Console Wars Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Katie, the girl with the shiny eyes

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  FOREWORD BY SETH ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: GENESIS

  1. THE OPPORTUNITY

  2. R & D

  3. THE STORY OF TOM KALINSKE

  4. RUDE AWAKENING

  5. THE HISTORY OF NOA

  6. THE NAME OF THE GAME

  7. POSTCARDS FROM ARKANSAS

  8. THE BIRTH OF AN ICON

  9. TRIPPED UP

  10. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

  11. LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE

  12. THE REVOLUTION WILL BE PIXELATED

  PART TWO: SONIC VS. MARIO

  13. THE WINDS OF CHANGE

  14. SEGAVILLE

  15. THE PHYSICIST IS DISPLEASED

  16. ROPE-A-DOPE

  17. SHOWDOWN

  18. THE UNDERDOG DAYS OF SUMMER

  19. THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

  20. WORTH WAITING FOR

  21. THE HEART AND THE BRAIN

  PHOTO SECTION

  PART THREE: THE NEXT LEVEL

  22. TARGET PRACTICE

  23. SEQUELS, SKIRMISHES, AND BASEBALL IN SEATTLE

  24. FYRIRGEFNING SYNDANNA

  25. BACK 2 WORK

  26. ORIGIN STORIES

  27. SOMETHING BEYOND VIDEOGAMES

  28. BOCA

  29. AFTER THE BLACKOUT, BUT

  BEFORE THE SURGE

  30. JUST DO IT

  31. TOO HOT, TOO COLD, AND JUST RIGHT

  32. THE KUTARAGI DREAM MACHINE

  33. A QUICK LAP AROUND VICTORY LANE

  34. COPS AND ROBBERS

  35. SHOSHINKAI

  36. PROMETHEUS REVISITED

  37. THE SEGA-SONY-NINTENDO LOVE TRIANGLE

  38. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

  39. AND AWAY WE GO!

  PART FOUR: CIVIL WAR

  40. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

  41. FUGU

  42. BARBARIANS AT THE GATE

  43. MAGIC CARPET RIDE

  44. CRAZY LIKE A FOX

  45. UNACCEPTABLE

  46. BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TIERS

  47. THE MAN WHO CAME FROM PEPSI

  48. MARCH OF THE LEMMINGS

  49. SWITCHING SIDES

  50. THE TIPPING POINT

  51. THE LAST AND BEST OF THE PETER PANS

  PART FIVE: THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE

  52. NEXT GEN

  53. MAN’S BEST FRIEND

  54. NIGHT TRAPPED

  55. IT’S JUST WINDY . . . NOT A METAPHOR

  56. COMBAT PAY

  57. LIFE ON MARS

  58. ROSES ARE RED

  59. BLAST FROM THE PAST

  60. KINGS OF THE JUNGLE

  61. AND THEN THERE WERE THREE

  62. FORK IN THE ROAD

  63. KILLER INSTINCT

  64. GAME OVER

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  FOREWORD BY SETH ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG

  SETH

  Hi! Welcome to the foreword for Console Wars by legendary author Blake J. Harris!

  EVAN

  Videogames are great, but books about videogames are even better!

  SETH

  We grew up as videogames were on the rise, and they played a major role in our upbringing.

  EVAN

  And that’s why we couldn’t say no when Blake asked us to write a 2,500-word foreword for this awesome book you will love reading!

  SETH

  How many words is that?

  EVAN

  Like, 150.

  SETH

  Crap. Okay, what next?

  Evan thinks intensely and an idea comes to him.

  EVAN

  Let’s talk about what systems we preferred.

  SETH

  Solid idea, partner-ino!

  EVAN

  I preferred Nintendo.

  SETH

  I preferred Sega. I’ll never forget the first time I ripped someone’s spine out playing Mortal Kombat.

  EVAN

  Yeah, Sega always seemed to go to a place that Nintendo didn’t, and that opened the doors for videogames that weren’t just targeted at kids but teenagers and even . . . adults. I don’t think games like Grand Theft Auto would even exist without Sega making games that went places Nintendo never would have gone.

  SETH

  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But Mortal Kombat definitely felt like a wonderful step in a new direction at the time. I was awesome at it too. Sub-Zero was my man.

  EVAN

  Me too. Hey, here’s a Sega question: what was up with Sonic and Tails?

  SETH

  What? It was just your classic platonic speedster hedgehog and two-tail fox relationship.

  EVAN

  I felt some tension there. Sexual.

  SETH

  Oh, it was sexual.

  Seth and Evan exchange awkward looks in what is clearly a sexually charged moment of their own.

  SETH

  How many words we at?

  EVAN

  I’d say 400-ish.

  SETH

  Use letters. Four-hundred-ish. It takes up way more space.

  EVAN

  Mega true. I’ll say it in letters from now on. Like four-zero-zero.

  SETH

  Don’t hyphenate them, dumbass. It makes them count as one word. [sigh] Here’s a videogame fact that will take up at least thirty-five words.

  EVAN

  What is it?

  SETH

  I used to own a power glove. I got it right when it came out.

  EVAN

  Sweet petunia bush! Please elaborate using as many words as possible!

  SETH

  It didn’t work that well at all. I remember the bad-ass dude in The Wizard (arguably the most important videogame movie of all time), and mine didn’t work worth crap.

  EVAN

  I was always confused by TurboGrafx-16. As far as I recall, there were only two games for it. Keith Courage and Bonk’s Adventure. I only ever played Keith Courage.

  SETH

  I played Bonk’s Adventure. A friend of mine had it, and it truly blew my mind. I also remember renting Sega CD in high school. It had that raunchy horror game with real controversy surrounding it.

  EVAN

  Yup, that was Night Trap. You had to stop drill-wielding serial killers from impaling sorority girls. That was the first time I remember thinking to myself, “Well they have just gone too far this time.” And I was twelve or something . . .

  SETH

  Then came Sega Saturn, and kind of shat the bed.

  EVAN

  And then there was Goldeneye.

  SETH

  I would confidently say the reason I never really had a girlfriend in high school was because of Goldeneye. I specifically remember leaving parties to go play it.

  EVAN

  Our favorite level was the Facility. We would sit with our buddy Fogell for hours and hours on end and play it.

  SETH

  I memorized every level. The game was as much about watching your friend’s screen as your own.

  EVAN

  When I went off to college, I met a group of guys from out east that were way better at Goldeneye than we ever were, and it crushed me. They were operating at a whole other level.

  SETH

  Then you got super into Super Smash Brothers.

  EVAN

  Yeah. It was on Nintendo 64. My buddies and I would have tournaments that would go for hours: entire evenings. I was the nimble-foot
ed puffball of power, Kirby.

  SETH

  That game makes no sense. The whole thing is based on a percentage of the likelihood that you’re going to fall off a magical island, and it goes up to like 600 percent and that’s bad and you’re actually trying to keep your score low, which I find confusing and counterintuitive.

  EVAN

  Well, games are getting continuously confusing. I don’t even know what my grandparents would think if they played Grand Theft Auto.

  SETH

  Remember when Martin Starr and I taught you to drive around LA when you first moved here by playing the game True Crime: Streets of LA, because it had a realistic map of Los Angeles?

  EVAN

  That was sincerely helpful. It’s crazy how they started doing stuff like that.

  SETH

  I bet soon games will start calling our cell phones and e-mailing us and stuff.

  EVAN

  Maybe that’s how Skynet finally happens and we all end up in a Terminator/Matrix nightmare version of the future where mankind is nearly wiped out and machines rule the world.

  SETH

  Well, I guess it’s time to address the elephant in the room— porno. We all know we’re going to be getting dirty with our videogames, and if not us, our children, or our children’s children.

  EVAN

  The future can wait. We have to live in the now!

  SETH

  You’re right. These days I mostly like to play games where you shoot people. Call of Duty, GTA5, and such.

  EVAN

  I’m an iPad tower defense addict. There’s something wrong with me. I just love games where things are sent in waves and I get to destroy them with strategy.

  SETH

  That’s a dark want.

  EVAN

  It’s who I am.

  SETH

  A crazy thing I think about sometimes is that there are teenagers operating videogames connected to deadly drones that fly around the world blowing stuff up. That eighties movie War Games is real now. And what to us is a nonthreatening drone will eventually probably turn into, yes, Skynet. All roads lead to Skynet.

  EVAN

  I think at this point most people would agree that a robot takeover is how things end. I’m personally at peace with that inevitability.

  SETH

  I still can’t get over the whole Nintendo Wii revolution, with these games you have to move around to. When we were growing up, playing videogames made you fat and lazy, not nimble and coordinated.

  EVAN

  I really got into Wii Fit for a while. It was pretty addictive at first but then it made fun of me too much and mucked up my self-esteem.

  SETH

  Now kids are getting their self-esteem messed with through videogames way more than when we were kids, thanks to this whole online gaming thing.

  EVAN

  I try to get into online gaming every now and then, and I constantly find there’s young kids out there who are so much better than me I can’t even participate.

  SETH

  Yeah. It’s weird to think we are thirty-one and already we can’t keep up.

  EVAN

  Eventually we won’t even understand the images on the screen.

  SETH

  Like how my grandmother would view death metal.

  EVAN

  I’m not a huge fan of death metal myself.

  SETH

  “Death Metal” ’s a great name for a videogame.

  EVAN

  I read once that the band Journey had a videogame where you could put your face onto the main character. I want that. It’s silly that I can’t be the character in the game yet.

  SETH

  Yeah. And it’d be cool if it used your contact list for names and incorporated your real life a lot.

  EVAN

  But then, once again, robots would take over the world.

  SETH

  So what we’re realizing here is videogames may not ever get better than they are now, because if they did, robots would take over the world.

  EVAN

  I think so.

  SETH

  How many words is that?

  EVAN

  About 2,300.

  SETH

  Then let’s take this full-circle and connect it to the book our honorable reader is about to read: Nintendo was king of home videogame entertainment systems, then Sega came in and was a contender for the crown. Sega almost toppled Nintendo with their subversive and more adult-oriented games, and these games have led us to a world where GTA and Call of Duty are the top games, and the next step is to have the games incorporate stuff about us and our personal lives, and then sentient technology will inevitably disassociate from mankind and some robot like Skynet will rise up and destroy us all. Hence: the “Console Wars” between Nintendo and Sega is what began a series of events that will lead to the end of humanity as we know it.

  EVAN

  Bam! That’s what videogames mean to us.

  SETH

  Damn. I think we nailed this foreword stuff. Our style may have been unconventional, but we ultimately tied it to the downfall of mankind, which is cool.

  EVAN

  I couldn’t agree more. Our next movie should be called Foreword and be about this process.

  SETH

  Or Foreskin and be about a circumcision that changed humanity forever.

  EVAN

  Both good ideas.

  SETH

  Okay. We should probably get home to our wives now.

  EVAN

  Yes. We love our wives. Let that be noted.

  SETH

  See you at work!

  EVAN

  Ditto!

  Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are childhood friends, and the writer/director/producers of This Is the End and The Interview. Together, the duo has also written and produced Knocked Up, Superbad, and Pineapple Express.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Console Wars is a narrative account based on information obtained from hundreds of interviews. Re-creating a story of this nature, which draws from the recollections of a multitude of sources, can often lead to inconsistencies; particularly when dealing with industry competitors and especially when dealing with events that took place more than two decades ago. As such, I have re-created the scenes in this book using the information uncovered from my interviews, facts gathered from supporting documents, and my best judgment as to what version most closely fits the documentary record.

  In certain situations, details of settings and description have been altered, reconstructed, or imagined. Additionally, most of the dialogue in this book has been re-created based on source recollections of content, premise, and tone. Some of the conversations recounted in this book took place over extended periods of time or in multiple locations, but have been condensed, or reorganized in a slightly different manner, while remaining true to the integrity and spirit of all original discussions.

  PROLOGUE

  In 1987, Tom Kalinske was at a crossroads. He had spent the better part of his career working at Mattel, where he enjoyed towering success transforming the Barbie line from a niche, has-been series of dolls into a timeless, billion-dollar property. Recognizing his potential, the company groomed him to become their next president. But shortly after taking the reins at only thirty-eight years old, he found himself embroiled in a dangerous game of office politics. With no resolution in sight, Kalinske decided that rather than wage an internal war, he’d prefer to fight an external one. So he ceded control of Mattel to a rival executive, and left the company to become president of a competitor: Universal Matchbox.

  Although Matchbox’s toy cars had historically gone toe-to-toe with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand, when Kalinske took over, his new company was hemorrhaging money and had recently been placed into receivership. He knew this going in—it was part of what had enticed him—but taking on Goliath eagerly didn’t do much to change the incline of the uphill battle ahead. To revive the wounded company from rece
ivership and give Hot Wheels (and, of course, Mattel) a run for their money, Kalinske needed to reorganize Matchbox, and do so in a flash. He spent the next couple of years traveling the globe and implementing ambitious restructuring plans, much of which hinged on moving all production to labor-cheap regions in Asia.

  By 1990, his strategies appeared to be working and Matchbox had become relevant again. They were still miles away from bridging the gap with Mattel, but with revenue now over $350 million, the company had managed to turn a profit for the first time in years. Matchbox cars were starting to sell all around the world—except, for some reason, in Spain. So Kalinske went there to find out why not.

  After arriving in Barcelona, Kalinske hopped in a cab to meet with the distributor in charge of selling Matchbox cars in the Spanish territories. Instead of embarrassing himself by trying to pronounce the address where he was headed, he simply passed the distributor’s business card to the cabdriver. The driver glanced at the card, noticed the Matchbox logo, and nodded.

  Kalinske was baffled. His distributor worked out of a tiny office; how could this driver possibly know where to go based on only the logo? Once again, Kalinske tried to present the business card to the driver only to be waved off. “Matchbox, sí,” the driver said firmly. Kalinske was confused, but ultimately he decided he wasn’t a Spanish cabdriver and it wasn’t his job to know such things. He leaned back, took in the panoramic view of a sprawling Barcelona, and tried to remember if you’re supposed to tip cabdrivers in Spain or not.

  Shortly thereafter, the driver stopped in front of a large yellow building. Kalinske stepped out of the cab and compared the address to the one on the business card. It didn’t match. In broken Spanish, Kalinske tried to argue with the driver, but the guy remained insistent that this was the right place. Kalinske finally gave in and told the driver to wait outside as he entered the building. But as soon as he stepped inside, he was greeted by a surprise.

  Thousands of surprises, actually. The building turned out to be an industrial factory, churning out tiny die-cast Matchbox cars by the minute. Huh? Kalinske had moved all production to Asia, so why were shiny little cars shooting off a rusty conveyor belt in Spain? Was this why profits had been lagging? Who’d authorized this?