Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, And The Battle That Defined A Generation (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
I grew up a hardcore Nintendo kid. I started with an N64, and when it came time for partisanship it was Nintendo versus Sony - those battle lines had already been drawn, with Sega touted by a handful of passionate friends who'd grown up with a Megadrive. Add to that being from England, and I never really understood the grip of Sonic or Blast Processing. As such, this was much more of a learning experience for me than I had expected.This book is a pretty loose but dense retelling of Tom Kalinske's tenure as CEO of Sega of America, from 1990-96. It's a grand underdog story, told from the POV of Kalinske and SOA, daring to go toe-to-toe with the all-powerful corporate monolith that was Nintendo. There are a lot of great moments, coincidences, schemes, gossip and everything you'd want from a semi-serious nostalgia trip. What this book doesn't have, though, is a decent writer. Harris flies along when simply expositing Sega's plans or talking about the history of the PlayStation's designer. But when it comes to dialogue, character description or anything else, and he devolves into awkward thesaurus-clutching turns of phrase that ironically remind me of the kinetic trying-too-hard tone of 90s gaming magazines.It's lucky for Harris that the subject matter is so interesting! With only a vague idea of the timeline of things, release dates, key players and the like, I was always excited to see what would happen next. I hear this is being made into a film by (with?) Seth Rogen, and I am crossing my fingers for it. This book surprised me in how it was written. I was expecting more of a pure non fiction, documentary style history book, but it reads more like a biopic (something akin to "The Social Network") at times and is probably destined to become such at some point. So an entertaining read, in which I certainly learned a few things I didn't know before, but did leave me wanting more history and less inter character yap yapping.
What do You think about Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, And The Battle That Defined A Generation (2014)?
A good read. Nothing spectacular but it does show an inside look at the rise and fall of Sega.
—Livie
Very interesting book. I had no idea about the rise and fall of Sega in the early 90s.
—Danielle
Good book. A great insight into some of the big gaming events of my childhood.
—lhp
A good read for anyone who grew up as a gamer.
—Val
