega of America were able to achieve a brilliant and improbable success, only to be cut off at their knees, in the end, by Sega of Japan. The often clumsily overwritten "reconstructed" dialogue by Harris makes me doubt I'd be interested in any fiction of his, but this particular subject matter is rich enough that my issue with his authorial indulgences is just a quibble. This is by all means a book worth reading.

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Armando Guerrero Ramos
Buena calidad
Reviewed in Mexico on January 29, 2020
Verified Purchase

Me llego sin ningún rasguño o golpe, me gusta que esta en inglés así que me ayudara a reforzar mi inglés. No pensé que fuera de tantas paginas pero eso no me molesta, así que si te gustan los videojuegos amaras un libro de videojuegos.

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Gardus
Lettura molto interessante
Reviewed in Italy on March 4, 2017
Verified Purchase
Ho vissuto da ragazzino la lotta Nintendo / Sega, proseguendo poi in adolescenza con l'arrivo di Sony.

La lettura è veramente interessante e resa divertente da aneddoti divertenti e personaggi accattivanti.

E' anche uno spaccato su marketing e brand management negli anni 90.

Consigliato!

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Oliver Kitzing
Spannend für Insider
Reviewed in Germany on September 15, 2014
Verified Purchase
Ich fand das Buch EXTREM spannend (wenn man sich für die Thematik interessiert).

Auch wenn das mehr eine "Mockumentary" ist, deren Wahrheitsgehalt und Blickwinkel man immer hinterfragen sollte, wurde das Ziel meines Erachtens nach erreicht: eine kurzweilige, spannende Retrospektive des Sega/Nintendo "Krieges" zu bieten, mit Details, die man so noch nicht wusste...

Hochinteressant mit welchen "Dirty Tricks" da gearbeitet wurde im Marketing.. ich hab mir auf Youtube die passenden SEGA Werbespots herausgesucht nachdem ich über sie im Buch gelesen hatte, mit dem HIntergrund der Entstehung war das extrem unterhaltsam...

Z.B. der Spot mit dem Dragster (im Buch irrtümlich "Formula 1 car" genannt) und dem beworbenen "Blast Processing Feature" des MegaDrive. Aus der Not geboren als Nintendo mit dem "Mode 7" reüssierte suchten die Marketing Leute von SEGA verzweifelt nach einem MegaDrive Feature, was das Super Nintendo nicht hatte.. und fanden in den Hardware-Specs die Mögichkeit eines vorübergehend zu aktivierenden "Turbo-Modus" der MegaDrive Hardware... nannten es kreativ "Blast Processing" und brachten es mit Sonic in Verbindung. In Wirklichkeit spielte dieser Modus kaum eine Rolle wenn überhaupt...

Aber das Marketing war glücklich.. :P

Es sollte aber im Hinterkopf behalten werden, dass das ganze Buch hauptsächlich den US-Markt zu dieser Zeit wiedergibt, Europa wird seltenst erwähnt.. maximal wenn Entwickler eine Rolle spielen, aber kaum als Absatzmarkt.

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Daniel Moertl
Simply awesome
Reviewed in Brazil on July 12, 2014
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This is a must read even for people who never really lived that golden era of videogame rivalry. The book is leaned more towards Kalinske's days at Sega, but covers pretty much everything, from the early Nintendo days in America to the saddest moments of Sega during the mid-nineties. It makes you wonder how the things would've turned upside down if Sega and Sony partnered for the PSX, or if Nintendo had never approached Silicon Graphics when looking for partner for a next generation console after de Snes.
We know some stuff may seen weird - the author never says a word about the Saturn being first conceived as a cartridge based console, and even ignores almost completely the existence of the Virtual Boy and the Nomad, but the tension during the dialogues and all those amazing and intriguing stories have already made this book my favorite so far this year.

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9447914010301202202112022021030104197449
Very long but worth reading
Reviewed in Japan on December 3, 2016
Verified Purchase
1. Offers insights into differences in management styles between Japan and the US

It was very interesting to witness firsthand how two companies (a US subsidiary and a Japanese parent) which supposedly have the common goal in mind act differently. It applies to both Sega and Nintendo.

Instead of harnessing the opportunities offered by having people from diverse backgrounds on the team, they practically killed each other in silence.

2. Offers insights into the difficulties that a latecomer faces in the market

Sega came in late and Sony came later than Sega. However, at the end of the day, only Sega seems to have left behind. You would get the idea why this happened by reading this book and how to overcome it.

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Excellent book. Recommended!

Top reviews from the United States

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5.0 out of 5 stars Missing history of an entire industry

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating information and absolutely worth reading; however, the authorial presence is far too strong

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Buena calidad

5.0 out of 5 stars Lettura molto interessante

5.0 out of 5 stars Spannend für Insider

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply awesome

5.0 out of 5 stars Very long but worth reading

Missing history of an entire industry

Fascinating information and absolutely worth reading; however, the authorial presence is far too strong

Buena calidad

Lettura molto interessante

Spannend für Insider

Simply awesome

Very long but worth reading