Console Wars

The most entertaining part of Blake J. Harris’s Console Wars is the forward by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. That isn’t a knock on the book — the forward is just really entertaining banter. The rest of the book is entertaining, too, and it should be, considering the subject matter: the video game industry, in particular the head-to-head battle between Nintendo and Sega during the SNES and Genesis years.

However, the story feels incomplete, as it ends with Tom Kalinske’s departure as the head of Sega of America (and it begins with his hiring there, so the book could have been more boringly but precisely titled Tom Kalinske’s Time at Sega), so it doesn’t cover anything after the Sega Genesis, including their last console hurrah the Dreamcast (the one Sega machine I owned), or what they’re doing now (I have some curiosity on the subject as I worked for a game studio several years ago that was acquired by Sega).

And the book reads like a made-for-movie or made-for-TV script, with dialogue that sometimes feels contrived (there is a disclaimer in the beginning that the conversations are reconstructed) and so over-the-top prose. There is also the tendency, common among male writers of tech books and pulp thrillers, to describe women in terms of physical attractiveness and men in Norse god ranking, e.g. women are “brunette” and “doe-eyed”, while men are “steely-eyed” and hair is not mentioned except when it’s absent. But if you’re at all interested in the video game industry, this is an informative and engaging read.

Because I was a Nintendo kid during the 1990s and later became a huge Sega fan when the company released its Dreamcast system, I really, really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately, by the end I felt pretty let down and agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed by other reviewers here on Goodreads.

Perhaps the biggest letdown was realizing that Harris had invented much of the dialogue in the book. Obviously it's understandable given that the book was based on dozens of interviews with ex-Sega and ex-Nintendo employees from the late-1980s to early-1990s. But at times the dialogue became canned, cheesy, and over-the-top. To make matters worse, the Audible version had a narrator who invented (in some cases) extremely annoying voices for some of the characters--especially Toyota and Nielson.

My second complaint deals with the book's coverage. This is really a book about the SNES vs. Genesis. Whereas the subtitle bills this book as console wars of the 1990s (i.e. one would expect coverage of the NES, SNES, N-64, Genesis, Saturn, Playstation). The story is told primarily from the point of view of Tom Kolinski who became the President of Sega of America (SOA) in the early 1990s. Thus, when Kolinski resigned in 1995ish the story ends--well before Sega exited the console market.

Finally, and this is not necessarily a complaint/critique, one should be warned that this is a business and marketing history of the two companies and NOT primarily a history of video game software. While Harris does cover key software title innovators (Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart) in modest detail, he glosses over 95% of the titles produced and popular during the period. I say this because I suspect a lot of millennials like myself who came of age during the 1990s would read this book in part for the nostalgia value.

Despite corny fictionalized dialogue, an aggravating chronology, and the need for some editing (seriously, why an entire chapter about the Seattle Mariners?), Harris does an outstanding job writing the insider business/marketing history of both companies. During the early 1990s, Nintendo monopolized the market share for both video game console sales and software sales in North America. They controlled something in the neighborhood of 90% of the market, with Sega accounting for a mere 5%. Enter Tom Kolinksi, an innovative, go-getter marketeer with background in the toy industry. Kolinski first made a name for himself by reviving the Barbie doll line in the early 1980s and subsequently securing more market share for the underdog Matchbox in its war with Hot Wheels. The crux of the story follows Kolinski building a cohesive team at Sega around a clear marketing strategy for the Sega Genesis, capitalizing on Sonic the Hedgehog and presenting the Genesis as a "cool" alternative to the "kid friendly" Nintendo. Thus, while Nintendo catered to the young and families, Sega explicitly marketed to teenagers and college aged market segments. From 1991 to 1995, Sega went from having 5% of the market to 55%!

However, Sega's meteoric rise was eclipsed by releasing an overly-expensive next-gen console called the Saturn ($399.99) that could not compete with the cheaper Sony Playstation ($299.99), failed R&D adventures, and a stagnating pool of software titles. Harris, I think unfairly, pins a lot of blame on Sega of Japan for undermining Sega of America at every turn. The Japanese come into the story mostly as boogeymen who were inflexible, stubborn, and conniving--for Sega, Sony, and Nintendo. The Japanese side of this story, which is absolutely critical, is mostly left unwritten.

In the end, though, I still enjoyed the book enough to recommend it to those specifically interested in learning more about the video game industry in its formative years. One can hope that Harris might follow up on this work with something about Sega's later years...although I'm not sure I would be down for 21.5 hours of an Audible tape.

Note: Based on other reviews, it appears that Harris gets the essential story factually correct, despite his novelization of dialogue.