The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and the Billion-Dollar Battle to Shape Modern Gaming
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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 “fk 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. Read more
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Kindle
Having enjoyed his first volume (finished this year) I was thrilled to see that he was releasing a volume 2 focusing solely on video games in the 21st century because that account has been lacking. Going forward I hope that video game historians start their history of video games at the turn of the century because that point in time is the genesis of video games as we know them today in the age of Web 2.0, online multiplayer and cloud storage. It's mostly a history of first party console and handheld manufacturers and AAA publishers, and a great one it is at that. You do find some interesting niche chapters on state of arcade gaming, the competition between EA and Activision for the most prevalent AAA publisher in the industry, and on the discussion of whether video games are considered 'art' and why film licensed games and film adaptations of games have not been successful. You're not really going to find much detail on mobile, PC and indie games, though the author is begging for a volume 3 since he leaves off unresolved at the peak of the PS3/XBox 360/Wii era towards the end of the 10s. Hopefully he'll fill us in on those things by then when volume 3 is released which he has confirmed that he's working on that to my delight. Overall I enjoyed it. 5/5.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2021 by Hunter Krieger
Format: Kindle
Once again, as in the first volume of The Ultimate History of Video Games, Mr. Kent's second volume is a fun, interesting and informative read. I especially enjoyed the quotes from the people who were present at these many industry changing moments. I am hoping for a volume three one day.
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2022 by Andrew
Format: Paperback
Some 20 years after his seminal book, the original "The Ultimate History of Video Games", Steven Kent has returned with volume 2. Following the same format as volume 1, the end result is good but something of a mixed bag as well. Picking up in 1996 where volume 1 left off, Kent tells the story of console releases and the people behind them. He liberally sprinkles in quotes from key players and an occasional journalist. These are entertaining and provide insights you're not going to find just anywhere. Really good stuff. And you got almost 500 pages of that kind of material. So that's a good thing, right? Well... There are numerous problems. First and foremost is ... where are the games?!!? Oh sure, SOME games are mentioned but "The Ultimate History of Video Games" - not Video Game CONSOLES but Video Games - should have coverage of LOTS of games. Where is Assassin's Creed? Where is Uncharted? Where the heck are all the RTS games that dominated PC gaming for several years? And on and on and on. There are TONS of key games missing here. Next is that, without stating it, the book stops with the PS3 generation - sort of. Lots of stuff is talked about from after that generation - but not the PS4 or PS5, not the Xbox One or Series S/X. Next, where are the games for mobile platforms? Kent talks about the PSP and DS but completely ignores phones. If you accept the arbitrary cutoff date of "the PS3 generation", this is still not acceptable. The original iPhone was released less than a year after the PS3 but doesn't exist here. Ditto for Android. Where are all the indie games? Not here. Where is Steam? Steam was introduced *3* years before the PS3 yet goes without mention here. The PSN Network was hacked in 2011 but goes unmentioned here. Speaking of PSN and its competitor, Xbox Live, the rise of online gaming is pretty much ignored here. Oh, they're discussed but only as a feature of hardware platforms rather than the global communities they've become. Next, there is somehow a lot of rehashed material here. The formation of Electronic Arts and its "album cover" boxes was discussed in Volume 1 - why is it included again here? Same thing with Activision. In addition, Kent has a somewhat strange selection of sources. He's got a lot of key players and industry insiders and then remarkably few journalists. There's a ton of quotes from N'Gai Croal, a video game journalist I've never heard of previously - perhaps because he wrote for Newsweek rather than an actual video game publication. Croal is quoted over and over and over with his words being given way too much importance. Kent also makes sure to tell us what Croal's favorite game is for no apparent reason. Finally, we get 30-some pages on movies about video games. I suppose that's OK but seems out of place here, especially considering the huge number of, you know, GAMES that are missing. At the end of the day, Kent's Volume 2 is a highly entertaining read that will end up frustrating almost as much as it entertains. There are just so many things ignored and missed that, unlike Volume 1, this one does not live up to its "Ultimate" title. I do recommend the book, just be forewarned. p.s. Don't believe the "592 pages" information. The actual book ends on page 530. The acknowledgements and index take you to 562. And there's a few pages of intro. Being very generous, there's barely 570 pages here. Realistically, it's more like 530.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2021 by Tabe
Format: Kindle
When I taught a class on the history of video games in the year 2002, one of the textbooks I assigned was the original Ultimate History of Video Games. At the time, it truly was the ultimate history of games, as very few books on the subject even existed! I thought that Steve had left the games journalism field for good, so I was surprised and pleased when I learned that a second volume of his book was in the offing. In 2021, there are literally hundreds of different takes on gaming history, written from a variety of angles. The unique place that this book occupies is delivering unique, entertaining, and engaging anecdotes and stories from the people who were behind the scenes during the making of history. Primarily about the console wars between Sony, Sega, Microsoft, and Nintendo during the late 2000's and the early 2010's, this book will end up being a breezy read for anyone who wants to relive the key moments of victory (and perhaps learn from the hubris of the past).
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Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2021 by Chris Kohler
Format: Kindle
The first 10-12% is a rehash of book one (definitely not cut-and-pasted by any means but rather repetitive if you've just finished the first book), and an entire tenth of the book (the second-to-last chapter) is spent on two "evil empires" in gaming. The rest pretty much focuses on the period from the end of gen 6 (Xbox/PS2/GC) through gen 7 (360/PS3/Wii). Considering that this book was published around 2020 and facts up until 2019 are presented in the text, I found it a massive disappointment to not see the Switch (2017) mentioned even once, let alone ANY mention of gen 8 (XOne/PS4/WiiU) aside from a passing quote or two. Also, there seemed to be much more of a linear-time problem with this one; there'd be momentum building through year such and such, and then the next chapter would take us back five years. The first book did this occasionally as well, but the jumps here made for a rather disjointed read from my perspective. It's packed with interesting information, but it already feels a decade out of date.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2024 by Dashing Dave
Format: Paperback
I bought this for my son for his birthday. It was only after I pulled it out to wrap it that I noticed that the back cover was marked up, and that there are pieces of a section of pages that are completely missing. I should have checked it earlier, but it is unfortunate it was shipped at all.
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2021 by Marc T. Baniak
Format: Paperback
I tried to read volume 1 and ended up skipping through the book till it got to the 16 bit generation. Then it bogged down into censorship and congressional hearings and frankly became a very unpleasant stressful read. For some reason though, I decided to try the second volume. Thankfully the second volume is MUCH more interesting and entertaining than the first. Here we get the compelling story of the Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, then the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3. This is a REALLY interesting story because the game industry was hopping during this time went through immense changes. Also through this era some incredible talent in the industry was fired, quit, rose to fame, or died, so there's some real heart-rending stuff from one of the founders of Nintendo quitting after a failure then being killed in a road accident, to one of the creators of Final Fantasy nearly bankrupting Square and being forced to quit, which led to his defection to Xbox. All is not wine and roses though. There's numerous errors in this book. I'm talking about the same sentence being repeated in the next paragraph. This doesn't happen once. It happens a bunch of times. I think once time a phrase was repeated three times in three paragraphs. I'm talking someone is quoted then what they said is paraphrased then it's repeated AGAIN and a few times word for word. Not a game-breaker but VERY irritating when you are reading because it's a huge distraction. That feeds into the other problem of the book just having too much filler. Too much of the same info repeated over and over. Too much focus on the same couple of companies and developers and consoles. And as others have pointed out PC and mobile was completely ignored. I don't blame the book for having a narrow focus, but it REALLY needed a good editor (did it even HAVE an editor???). In addition there is some STRONG opinionated bias here that I at times found really annoying. I have never played Grand Theft Auto. I never will. I'm not a fan of 90% of Nintendo's First Party games. I didn't like any Halo game I've ever played except the third one (so far). I'm not that interested in Call of Duty. And yes, I am a HUGE gamer (I own over a thousand games and have over 16 consoles connected at any time). So the overall tone of these games praising violence and anarchy and the rock star lifestyle and calling some of my favorite games forgettable while ignoring indie games completely does rub me the wrong way in its almost worshipful praise of popular (profitable) culture and casual dismissal of everything else (No discussion of Rez? Or anything Mizuguchi did really? Yet he is quoted in the book talking about other games??? No talk about Flower and Journey (and its grammy nominated music) and the indie game revolution on Xbox Live and PSN???? REALLY????? All that said if you enjoy reading about corporate melodrama and multi-billion dollar deals in the world of video games this is the book for you. I really hope it gets a third volume that fills in the blanks and covers the modern gaming world, and it definitely needs a second edition that fixes all the mistakes and duplicate language, but for me personally it's still worth owning for sheer entertainment value. If you, like me, enjoy watching YouTube documentaries about the history of video games this book ought to be right up your alley. That is, if you enjoy the 90's through the early 2000's. If you want to know about Xbox One, PS4, PS5, X Box Series you'll have to wait for the next volume I suppose. Maybe next volume (or a side book) will go into the retro gaming phenomenon (I hope). Because THAT aspect of gaming culture could definitely use a book like this with this kind of compelling writing.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2021 by Strategos
Format: Paperback
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Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2021 by Sylvain