The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and the Billion-Dollar Battle to Shape Modern Gaming by Amazonundefined
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A zippy read through a truly deep research job. You wont want to put this one down.Eddie Adlum, publisher,
RePlay Magazine
As video games evolve, only the fittest companies survive. Making a blockbuster once cost millions of dollars; now it can cost hundreds of millions, but with a $160 billion market worldwide, the biggest players are willing to bet the bank.Steven L. Kent has been playing video games since
Pong
and writing about the industry since the Nintendo Entertainment System. In volume 1 of
The Ultimate History of Video Games,
he chronicled the industrys first thirty years. In volume 2, he narrates gamings entrance into the twenty-first century, as Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft battle to capture the global market.The home console boom of the 90s turned hobby companies like Nintendo and Sega into Hollywood-studio-sized business titans. But by the end of the decade, they would face new, more powerful competitors. In boardrooms on both sides of the Pacific, engineers and executives began, with enormous budgets and total secrecy, to plan the next evolution of home consoles. The PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Sega Dreamcast all made radically different bets on what gamers would want. And then, to the shock of the world, Bill Gates announced the development of the one console to beat them alleven if Microsoft had to burn a few billion dollars to do it. In this book, you will learn about the cutthroat environment at Microsoft as rival teams created console systems the day the head of Sega of America told the creator of
Sonic the Hedgehog
to f**k off how lateral thinking with withered technology put Nintendo back on top and much more!Gripping and comprehensive,
The Ultimate History of Video Games: Volume 2
explores the origins of modern consoles and of the franchisesfrom
Grand Theft Auto
and
Halo
to
Call of Duty
and
Guitar Hero
that would define gaming in the new millennium.
Recenzja
Video game geeks, and anyone else who finds the history of electronic games fascinating, will drool over the pages of Steven Kents latest history of who did what and why in that magical world. Its a zippy read through a truly deep research job. You wont want to put this one down until you reach the back cover.
Eddie Adlum, publisher,
RePlay Magazine
Steven Kent knows video game history better than anyone, and once again provides a thorough and fascinating look into the stories that shaped a generation.
Andrew Reiner, editor in chief,
Game Informer
A wonderful chronicle of so many games that have shaped our industry and a must-read for both fans and aspiring developers.
Ted Price, founder and president, Insomniac Games
Steven Kent has been around the industry for a long time, witnessing key inflection points. This is a must-read for anyone wanting the back story on the companies, franchises, and personalities in video games.
Reggie Fils-Aimé, former president and COO, Nintendo of America
O autorze
Steven L. Kent
turned a lifelong joystick addiction into a fifteen-year gig writing for outlets like Microsoft News,
Boys Life, USA Today,
the
Chicago Tribune,
and
The Japan Times
. In addition to his two-volume account
The Ultimate History of Video Games,
Kent wrote
The Making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
and
The Making of Doom 3
. Also a novelist, he authored the Clone Republic series and co-authored
100 Fathoms Below
with Nicholas Kaufmann. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Chapter 1
Sony, the One and Only
Sony can do no wrong even when Sony is very wrong.Matt Casamassina, former editor in chief, IGN Nintendo TeamThe Emotion Enginethe only emotion I got from it was despair.AnonymousThe Second Coming of SonySony had a record-breaking year in 1998, raking in over $51 billion in sales and operating revenue. Profits from television sales had spiked in 1997 and continued climbing. Having recently released such notable flops as The Cable Guy and Striptease, Sonys movie studios turned a corner as well, releasing hits like Men in Black and Air Force One. Picking up where Walkman left off, Sonys Discman hit pay dirt in the United States, and its new MiniDisc audio format caught on quickly in Japan. Then, of course, there was the PlayStation.Sony shipped 4 million PlayStations in 1995, 9 million in 1996, and 21 million in both 1997 and 1998. Nintendo sold fewer than 35 million N64 consoles during the consoles seven-year life span. The Sega Saturn never reached 10 million.Sony was one of those companies with the magic touch in the mid-to late 1990s, but those halcyon days were about to come to an end.While PlayStation carried Sony to new heights, the companys other businesses began snagging. Samsung made a big push into the bustling North American television market, selling competitive sets at considerably lower prices. The 2001 release of Apples first iPod obliterated the MiniDisc and Discman markets. Familiar names like Canon and Nikon took over the high-end digital camera business. Nokia overtook Sony-Ericsson as the leader in mobile phones until 2007, when Apple released its first iPhone and everything changed.With layoffs, plummeting stock prices, and vanishing markets, the only bright spot on Sonys horizon was PlayStation. By 1998, the game console was well on its way to replacing Walkman as the most successful consumer electronics line in history. This made engineer Ken Kutaragiwho first arrived on the video game scene helping Sony create the audio chip used in the 16-bit Super Nintendo/Super Famicom (also known as Super Famicom, Super Nintendo, and SNES)both a demon and a deliverer around Sony Corporation.I was with Mr. Kutaragi yesterday. I have to say that hes a different breed of animal. Hes an engineer, but also he has tremendous acumen for management. So, hes a different breed.Shukuo Ishikawa, chairman, Bandai-Namco GroupHis first project was . . . if you remember back in the 1970s or early 1980s, if you had a cassette player, it may have had a graphic equalizer built into it, little ascending red and green and yellow lines that would show the signal strength as the music volume increased. Ken was the inventor of that.He has the patent for the LED bars rising as the music peaked and the bar that was on the top would stay on for a while as the sound dropped away so that you could see where the peak got to. That peak level meter LED design was his invention, or co-creation. I think there were a couple of other people involved on the patent as well.Phil Harrison, former vice president, third party relations, Sony Computer Entertainment AmericaBut Kutaragi was a brash, temperamental, and outspoken man in a society that taught that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Sure, he was a brilliant, driven engineer, but he didnt fit into Sonys traditional power structure.PlayStation sales carried Sony through a dry spell, but at the cost of empowering Kutaragi and further infuriating his corporate rivals. Misery loves company; it despises other peoples success. Many Sony executives openly despised Kutaragi, describing him as disrespectful, abrasive, and something even more unforgivable in Sonys buttoned-down culture: untraditional.In July 2000, Sony invited ten top influencers and opinion leaders to tour its corporate headquarters in Tokyo. Richard Doherty, founder and chief analyst of Envisioneering, attended the summit, as did Suzanne Kantra of Popular Science, Rolling Stone writer Steve Morgenstern, and futurist Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. The group met with Sonys top executives and premier designers, including Kutaragi, who seemed flustered when he realized the group included a reporter hed been trying to avoid.The tour closed with a cocktail party attended by Kunitake Ando, the newly appointed president of Sony Corporation. Seeing the reporter who had so flustered Kutaragi, Ando congratulated him on the accomplishment, presenting him with a business card and offering to help him with future projects. As Ando walked away, analyst Rick Doherty commented, You better hold on to that card. He just gave you the keys to the kingdom.Ken was a, you know . . . it wasnt like he was a table-thumping shouter, but he definitely got passionate about things. I remember one argument with him about something which to this day I cant remember the details. Its probably insignificant. His way of finishing the argument was to say, Well, if you think that, then you must resign. It was a very kind of emotional way to say, I dont want to have this argument anymore.Phil HarrisonThe animosity between Kutaragi and his superiors traced back to the early days of the PlayStation project. In the early 1990s, Kutaragi had led the engineering team assigned to co-develop a CD-ROM drive with Nintendo for the Super NES/Super Famicom. Believing that Sony planned to use the unit to open a game division, Nintendo executives quietly abandoned the partnership without telling Sony. Nintendo announced its breakup with Sony and its new partnership with Dutch mega-conglomerate Philips N.V. at the 1993 Consumer Electronics Show the day after Sony announced it was building the Play Station drive with Nintendo.Blamed by some executives for having brought shame to the company, Kutaragi approached Sony chairman Norio Ohga for permission to convert his PlayStation disk drive into a stand-alone game console. While the rest of the board argued against it, Ohga gave Kutaragi permission to pursue the project. Citing Nintendos betrayal, Ohga shouted, Do it!There was a meeting with only maybe eight people in it. No other executives. It was just Kutaragis team pitching Ohga. Ohga was personally interested in the project.And after Ohga saw the whole presentation, he just said, Go for it. Do it. This is a project that Sony needs to be in. He just decided it by himself. No other executives voted, only Ohga. Ohga said do it and that became a legendary story.Shuji Utsumi, former vice president of product acquisition, Sony Computer Entertainment America1
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Product information
- Wydawca:Crown
- ISBN-10:1984825437
- ISBN-13:978-1984825438
- Author:Steven L. Kent
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