Game Over: Press Start to Continue

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Who has read that book?

Game Over: Press Start to Continue is a book about the history of Nintendo. I'm reading it now and it's really interesting.

If you're a Nintendo fan (or even if you're not) it's worth reading.

I like to read, mostly stories though, not documentary kind of shtuff.

I definately want it.

who is the author?



man..... you never see press start to continue anymore :'( :lol


†B†V† :hat

It's by David Sheff.

It goes into a lot of business stuff, like how Nintendo started out as a card manufacturer, how Atari crashed the video game industry, how Nintendo revived it, how Nintendo dealt with companies, etc. It's only current up to the SNES so there's not a lot of stuff about the N64 and nothing about the GC. But they got a lot of inside information, so you get to know about Yamauchi, Arakawa, Shiggy, Howard Lincoln, and other top Nintendo personnel. I'm not quite finished so I don't know yet if they mention anything about Iwata. So far I haven't even seen his name mentioned.

Some of my favorite parts are when they talk about Shigeru Miyamoto and how he came up with a lot of his game ideas. The two chapters about how Nintendo obtained the rights to Tetris are also really fascinating.

I don't know if most people know how Nintendo started out with the NES as far as third parties. Nintendo was pretty monopolistic because they didn't want the same thing that happened to Atari to happen to them. Atari crashed because so many crappy games flooded the market and people stopped buying them. So when Nintendo brought the NES to North America, they set up a system where 3rd parties had to submit their games to NOA and NOA would manufacture the cartridges if they approved of the game. Basically, NOA had all the control over game distribution and they could play favorites with third parties. The third parties started making more games, going for quantity over quality, so NOA tightened the reins even more, making it so that third parties could only make 5 games a year. NOA believed that this would force the developers to make better games. Some companies, like Konami, got around that by making other companies (all the NES games made under the Ultra label, like Skate or Die, are really Konami games). NOA also put a lock-out chip in the NES so that companies who refused to license with Nintendo couldn't make unlicensed games for it. This didn't stop others from trying though. Tengen (a label under Atari) actually stole NOA's copyright on the lock-out chip from the Copyright office and illegally reverse-engineered it so that they could make games that would work on the NES. NOA of course sued them.

Another interesting part is Nintendo's reasoning of why they backed out of the deal with Sony to make a CD add-on to the SNES. It was because if they had made the deal, Nintendo would basically have been out of the hardware business and wouldn't be independent. Sony would have taken over the making of the hardware, the advertising, the tie-ins, and would have received the royalties from the software that Nintendo developed. Nintendo would be doing most of the work while Sony would be making all the profit.

Seriously, there's so much neat information in the book. You should just read it. I got my copy at Electronics Boutique for $1.99.

Hahaha, it just goes to show how so many 3rd parties spite the quality of Nintendo!

Well I think they were clever, got better games that way.

Not really. Nintendo got sued a lot for doing that, just like Microsoft did. They are not as harsh with third parties this generation, and in fact I believe they stopped that practice before the SNES came out, as well.

interesting...is that why the Tengen carts were different from the others? I seem to remember having a funky shapped black cart at one point.

The whole deal with that licensing stuff sounds like self preservation to me.

Yeah. Nintendo was really hard on Tengen because they stole the copyright info. They went so far as to cut off supplies from any retailers who still sold the Tengen versions of games. They really wanted to send a message that they would not tolerate unlicensed games being sold for their system.

Sounds like a great book, especially for the price. I'll have to get it if I ever see it at Barnes and Noble.

You could probably special order it from a bookstore or online. I don't think any of the regular bookstores carry it instore. I've been wanting this book for about a year and never found it actually in a bookstore. I would look it up in the computer and it would say that I would have to have it ordered. It would cost more than if you could find it at EB but I think it's worth it. If I hadn't found it at EB I would have ended up ordering it from Borders.

If you're interested in video game books, there's another excellent one by Steven Kent called The Ultimate History of Video Games. That one covers all the systems up to the PSone and N64.

I just found it (Game Over) on Amazon for less than $8. I've always been a pretty big Nintendo fan (though I like the other systems as well), so it should be a good read.

yeah.... I wonder if thats what the 3rd parties did to Nintendo. To get back at them..... they crapped on the N64.

and acted interested in the Gamecube... and now are starting to crap on it..... giving th4e Gamecube the crappy versions...etc


I wonder if that is the reasoning. There is no way some of the games on the GAmecube (which got the worse rating) should have been like that.
Or I wonder if its coincidence.


regardless..... I do not like monopolies... but I do like the idea of crap control! Looks like we need that back for today!

†B†V† :hat

Actually, I don't think it would be wise if Nintendo brought that back, lol. Not with the state they're in with 3rd parties...

I wouldn't be surprised, BV. I also wouldn't be surprised if that's the reason why some retailers still give Nintendo the shaft.

Hey, it worked didn't it? Most of the NES games were great, but nowadays there's more crap than anything.