Console Wars

I remember getting a Nintendo for Christmas in the late 80s and it shaping my entire childhood. Later on I'd go onto to get a Super Nintendo, a Genesis and a Playstation before heading to college and eventually buying any system I wanted. The systems that truely shaped my gaming experience were, without a doubt NES, SNES and PSX.

Console Wars goes into the history of Nintendo, Sega and Sony with the rise of the console industry in America. Having been a kid at the time, I did't know show much of an underdog Sega was at the time – and how badly managed Sega was in Japan. Nintendo had it's problems as well. The story behind the creation of Donkey Kong Country was amazing and made me surprised the game even got made – better yet that it was (possibly) the best game for that system.

I'm kind of disappointed in this book. I've got a review of the book going up on my YouTube Channel on the 31st, so I don't want to give away the store, but here's the short version.The presentation of this book hurts this book. It's presented with a fictionalized narrative as opposed to the more distant tone of stuff like [b:Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture 222146 Masters of Doom How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture David Kushner https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386923206s/222146.jpg 215133]. We have significant events presented as one person describing an event to another person, which puts me, as an amatueur video game historian, in a pickle. Is what's being described hearsay, in which case the veracity of the event being recounted is questionable, because even putting any agenda out of the picture, there is the question of time's impact on memory.The fact that there is no chapter at the end of the book with references to clear some of this up, or an index to make finding particular pieces of information, also reduces the book's utility.It's an okay read. However, as a historical document, it's utility is heavily reduced by the way the material is presented - which is horrible, because had the material been presented better, this would have been the extensive and complete book on the console wars ever written.

There's two important points to make about this book:.

1. Harris is a good writer. His research and narrative work effortlessly guide you through six or so years of epic change.
2. Consoles just have no soul. Harris and his principal sources seem to never question how ultimately the console industry boils down to marketing brinksmanship and how hollow that makes the entire endeavour.

Maybe this isn't really Harris' fault, but the world of 80's-90's consoles (and probably still today) is so hopelessly full of corporate hagiography that we're led to believe everyone previously fabulously rich executive is a genius in this emerging world of video games. Tom Kalinske, Sega of America's president and Harris' messiah in a suit, is treated like a trailblazer for what–thirty years later–really just amounts to edgelord marketing. It's a weird lens on the industry that seems to gloss over how commodified and exploitative these same suits made their arena.

There are no creatives here. This isn't Masters of Doom or any other history of the creative rise of video games, but rather the celebration of corporate gaming. Even Sega's rise is ultimately depressing in that context. Console Wars is a great history... it's just that it's a documentation of the most banal process of extracting wealth from games rather than any form of creativity beyond ad-wizardry.