Console Wars, Blake J. Harris
Console Wars, Blake J. Harris
18 Rating(s)
List: $42.99 | Sale: $30.10
Club: $21.49

Console Wars
Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

Author: Blake J. Harris

Narrator: Fred Berman

Unabridged: 20 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 05/13/2014


Synopsis

Following the success of The Accidental Billionaires and Moneyball comes Console Wars—a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video game industry.In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It’s the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.

About Blake J. Harris

Blake J. Harris is the bestselling author of History of the Future and Console Wars, which is now a CBS All Access feature film by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. He has written for ESPN, IGN, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, /Film and The AV Club. He is also a regular guest on Paul Scheer’s How Did This Get Made? podcast, where every week he interviews some the biggest names responsible for some of the worst movies ever made. Harris lives in New York with his wife.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Brandon on November 17, 2015

When the folks at Nintendo released the 8-bit NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), the home console industry was on its last legs. Following a spectacular crash of the gaming market in 1983 (Atari’s E.T. fiasco), Nintendo had its work cut out for it if it believed it could take the medium off of lif......more

Goodreads review by Miles on October 25, 2014

The book gets two stars because I grew up with the subject matter and so the story itself is fascinating to me. The book gets minus three stars because it's atrociously written, stretches the boundaries of the term "journalism", and has some of the worst dialogue I've ever read. There's a forward at......more

Goodreads review by David on January 06, 2015

I have fond memories of playing videogames on the Sega Genesis console with my daughter, years ago. We loved playing Sonic, Sonic Two, and Toejam and Earl. They were great games! So, I thought it would be fun to read about the "console wars" between Sega and Nintendo. The subtitle of the book is "Seg......more

Goodreads review by Chris on June 22, 2014

The battle for video game dominance is a promising topic for a book and indeed, Console Wars is a great retelling of this rivalry and author Blake J. Harris does an able job of getting the facts together in an entertaining fashion. I appreciated the way that Harris went out of his way not to paint e......more

Goodreads review by Shaun on July 20, 2015

I was a little hesitant to read a 600-page autobiography of Tom Kalinske, the marketing guru who reinvented Barbie and shepherded the SEGA Genesis through its release in America, but I dove in because the guy is a genius, right? ...wait. The author is listed as "Blake Harris." This isn't by Kalinske?......more