The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (92 page)
Authors: Steven Kent
Sega will adopt a multi-platform or platform-agnostic role or view of the video game hardware industry. We will develop content for multiple devices from cell phones right through and including video game systems—including those from our competitors.
Secondly, Sega is confirming effective immediately a cease of the manufacture of the Sega Dreamcast system. And effective as of April 1, 2001, we
will have completed a management reorganization and a restructuring of Sega as a company to purely be focusing on a multiplatform strategy as a third-party publisher to multiple platforms.—Charles Bellfield
It took Sega 22 months to sell 6.5 million Dreamcasts worldwide. By comparison, Sony shipped 10 million PlayStation 2s in under 15 months, and its sales kept accelerating. With Sony squeezing Dreamcast out of the market and Nintendo and Microsoft preparing to launch new consoles of their own, Sega chairman Isao Okawa pulled his company out of the hardware business.
But Sega’s dark times were only beginning. Okawa was losing a personal battle with cancer. Even as he struggled to find a new direction for his company, Okawa’s body was failing him and he had to check into Tokyo University Medical Hospital. In his absence, Hideki Sato, the former head of Sega’s software engineering, temporarily took the helm. Though Sato bravely maintained that Okawa was recovering,
*
that simply was not the case. In his last days, Okawa forgave Sega’s debts to him and returned all of his shares of Sega and CSK stock as a gift—in Sega’s case, a $695 million gift that would help the company survive the transition of becoming a multiplatform software manufacturer. On March 16, at 3:47
P.M.
, 74-year-old Isao Okawa died of congestive heart failure.
Upon learning of his friend’s death, Sega cofounder David Rosen sent the following telegram:
To the Family of Mr. Isao Okawa:
I am very saddened to learn of the passing of my friend and business associate, Mr. Isao Okawa. He was a man of great vision, who dedicated his energy and his many abilities to whatever task he undertook. He always maintained a very strong sense of responsibility.
Mr. Okawa was always ready to listen and explore new ideas. He was an inspiration to the younger staff as well as management of Sega.
He was a man with charisma, who loved music and good conversation.
My wife and I always found Okawa-san to be gracious and kind. We will miss him and retain fond memories of our past times together.
Sincerely,
David & Masako Rosen
When Sega and CSK held a special memorial service for Okawa a few months later, more than 6,000 people arrived to pay their respects to the man who had become a citizen of the world. Okawa, who started his career as an engineer before opening CSK and making the calculating investments that eventually made him a billionaire, was better known for his charitable foundations than for the companies he owned.
As one would expect, if you’ve met him or sat across a conference table from him, he did everything, even his passing away, in a very organized and dignified manner. Over a number of months prior to his passing, it was one of the better getting your affairs in order before you leave type situations that I’ve ever seen in my life.
I was privileged enough to go over two weeks ago to Japan to take part in the corporate funeral, which was attended by over 6,000 people, including Idei-san (chairman of Sony) and Kutaragi-san (president of Sony Computer Entertainment)…. And I was the only gaijan [Caucasian] on the corporate receiving line that welcomed and said goodbye to the guests. It was an incredible affair that laid testimony to the effect that this man has had on the industry in Japan in general and in the computer services and digital entertainment world in particular.
More than 6,000 were physically present, and it was Web cast to CSK offices in other cities.
—Peter Moore
Video games, once thought to be a fad, have worked their way into the fabric of international culture. At present, Sony has shipped more than 80 million PlayStations worldwide and Nintendo has sold more than 110 million Game Boys. With every successive generation, the video game industry keeps growing.
And what of the people who built the industry? Odyssey designer Ralph Baer is retired; Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, is still a rogue entrepreneur looking for his next big Chuck E. Cheese; Howard Lincoln, who rose from corporate counsel to chairman of Nintendo, celebrated his sixtieth birthday by retiring from Nintendo to become the CEO of the Seattle Mariners; Vice President Al Gore selected Senator Joseph Lieberman as his running mate in his bid for the presidency; and Trip Hawkins, unwilling to give up after the demise of his hardware system, converted 3DO into a highly successful software publisher. On January 8, 2002, 55-year-old Minoru Arakawa shocked the industry by announcing his decision to retire effective immediately. At one time, Arakawa looked like the heir apparent to take over the company when Nintendo Co., Ltd. president Hiroshi Yamauchi retired. But Yoko Arakawa, Minoru’s wife and Yamauchi’s daughter, did not want to return to Japan.
In many ways, this book has become the project that never ends. I had hoped to finish the book in 1995, then 1996. In 2000, I finally published the damned thing myself. How could I have known that the next six months would become some of the most eventful months in the history of gaming—Midway Games finally abandoned the floundering coin-op video game business, Bill Gates introduced Xbox, Nintendo unveiled GameCube and launched Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2 launched in the United States, Sega discontinued Dreamcast, and Isao Okawa passed away.
I am grateful that Prima Publishing has bought this book, but the deadline my editors set came up before the early November launches of GameCube and Xbox. And bigger battles are brewing. A recent study published in England predicts that the interactive entertainment market will double in size and could be as big as $49 billion worldwide.
To put it another way, the game never ends.
*
The processing chip in the 2600 was named “Stella” in honor of Decuir’s bicycle.
*
Several newspapers, including
USA Today
and the
Wall Street Journal
, published articles with Xbox specifications that proved incorrect when the final specs were released. (I wrote the article for
USA Today.
)
*
Isao Okawa constantly pushed Sega to create Internet content and insisted that Dreamcast include a modem.
*
Sony eventually “scrapped”
Gran Turismo 2000
and released a much-improved game called
Gran Turismo 3
in June 2001.
*
For the record, I was the reporter covering this story for
USA Today.
*
I was interviewed by
NBC Nightly News
on this subject. My speculation was that if any truth lay behind this rumor, it meant that “Saddam’s nephews were going to get a nice surprise under the old Ramadan tree.”
*
A toy robot dog created by Sega and marketed by Tiger Electronics.
*
I happened to meet with Sato the day that Mr. Okawa passed away, and Sato still claimed that Okawa was getting better and would soon return to the company.
Chapter 6: The Jackals1.
Levy, Steven,
Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1984). The most comprehensive work that exists on this pivotal period in the history of computing. Though Steve Russell was helpful and offered much information, I found myself very dependent upon Steve Levy’s book and direct any reader who wishes to know more about the beginnings of the computer revolution to Mr. Levy’s book.
1.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 34.
Chapter 7: “Could You Repeat That Two More Times?”2.
Ibid., p. 42.
Chapter 8: Strange Bedfellows1.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 50.
1.
Herman, Leonard,
Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Videogames
(Springfield, NJ: Rolenta Press, 1994), pp. 18–21.
2.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 52.
3.
Herman, Leonard,
Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Videogames
(Springfield, NJ: Rolenta Press, 1994), p. 20.
4.
Robbins, Joe, “Arcades and Equipment Sales: Candid Thoughts,”
RePlay Magazine
(March 1976): 58.
Chapter 9: The Return of Bushnell5.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 57.
Chapter 10: The Golden Age (Part 1)1.
Bloom, Steven,
Video Invaders
(New York: Arco Publishing, 1982), p. 21.
Chapter 11: The Golden Age (Part 2)1.
This history has been taken from:
http://zonn.com/Cinematronics/history.htm
.
1.
Skow, John, “Games That People Play,”
Time
(January 18, 1982): 50–58.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Ibid.
Chapter 13: A Case of Two Gorillas4.
Ibid.
1.
“Boom Times in Bad,”
Fortune
(February 7, 1983): 6.
2.
Most of the information from this section was taken from
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co. Ltd.
, 615 Federal Supplement (District Court of New York, 1985), pp. 838–865.
3.
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co. Ltd.
, 615 Federal Supplement (District Court of New York, 1985), p. 845.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Ibid.
8.
Ibid.
9.
Ibid., p. 862.
10.
Ibid., p. 842.
Chapter 14: The Fall11.
Ibid., p. 859.
1.
Quote taken from Jeff Lee’s
History of Q*Bert
site on the Internet
(
http://users.aol.com/JPMLee/qbert.htm
)
.
2.
Ibid.
3.
Alexander, Charles P., “Video Games Go Crunch,”
Time
(October 17, 1993): 65.
4.
Marbach, William D., and Peter McAlevey, “A New Galaxy of Video Games,”
Newsweek
(October 25, 1982): 123.
5.
Wiswell, Phil, “Hard $ell, Atari’s 5200 Will Take You for a Ride,”
Video Games
(February 1983): 94.
6.
Marbach, William D., and Peter McAlevey, “A New Galaxy of Video Games,”
Newsweek
(October 25, 1982): 123.
7.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 114.
Chapter 15: The Aftermath8.
Alexander, Charles P., “Video Games Go Crunch,”
Time
(October 17, 1993): 64.
1.
Much of this information is taken from Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), pp. 149–150.
2.
Cohen, Scott,
Zap! The Rise and Fall of Atari
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984), p. 150.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Taub, Scott, “A Noisy Decline: The Saga of Pizza Time Theater Runs into Difficulties as Sales Slide and Enthusiasm Wanes,”
Financial World
(November 30, 1983): 40.
5.
“The Zinger of Silicon Valley; Morgan Uses Drastic Measures in an Attempt to Save Atari,”
Time
(February 6, 1984).
6.
Ibid.