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1. Missing history of an entire industry
   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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2. Fascinating information and absolutely worth reading; however, the authorial presence is far too strong
   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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3. 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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4. This book is written more like a bio-pic than a biography or history book, and it makes it so engaging! You feel like you are in the room with these characters. It is a fascinating inside look at this defining time in video game history. I recommend it to anyone interesting in the gaming industry, especially those who were kids in the 90s and can remember those schoolyard debates about which was better… Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis. 🙂

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5. Esa frase viene en el título y es un gran resumen del contenido del libro.En este libro se nos cuenta la historia de la guerra que libraron Sega of America y Nintendo of America, sí, pero desde el punto de vista y en la época en la que Tom Kalinske fue CEO de Sega America.Lo primero decir que resulta muy fácil de leer a pesar de lo denso del tema porque está novelizado en cierta medida, produciendo un movimiento narrativo que no se suele ver en libros de historia o biográficos.Lo segundo, es la historia de una batalla entre Sega y Nintendo pero circunscrita a EEUU: se tocan Europa y Japón de un modo tangencial, solamente cuando entran en contacto con EEUU.Lo tercero, si te interesa la historia de la tecnología, de los videojuegos y/o el marketing, este es tu libro. Digo y/o porque no son excluyentes: aprendes un montón de cosas sobre branding y sobre las técnicas de publicidad que vemos aplicar hoy en día, no sólo sobre tecnología y videojuegos.Es un libro que merece la pena en cuanto a contenido (no sobra nada, todo añade al contexto y a la comprensión) y en cuanto a redacción (muy entretenido y ágil de leer. Pese al tamaño no se hace para nada pesado).Los peros: el final, un poco precipitado, pero lógico habida cuenta que se centra en Mr Kalinske, y el formato de página, aprovechada al máximo y que no deja prácticamente márgenes (eso sí, el tamaño de letra es más que correcto para una lectura cómoda).Más que recomendable si te interesa el tema.

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6. 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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7. 1. Offers insights into differences in management styles between Japan and the USIt 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 marketSega 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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