Category: Computers / Video Games

Story: In the 1960s, a government contractor working with computer display systems figured out how to get a game of video tennis going on a television monitor. But that game, which would later be reproduced by an enterprising programmer named Nolan Bushnell at a young company called Atari, would give rise to one of the fastest-growing sectors of the entertainment industry. Companies such as Atari, Coleco, Mattel, Magnavox, and Bally would ride that wave into the first home video game console era. Fortunes were made and lost by gambling on licensed arcade and entertainment properties, and a flood of mediocre software brought the video game market to its knees. And then a relatively obscure Japanese company changed the rules forever. Originally planning to license its technology out to Atari, a legal misunderstanding convinced Nintendo to go it alone in an uncertain market that they would later dominate alongside Sega and Sony. This is the nuts-and-bolts story of the video game industry.

Review: A great, in-depth book about the history, the swells and ebbtides, the fortunes and failures, and the numerous litigious episodes of the video game industry is long overdue. And after reading Phoenix, I’m sad to say that the book I’ve been hoping to read is still overdue. … Read more

Story: An overview of the history of Nintendo, one of the most influential companies in the video game industry. Traces the company from its beginnings as a playing card manufacturer to the heights of its popularity, when its video game consoles were in practically every home across the world. New chapters continue the story into the PlayStation era, when Nintendo’s dominance was surpassed by the international conglomerate Sony.

Review: “Game Over” is the story of a company. If you have ever read a corporate history, you know that they generally do not make scintillating reading. But author David Sheff has done something impressive. He has taken the hard corporate world and put a human identity to it. While there is plenty of hard information: data, trial information, etc., it is the stories of the men and women behind Nintendo that makes the story real. … Read more

Note: This book has since been reprinted under a different name, “The Ultimate History Of Video Games“.

Story: In the beginning, there was Spacewar, a game designed and played by college students, on college campuses, using lab time on college mainframe computers. And people took note. Though Spacewar got no commercial action, it was only a matter of time before others had the same idea, or created their own games after experiencing Spacewar for themselves. Thus was born the video game industry, now a hyper-competitive, multi-billion dollar industry dominated by Nintendo, Sony and Sega – built on the ashes of now-extinct outfits like Atari, who at one time could do no wrong. This book traces that history, referring frequently to interviews with designers, programmers, executives, and others whose actions shaped the industry.

Review: While I’m pining away for that Holy Grail known as The Ultimate Classic Game Book, I’m quickly discovering that existing tomes each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Leonard Herman’s “Phoenix” is a drier read than yesterday’s police blotter, yet it uncovers a wealth of forgotten hardware and software developments, information valuable to collectors. Many readers felt J.C. Herz’ “Joystick Nation” skimped on the history of those very same games, though it was meant to be less a history and more of an academic exercise. “The First Quarter”, then, reads like the Wall Street Journal version of “Phoenix”. … Read more