I remember visiting my cousins when I was little. I was fascinated
by the colorful images bleeping and blooping across their television screen in
crystal clear 16-bit glory. There was a blue, spiked ball that was whirling to
and fro, ricocheting off of walls, and raining down pain on the backs of his
enemies. When that blue ball finally stopped moving, an edgy new mascot stood
their impatiently waiting for the player to get him moving again.
Book Review: "Console Wars"
It was somewhere around 1992 and the character on my
cousins' screen was Sonic The Hedgehog. I was somewhat familiar with the
Hedgehog from the TV commercials and the cartoon, but seeing it come alive in
person was a totally different animal. I had an old, classic Nintendo at home.
I had a copy of the amazing Super Mario Brothers 3 that I loved; I think I had
purchased it myself with newspaper route money. However, this Hedgehog was far
more lively than any dumb plumber. It was built from the ground up, designed to
be a hip alternative to Mario. At that
time, I knew of the battle between Nintendo and Sega. It seemed a lot like the
Cola Wars between Coke and Pepsi. It was a taste test. I knew those commercials were telling me what
was cooler and more fun. As a kid, I had
no idea the level of machinations that were going on behind the curtain.
However, Tom Kalinski was intimately aware of all of the
strategies and tactics that were being employed in the war between Sega and
Nintendo. You see, Tom Kalinski was the
CEO of Sega during this most influential period in the second great wave of
gaming consoles. The book, “Console
Wars”, follows Tom in his quest to pull a second-rate video gaming company best
known for Altered Beast and Alex Kidd, into a top tier gaming titan.
The book is written in a narrative form, telling the story
as it unfolds. The writer, Blake Harris,
has a writing style that is deceptively casual, allowing you to become engrossed
in the victories of the Sega team while still being able to take away lessons
in business leadership, communications, technology, and workflow. It had tons
of great ideas about marketing and teamwork.
The book is separated roughly into thirds. The first part of the book follows the retirement
of the Sega Master System, the rise of the Genesis console, and the challenges
of getting the first Sonic the Hedgehog Game done. The next part deals with the overwhelming
success of the Genesis over the Super Nintendo, the creation and release of
Sonic 2, and the maturation of Sega team.
The last third of the book deals with the internal conflicts that
allowed Nintendo to triumph, and planting the seeds of the eventual collapse of
Sega consoles.
The version of the book that I read was on Amazon Kindle, of
which I was grateful. I imagine that a
fictional book would try to streamline the number of characters, but this is
non-fiction. The book takes pains to
include all of the real people that actually worked in the industry. It was
sometimes easy to lose track of who was who. Fortunately, the Kindle has search
functionality that made it easy to go back and refresh my memory when
needed. I appreciated that level of
detail, even if it meant I had to work a little harder at reading it.
I would highly recommend this book. There is a lot to the
book “Console Wars”; plenty of content.
It was a fun read, and if you paid attention, you might learn a thing or
two.
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