Blake J. Harris > Quotes

“There was no such thing as a magic touch, and it wouldn’t have mattered if there were, because the only thing it takes to sell toys, vitamins, or magazines is the power of story. That was the secret. That was the whole trick: to recognize that the world is nothing but chaos, and the only thing holding it (and us) together are stories. And Kalinske realized this in a way that only people who have been there and done that possibly can: that when you tell memorable, universal, intricate, and heartbreaking stories, anything is possible.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“the Super NES, which would hit stores on August 23, 1991. All systems would come with the groundbreaking new Super Mario World game, while four others would immediately be available for purchase: F-Zero, Pilotwings, Gradius III, and SimCity.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“So after the family moved to New Jersey, she formally became NOA’s first employee and helped select a location for the new company’s office. Arakawa and his wife settled on a small space on the seventeenth floor of a Manhattan high-rise located in the center of the toy district at 25th Street and Broadway.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“By 1990, Nintendo of America had sold nearly thirty million consoles, resulting in an NES in one out of every three homes.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“There’s a way of looking at this where I’m the hero who chops through the bullshit and oppression in order to come out the other end with a spoonful of freedom.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega Vs Nintendo - and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“This task was given to Shigeru Miyamoto, a floppy-haired first-time game designer who idealistically believed that videogames should be treated with the same respect given to books, movies, and television shows.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“I’ll just be the guy who was there for the fall. No one will remember anything before that.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Arakawa and his wife settled on a small space on the seventeenth floor of a Manhattan high-rise located in the center of the toy district at 25th Street and Broadway.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Although Sony would go on to sell ten million PlayStation systems by the end of 1996 (with more than half of those sales occurring in the United States), most of SCEA’s key executives would be fired or let go within a year of the launch.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“they weren’t as interested in winning as they were in not losing.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“insular,”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Kalinske suggested that the vitamins be shaped like characters that kids liked, and arranged for the licensing rights to a recently syndicated cartoon from the animation company Hanna-Barbera. This deal resulted in the creation of a successful new product called Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“inspired by a mythical creature from Japanese folklore. According to legend, certain Japanese red foxes, or kitsune, magically grow an additional tail for every thousand years they have lived.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“So that’s what the cigarettes are for,” Mitchell noted, as McCauley broke out a carton of Marlboro Reds and started divvying up packs to the engineers. And little by little, the scheduling estimates started to improve. That mold they said would take a week? Maybe it would really only take three days.”
― Blake J. Harris, The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality

“In the next five days, Bud Selig, the franchise’s proud new owner, changed the team name from the Pilots to the Brewers, in honor of the Milwaukee minor league team that he had cheered on as a boy. Though he was able to change the name, there was not enough time to order new uniforms with the navy and red colors from those Brewers teams of yesteryear. Instead, the newly minted Milwaukee Brewers were forced to adopt the blue and gold of the Seattle Pilots, a color scheme that the team still wears to this day,”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“These people were highly talented and certainly not lazy, but deep down they weren’t as interested in winning as they were in not losing.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“evidence suggests that its popularity spread from Disney’s 1958 Academy Award–winning documentary White Wilderness, which highlighted this unusual and unnatural behavior. Although it was later discovered that the filmmakers had flown in the featured lemmings from Canada and had actually tossed them off the cliffs by hand, it was too late to reverse this morbid misconception.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“By 1990, only 15 percent of households owned a personal computer, while nearly 30 percent owned an NES.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Whereas secret societies in the past have met in lodges, taverns, and dimly lit alleys, this new generation’s meeting spot was the virtual world of videogames. And also unlike the covert gatherings of yesteryear, where furtive glances and secret handshakes were needed to gain entry, the only password into this world was up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-start.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“represents the only thing that a player cares about when he’s locked into a game. Shut off the real world, dive into the game world, and just keep going-going-going at all costs until you get there.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“July 1988, Nintendo of America shipped out the first issue of Nintendo Power to the 3.4 million members of the Nintendo Fun Club. Over 30 percent of the recipients immediately bought an annual subscription, marking the fastest that a magazine had ever reached one million paid subscribers.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“By 1990, Nintendo of America had sold nearly thirty million consoles, resulting in an NES in one out of every three homes. Videogames were now a $5 billion industry, and Nintendo owned at least 90 percent of that.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Use letters. Four-hundred-ish. It takes up way more space.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“So to understand the industry, he relied on information from Imagesoft, Sony’s game publishing imprint,”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Kalinske wanted Sonic to become an instantly recognizable cultural icon who could define the decade and eventually grow into a multibillion-dollar intellectual property that would continue to pump money into Sega for decades even after he’d left the company. This was why Sega of America had been so protective of Sonic. They didn’t want him to join that long list of videogame characters whose innovative gameplay had made them celebrities but whose lack of dimension had caused them to fade away. They had to make sure that Sonic would find a better fate than one-hit wonders like Dig-Dug, Frogger, or even Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man, all of which had aged with the ungraceful gawkiness of a former child star.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Duty calls,” Nilsen explained, but on his way out he made sure to pass Kalinske and whisper prophetic words of his own. “We cannot bring over that 32-bit thing,” he cautioned. “It just can’t happen.” “I know,” Kalinske said, bidding farewell to his new global marketing guru.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“the 1995 winter Consumer Electronics Show, which would be the last one that Sega ever attended.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Anyone who missed the freedom and innocence that comes with endless wonder. Videogames were for everyone;”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“Nintendo “Game Counselors” were available all day to help players get through difficult levels, and he initiated the Nintendo Fun Club, which sent a free newsletter to any customer who had sent in a warranty card.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation

“In July 1988, Nintendo of America shipped out the first issue of Nintendo Power to the 3.4 million members of the Nintendo Fun Club. Over 30 percent of the recipients immediately bought an annual subscription, marking the fastest that a magazine had ever reached one million paid subscribers.”
― Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation