Book Review: Console Wars

Every once in a while I find my way to a book that has me looking at my childhood in a slightly different way, and causes me to rethink the things I did and why.

Blake Harris' Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation, looks at (roughly) the five year span in the first half the 1990s when SEGA moved from bit player in the video game industry to a massive giant, eventually toppling the stranglehold Nintendo had on the industry at the time.

From 1990-1995 I was pretty much exactly the target audience of the SEGA genesis; aged 14 to 19 and having been raised on the classic Nintendo, a new machine advertising more grown-up games and turning my (then) current system into a baby toy as far as I was concerned, I was definitely jealous of all of my friends who had one and played my way through as many Genesis games as I could get my hands on.

What this book does so ingeniously is to look at the story from the point of view of businessmen and marketers.  At a time when the toy industry was distancing itself from videogame consoles after the collapse of ATARI, Nintendo worked its way into being the defacto video game console in both the East and the West throughout the late 1980s.  Part of what I loved about the book was the context and perspective it gave to the story, expressing that monopolies are not seen as negative in Japan and that much of SEGAs success came from some very savvy marketing ideas, as well as a certain hedgehog.

A fascinating read about the men who created, developed, and marketed one of the toys that defined a generation, Console Wars is well worth the read.

Things I've noticed: Nintendo Customer Service ROCKS!!!!

Due to a consistent disc error with my Wii console, I contacted the folks at Nintendo Customer Services and was told to mail my console in (I blogged about it here). 11 days after I mailed it to their offices in Vancouver, I got it back.

It works like new! In the end the cost of $89 (CDN), was fine by me - they even put the machine under a new warranty, so if anything goes wrong for the next year it's all covered.

The folks on the phone were great, the service was reasonably priced and prompt.

Now I'm off to play!

Trouble with my Wii Counsole

Last week we had our young niece and nephew over for a visit and were informed that our Wii wasn't working so well. Regardless of which game disc the kids tried to use, they got a "Unable to Read Disc" message. So on Tuesday I went online and found a suggestion to use the Wii Lens Cleaner to fix my problem.

I bought the cleaner - it had simple instructions and the cleaning pad came out more than a little dirty when I finished, but unfortunately the disc error did not go away. Our Wii is three years old so we are definitely past the warranty coverage, but as the machine didn't work I decided to give the folks at Nintendo Customer Service a try.

After a 15 minute phone call, we had a solution. The very helpful customer service guy I chatted to explained that while the Wii Lens Cleaner is a great preventative tool, in my console's case it was a little too late. I would have to send the machine away for a repair.

The charge broke down as follows:

$75 for the repair

$10 for shipping (there and back), and

$5 for tax (all in Canadian funds)

In return they promise to have my console back to me within 12 business days of them receiving it (they should get it in Vancouver around Wednesday), and if the machine is irreparable they will replace my console. Either way I'll have a new machine with another year of warranty by the end of this month.

I'm hoping that this post will begin my very positive experience of how the good folks at Nintendo care for their customers, but we'll see - either way I'll keep you posted.