Reddit reviews The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434

if your interested in an over-all history of video games The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent is a good read with a focus on arcade and early console games while Tristan Donovan's Replay: The History of Video Games has more of a focus on the development of pc games.

Try reading The Ultimate History of Video Games. It goes through how the rating boards came about, and what it was like without them.

"The Ultimate History of Video Games" is a good one as well, which is where I learned of these events. In that book, you get to see Coleco, Mattel, and Atari's side of things along side Nintendo's.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434

> 1) "Miyamoto hated DKC" : No he didn't, and he has made that clear in interviews. That infamous line was taken out of context, he was pissed that producers were putting pressure on him to make Yoshi's Island look like DKC, and then he complained about people caring more about how a game looks than how it plays.

The Donkey Kong Country Miyamoto quote apparently comes from an interview with Steven L. Kent in the May 1995 issue of Electronic Games magazine. I've never read that issue, but Kent did reprint the quote in his book "The Ultimate History of Video Games" (great book btw).

> An interesting story lies behind Yoshi's Island. When Shigeru Miyamoto first demonstrated the game to Nintendo's marketing department, it was rejected because it had Mario-related graphics rather than the waxy, prerendered graphics of Donkey Kong Country. Rather than change to an artistic look he did not like, Miyamoto made the game even more cartoon-like, giving it a hand-drawn look. The second version was accepted

> Miyamoto, who is rightfully proud of his work, was offended that the first version was rejected. That same month, I interviewed Miyamoto and Tim Stamper, creator of Donkey Kong Country, together and noticed that Miyamoto was a bit hard on Stamper, making such statements as "Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good."

> In a later interview, Miyamoto admitted that Yoshi's Island had been a touchy subject at the time:

> I think that it happened after Donkey Kong Country was introduced. In comparison with the graphics of the Super Donkey Kong, there was not enough punch to Yoshi's Island. That was what I was told by the marketing people.

> I intensified my hand-drawn touch on Yoshi's Island from the initial part of the program. Everybody else was saying that they wanted better hardware and more beautiful graphics instead of this art.

> Even while I was working on the Super Mario World, I was thinking that the next hero should be Yoshi. Other people have created games based upon Yoshi. . . . Yoshi's World Hunters, Yoshi's Egg, Yoshi's Cookie, and so forth--games that I don't really like. So I decided that I should make an authentic Yoshi game.

He also repeated it on an episode of G4's Icons about DK.

I was glad that Miyamoto addressed this to IGN in 2010. For years, people used that quote as a lame excuse to hate on the DKC series. Like IGN founder Peer Schneider in the above linked Icons video:

> It's the epitome of bad game design. You're asked to collect all these different things that really don't do anything for the player. 5000 bananas. Yay, what does it get me? Nothing. It's just to keep you occupied and make you walk through the same levels again.

Yeah dipshit, that pretty much describes 95% of all video games.

This was my textbook from History of Electronic Gaming in college. Was the only textbook I ever read cover to cover. It covers more than arcades though so it might be a bit more than you're looking for.

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon--/dp/0761536434/ref=sr_1_1

Here's a few books I can recommend

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434

Up Up Down Down Left WRITE: The Freelance Guide to Video Game Journalism
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0989533506/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MSPBR3N4XXNTK22E7VBG

Critical Path: How to Review Videogames for a Living
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/098514372X/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MSPBR3N4XXNTK22E7VBG

The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual
https://www.amazon.com/Videogame-Style-Guide-Reference-Manual/dp/1430313056

Hope that helps!

I recently read an older book, http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434

The Nintendo chapter was a little confusing, with you and Howard Lincoln, but I powered through it. Have you read this book? Is it factual? I noticed a lot of known inaccuracies about Atari as I read through it.

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven Kent

Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World by David Sheff

Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds by J. C. Herz

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner

Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing by Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig De Peuter

Replay: The History of Video Games by Tristan Donovan

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture by Harold Goldberg

Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time by Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton

Phoenix: the Rise and Fall of Videogames by Leonard Herman.
The Ultimate History of Video Games by Stephen L. Kent.
High Score! by Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson
I hope these help. They are some of my favourites.

Great questions!

G4tv's Filter example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr4rZgV8BAE
G4tv's Icon example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubokT1_AZWo

While G4 had the ability to have gaming journalist on their shows (with a mix of fans) at this point, we won't, and I don't think they are necessary at this point. That's not exactly what we're looking to develop. You could read books based on the history of video games and get some much more from them than a video could ever provide (http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434), but ours isn't just the facts on the history of video games, it's the stories of those who were playing. I think a roundtable debate-type show would work wonderfully with industry veterans in a podcast, but that's not what we are working at.

We want to build a show that gives you the history and the story of the console/game/company, but also the perspective of the people who were playing the games, following the companies, and the impact it had on them. The countdowns are decided by industry professionals but by the people participating and the viewers themselves.

I really like the idea of what you're talking about, but that's not quite what we're going for at this time.

I love books on gaming history. If you're interested, I'd recommend Steven Kent's Ultimate History of Video Games and David Sheff's Game Over

I highly suggest this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348588635&sr=8-1&keywords=the+history+of+video+games

Older Atari arcade equipment had a pretty interesting testing process. They had the biggest guy in the company try to break them. If he could break it, you had to redesign it.

I think this was the book I read that in.

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4689418-4815003?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188143982&sr=8-1

Your local library might even have it... this book is freaking great.

The hardware was licensed out by the creator, Trip Hawkins. If you really want some info on the history of video games, read this.

This was also the first arcade game that charged 50 cents instead of the de facto standard 25. Rather controversial, but justified when you consider the technology.

Also pulled out my http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon--/dp/0761536434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323953193&sr=8-1 copy. No mention there, but the Dragon's Lair unit cost $4,300 (which is just under $10,000.00 in today's dollars) which could justify a 100% price increase.

You can also google "dragon's lair 50 cents" and find plenty of other confirmations.

edit: added citation original PDF from Spartanburg

Just giving a glance at the full playlist, I can see a couple of one-off filler episodes. I can also understand the need to expand to doing a genre episode, like MMO, instead of just sticking to a single company.

This kind of content in general is the stuff I love. The recent Game Informer has something like a 10 page article on Ubisoft that is absolutely great. One of my favorite books is still The Ultimate History of Video Games

I think I could literally watch 100 hours of content just like "All Your History".

I'm not going to continue to argue with you because it's clear that we're not going to agree.

However, if you're interested in the evolution of the game industry, there are some good resources for you I can recommend. And yes, oversaturation was a problem but there were many societal factors as well.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death-of-the-american-arcade-for-amusement-only

This is a fairly concise article that could be a summary of https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434 which is more in depth but really recommended. I enjoyed it greatly, its fascinating.

you should read this book a very interesting reading.

The Ultimate History of Video Games?

If you read the Steven Kent book, Chuck E Cheese was a way to get arcades into neighborhoods and jurisdictions that were biased against opening video arcades for various reasons.

The ultimate history of videogames is really good, the audiobook has an awesome narrator

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434

I know this isn't a movie, but The Ultimate History of Video Games is a pretty great read. By this point, its age is showing a bit (it only goes up through the end of the 90's), but it covers the early history of video games really well, and includes a number of pretty great anecdotes in there.

I highly recommend this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-History-Video-Games/dp/0761536434

I also love talking about it, so if there's any questions you have i would be happy to answer.

Sega didn't fail because of clinging to former greatness, it failed because of spending ridiculous amounts of money on periphials that forced consumers to pay more money for a slight upgrade in graphics. (It's pretty well documented.)[http://www.denofgeek.com/uk] I also suggest this (book)[https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434]

That said, the Wii U's success or lack of has nothing to do with Nintendo being the leader in gaming hardware as it is. Simply put, Nintendo, even with lackluster sales of the Wii-U has sold more than 200 million units in total than it's closest competitor.

If you were winning a race by 50% more than your closest rival, there is no way anyone could say you were trying to catch up to anyone unless they were talking about you lapping someone else.

Further more, let me play it your way, where we limit this race to just the current generation of systems. Nintendo has already announced the NX and that they are not supporting the Wii U. I don't know about you, but if I am losing a race and quit, noone can accuse me of trying to catch up. I'm already planning for the next race.

So either way, Nintendo isn't playing catch up.

I really enjoyed The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent.

I liked this one a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-History-Video-Games-Pokemon/dp/0761536434

This book goes over the gory details quite nicely. It was an enjoyable read. Atari had quite a colorful history.

Maybe not a direct study on the medium, but The Ultimate History of Video Games is a very good book with a ton of good content and does address the abstract medium to some degree. It's also just a super interesting book.

Find this book and you will find your answers.

And here's a decent timeline.