As someone who typically cheers for the underdog, I enjoyed seeing the arrogant Nintendo caught off-guard by the upstart Sega.
One of the most interesting times in the relatively short history of video games is the 1990s. As the decade dawned, Nintendo had risen from the ashes of the industry crash in the late 1980s to become the dominant video game company. Nintendo threw its weight around like a sumo wrestler, keeping potential competitors at bay. That all changed when Tom Kalinske became CEO of Sega of America. This former Mattel and Matchbox CEO launched a series of aggressive strategies that turned the company into a force that Nintendo had to acknowledge and respect.
Console Wars, a documentary directed by Blake J. Harris and Jonah Tulis and based on Harris’ book of the same name, tells the story of this period in video game history. Spanning between 1990 and 1995, the film is chock full of interviews with industry insiders. Names like Howard Lincoln, Shinoba Toyoda, Peter Main, and Ellen Beth Van Buskirk might not mean anything to the average gamer, but they all play crucial roles in the film as well as gaming history.
Using animated sequences — modeled after 16-bit game screens — and footage from industry events, commercials, and news broadcasts, the film does an excellent job putting the audience into the mood of the times. Especially effective is the section of the movie devoted to the controversy surrounding violence in video games like Mortal Kombat.
As someone who typically cheers for the underdog, I enjoyed seeing the arrogant Nintendo caught off-guard by the upstart Sega. The pride of the Sega executives who were instrumental in the company’s turnaround is visible in the interviews shown here. Even the Nintendo personnel that we hear from remain a bit bitter about some of Sega’s tactics and Nintendo’s slow response.
For those with little to no interest in video games, Console Wars won’t inspire someone to hunt down a Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo to see what all the fuss was about. But for gamers who lived through this era as kids or young adults, the movie will fire up a craving for a few levels of Donkey Kong Country or Sonic the Hedgehog.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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