The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 | Kent, Steven L.

Lange Beschreibung
The definitive behind-the-scenes history of video games explosion into the twenty-first century and the war for industry power

A zippy read through a truly deep research job. You won t 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 industry s first thirty years. In volume 2, he narrates gaming s 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 all even 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 franchises from Grand Theft Auto and Halo to Call of Duty and Guitar Hero that would define gaming in the new millennium.

Rezensierung
Video game geeks, and anyone else who finds the history of electronic games fascinating, will drool over the pages of Steven Kent s latest history of who did what and why in that magical world. It s a zippy read through a truly deep research job. You won t 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

Buchausschnitt
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 Team


The Emotion Engine the only emotion I got from it was despair.

Anonymous


The Second Coming of Sony

Sony 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, Sony s movie studios turned a corner as well, releasing hits like Men in Black and Air Force One. Picking up where Walkman left off, Sony s 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 console s 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 company s 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 Apple s 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 Sony s 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 Kutaragi who 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 he s a different breed of animal. He s an engineer, but also he has tremendous acumen for management. So, he s a different breed.

Shukuo Ishikawa, chairman, Bandai-Namco Group


His 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 America


But 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 didn t fit into Sony s 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 people s success. Many Sony executives openly despised Kutaragi, describing him as disrespectful, abr