( 6 reviews )
-
Posted: Aug 11 2009
This is exactly the type of book we need more of.... Journalists, start your engines!!! Get out there and write more IN DEPTH books about video game history!! this is the wave of the future, trust me.... 5 stars... Absolutely BRILLIANT!
-
Posted: Sep 11 2006
"The revolution will come in fits and starts. It probably won't come from giving hardcore gamers more of what they already like. Doing a fighting game with better graphics isn't really a new invention. Yet much of the industry is currently afflicted with the illusion that it is. About 60 percent of the successful games now are either sequels or extensions of brands that exist in another medium. There is a real risk of what the IDSA'a Doug Lowenstein calls "creative ennui."...The gaming industry has produced cultural icons before, from Pac Man to Pong, and it will do so again. As every gamer believes, the ideal game isn't here yet. It's just around the corner." (p. 346 - 347). I just got done reading "Opening The Xbox". I found it to be a very readable book, with a very comfortable writing style. The descriptions of the what the project team went through, however, seemed very reminiscent of many other professional projects I have been involved with in my career, and not necessarily unique to Microsoft or the tech. industry. What was enjoyable and enlightening, however, was the detail which Mr. Takahashi provided. Liberally spiced with information that was outside of the inner mechanics at Microsoft (like the challenges with Nvidia, Flextronics' manufacturing capacity, the marketing and sales performance of competing platforms, etc.), provided the perfect backdrop to the whole story. In the end, I found it to be an easy and enjoyable read. It provides great insight into Microsoft's launch of the Xbox, and an interesting perspective on the video games industry as a whole. I also appreciated the "personal face" Mr. Takhashi gave the story by providing interesting tidbits of the personalities and their lives, throughout the story. That technique not only made it very readable, but it also helped me relate to the story in a much more fulfilling way.
-
( 1 of 4 found this review helpful ) Posted: Nov 5 2005
This was a good book for those interested in Microsofts entry into the game console market. I thought it was well written and easy to get through. It helped me understand how Micrsoft does things, and it is not a pretty picture. After reading the book, I was left with the impression that Microsoft is spending billions of dollars to get into an industry that it really knows little about. Further, it was lead into this pursuit by a team of people who hadn't been with the company all that long, and while they seem hyper competitive and smart, they really didn't know what they were doing either. Sometimes it is easy to believe that a company with Microsoft's track record is invincible when it decides to enter a market, but this book disabused me of that notion.
