Reddit reviews Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation
We found 8 Reddit comments about Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
To anyone who didn't know this, you might be interested in reading Console Wars. It's all about the battle between Sega and Nintendo. Informative and a good read.
http://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generation/dp/0062276697
Great book on the subject. Apparently Sega of Japan tried really, really hard to run Sega of America into the ground. Sonic was the result of an in house contest at SoJ to create a new character. Originally he had big fangs, spikey hair, wore a leather jacket and I shit you not, had a sexy human girlfriend called Madonna. Seeing how this would totally bomb in the US market, SoA quietly cleaned up his image and the rest is history.
Read the book. You will not regret it.
I think this is exactly what you're looking for! Great read.
The book was called Console Wars and it was actually very enjoyable.
amazon
Yeah, the gameplay is modeled after the older games but the style and tone is still of the post-Adventure Sonic. I like the little pudgy Sonic of the 1990's who fought a villain named Dr. Robotnik.
I think what it comes down to is that I like Sega of America's vision of Sonic the Hedgehog. The book Console Wars talks about the conflicting views between Sega of Japan and Sega of America's localization and marketing team. Sonic was a corporate marketing maneuver to compete with Nintendo's Mario from the get-go and SoA's marketing team had a lot of sway in the design process to make the character friendly to a western audience. Sonic's original Japanese design was edgy, he had fangs and a human girl friend, but SoA fought to dial the character's weirdness back and make him cuter to be more appealing to a young western demographic. They also changed names like Dr. Eggman to Dr. Robotnik and Miles Prower to Tails.
After the Genesis a lot of that SoA group left the company. That, along with the failed Saturn Sonic game, I think were the catalysts for a rebranding of Sonic more in-line with the original Japanese vision. Sonic was made older and more edgy, Dr. Robotnik became Dr. Eggman, and Sonic got his human girl friend. I just never felt comfortable in the rebranded universe and stopped playing Sonic games.
Generations is the closest thing I have to a modern Sonic, but I was still forced to wade through the new Sonic universe and cast of characters in order to play the game.
Another thing to think about is that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo need retail partners to move hardware and accessories - or become a retailer themselves (which outside a few flagship stores in large cities and theme parks, they don't want to do this). If they undercut retailers by offering digital at a cheaper price than the physical copy, the retailers will retaliate and promote the product less, give it less shelf space, or just stop selling the console altogether. If a major retailer - like Best Buy, Target, or Walmart, stopped selling a console brand, it would most likely spell doom for that console.
The book console wars tells the story about the lengths Sega went to in order to get Walmart to carry Sega Genesis. It was an interesting anecdote and shows just how important retailers are to the companies that produce consoles.
PC software distribution doesn't have to worry about this - and that's why PC software isn't sold in retail stores anymore (with very few exceptions).
Thanks for the link, I cross-posted it to /r/TheMakingOfGames.
Blake J. Harris, the author of this article, also wrote the following excerpt from his book Console Wars: