Blake J. Harris

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 videogame industry—in development as a feature film from Sony Pictures In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the videogame industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive 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, completely transformed Sega and led to a ruthless, David-and-Goliath showdown with Nintendo. Little did he realize that Sega's success would create many new enemies and, most important, make Nintendo stronger than ever. 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 school yards 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 United States against Japan. Based on more than two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the tale of how Tom Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punch line into a market leader. Blake J. Harris brings into focus the warriors, the strategies, and the battles and explores how they transformed popular culture forever. Ultimately, Console Wars is 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, give birth to a sixty-billion-dollar industry.

Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

Console Wars

The dramatic, larger-than-life true story behind the founding of Oculus and its quest for virtual reality, by the bestselling author of Console Wars. From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey—then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer—invents a device that has the potential to change everything. With the help of a videogame legend, a serial entrepreneur and many other colorful characters, Luckey’s scrappy startup kickstarts a revolution and sets out to bring VR to the masses. As with most underdog stories, things don’t quite go according to plan. But what happens next turns out to be the ultimate entrepreneurial journey: a tale of battles won and lost, lessons learned and neverending twists and turns—including an unlikely multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which shakes up the landscape in Silicon Valley and gives Oculus the chance to forever change our reality. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry.

Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality

The History of the Future

Sega Vs Nintendo - and the Battle that Defined a Generation

Sega, Nintendo i batalia, która zdefiniowała pokolenie

Wojny konsolowe

Da mesma forma que outras grandes rivalidades modernas, como Coca-Cola versus Pepsi e Apple versus Microsoft, redefiniram cada competidor e reescreveram a história dessas empresas, o intenso combate entre Sega e Nintendo nos anos 1990 revelou o melhor e o pior de cada uma e mudou para sempre o mundo do entretenimento, fazendo nascer uma indústria mundial de 60 bilhões de dólares. Na época a Nintendo praticamente monopolizava o mercado de video games, enquanto a Sega era apenas uma empresa instável de fliperamas. Tudo isso iria mudar com a chegada de Tom Kalinske, um ex-executivo da Mattel que podia não saber nada de jogos eletrônicos, mas era expert em travar batalhas impossíveis. Suas táticas arrojadas combinadas às ideias ousadas de seus funcionários transformaram a Sega por completo e a colocaram num patamar ameaçador para a hegemonia da Nintendo. Tendo como base mais de duzentas entrevistas com antigos funcionários de ambas as empresas, Blake J. Harris revela os guerreiros, as estratégias e os diversos fronts de batalha da grande guerra entre esses colossos do entretenimento eletrônico. Passando por momentos-chave da história dos video games — como a criação do Sonic, os lançamentos dos consoles Mega Drive e Super Nintendo e a chegada do jogo Donkey Kong Country às lojas —, Harris retrata essa indústria de maneira inédita e recria com propriedade a energia e o sentimento de todos os nomes importantes da Sega e da Nintendo. Um verdadeiro thriller que mostra os bastidores de uma batalha épica pelo coração e pelo dinheiro de gamers do mundo inteiro e como tudo isso mudou e marcou definitivamente a cultura pop.

Blake J. Harris

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