Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children

by David Sheff

Book Overview

Through its video-game system, Nintendo has dominated a growing industry and has transformed itself into one of the world's most successful and influential corporations. The success of the Nintendo invasion is one of remarkable invention and marketing, but it also depends on a ruthless scorched-earth policy rarely seen in any industry. The company uses "whatever is required -- threats, intimidation, coercion." Nintendo has swallowed up the toy and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679404694
• ISBN13: 9780679404699
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 445 Pages
• Weight: 1.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Wow... I read this in 5th grade and it was worth it!

Wow... I read this in 5th grade and it was worth it! And then I read it again in eigth grade... The reason i love this book so much is that i won the contest for Nintendo with the information in this book. (animal crossing pioneer) Well, I can't say enough for this book. I own the hardback, and plan to get the updated paperback soon!

Perfect for anyone who would consider themself a gamer

I picked this book up at an Electronics Boutique, thinking that it would contain nothing that I didn't know about the history of Nintendo. In fact, I simply planned to use it for my English report, then give it to my little brother. After reading about 5 pages, I was hooked, my head swelling with a plethora of new facts and stories about Nintendo that I never knew existed. This book is so descriptive that you can almost see the length of Shigeryu Miyamoto's (game designer for Nintendo) shoelaces. I had no idea that a book could be so interesting and informative. Get this one immediately.

Excellent Book

I was caught up in the Pokemon craze for a while and when I came across this book about Nintendo, the game company that distributed the game, I just had to read it. I was not to regret it.The author had an easy style, one that merged dry facts with a fair amount of story telling. He also managed to throw in suspense at regular intervals, just like a novel. But that is what makes this book, in my opinion, an excellent one. There are serious lessons in business to be learned from this book, yet the author managed to tell it in a easily digestible style. Perhaps, it has got to do with his extensive experience in writing articles for magazines.While it detailed the history of Nintendo and how it rose from a humble card-making operation to the dominant player in the world of video-games, I was more impressed with the management lessons that could be learned from the marketing genius of the company. Yamauchi, the person behind Nintendo, was clearly an astute businessman in his own right. While not as famous as the late Morita, he clearly has a place among the very best of Japanese businessmen in the 1980s.The book also revealed the legal and social environment of the 1980s and early 1990s. In a country like America where litigation can be considered a profit centre of a large corporation, Nintendo was faced with several legal suits that could potentially cost it millions of dollars, including the possibility of bankruptcy. Coupled with the fact that America at that time was also faced with one of the largest trade deficits with Japan and Japan-bashing was the call of the day, how Nintendo managed to survive those years was another interesting sub-plot in the book.My favourite sub-plot must have been how Atari managed to illegally get access of Nintendo's technology through the Copyright Office, the department meant to preserve intellectual property in the first place. If nothing else, it showed the fallibility of the legal system and the craftiness and desperation of the video-games companies.My only complaint is that the author has not come up with a newer edition that charts Nintendo's progress in the last few years especially with phenomenal hits like Pokemon that Nintendo has come up with. Also, the impact of PS2 from Sony on Nintendo will make interesting reading. I would definitely like to know about those developments.All in, it was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the industry of video games. I also recommend it to Nintendo fans or managers and entrepreneurs who want to know more about growing new products and companies. I am confident that even picking one tip from the book is worth the time reading it.

Excellent handbook on Nintendo's past.

Game Over is a terrific account of Nintendo's past, and is must reading for video game enthusiasts and historians. Mr. Sheff had what seemed to be unparalleled access to Nintendo's inner workings, and brought back a fascinating story on a family business made good in the international community. Unfortunately, the book falls for Nintendo's predictions for the future (many of which were designed by Nintendo solely to draw attention away from its rivals rather than to provide insight into their future business plans.) As long as the last parts of the book that attempt to chart the future course for video games and Nintendo are ignored, the book stands as an important work in video game journalism.I do have a few complaints with the contents and focus of the book; there are the usual small factual errors which may obscure future historical video game research; there are the regurgitations of various industry spokesmen without proper interpretations; and there is the unwavering focus on Nintendo which tends to downplay the parts played by their competitors/rivals in the industry. I have yet to read the updated version of Game Over (Press Start to Continue), and the new version may rectify some or all of these shortcomings. Regardless, Game Over stands as a slightly flawed, but amazingly useful research tool and entertaining book.

An excellent book, well written and a page turner

I picked this one up in the bargain bin of a local bookstore recently, and figured that it would be an interesting look at the company behind so many hours of my entertainment when I was a kid.I was surprised to find a very interesting, well written, and in-depth book talking about all the major players in the industry, from the executives of Nintendo to the game designers at the individual software houses.This book is a great deal of fun and you always want to see what's going happen next. Sheff makes it so dramatic that you wonder whether he's making it all up because its almost too good to be true.