Customer Reviews
Sorry....just a bit too dry 
2008-03-03
Very Sad I wasted the money on this book.
It has some good factual material and seems to be complete...but comparing against other video game history books...this one is dry.
Very few black and white pictures...
This book will put you to sleep...sorry just not happy with this one.
Absolutely incredible - a must-own for gamers! 
2008-01-11
As others have stated, this book truly lives up to its name. Jam-packed with more information than you can imagine, all written in a lively, entertaining style. Set aside plenty of time though - you won't be able to put it down!
Bottom Line: An absolute must-own for any gamer. Period.
Must have for every gamer 2007-12-18
The book is really good, although I think at the beginning it focuses only in the Atari point of view, a lil incomplete but hey, you could write an entire encyclopedia about gaming and it would still be short.
But still if you are a gamer or a businessman, this is a must have, must read and must memorize.
A good read, but make sure you read this first! 
2007-11-16
I'm a vintage game geek. I loved video games from my first Magnavox home system, through my Atari, NES, up to my PS2. I grew up in an arcade at my local shopping mall. I've not moved on to the current systems because life (mainly job and wife) kind of make growing up a necessity. However I've always had fond memories for those early gaming years. Now that you know where I'm coming from, it'll give a little background to my review.
This is a very well researched and written account of the birth and growth of the video game industry. I've read this book cover to cover and truly did enjoy the in-depth history and annectdotes that is put forth in the book. But I can't say enough how much I was really wanting this book to be THE definitive book on the video/arcade game culture. That should include far more photos and captures from the games themselves. This book lacks severely for photos at all! The book reads a lot like a text book, but I think some re-formatting to something even like Jon Stewart's "America" text would actually benefit this book. In fact, I'd be willing to pay the increased cost to have such a book.
That said, you will certainly come away from this book with a cool understanding of how the industry ebbed and flowed over the years. If you are prone to setting down a book that is pretty wordy, you may want to think twice about this book, but know that you will be missing a lot of the inside story that connects so much from the past to the present.
Hope that gives you some good information to make an informed purchase.
Videogame Bible 2007-11-12
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World This book is brilliant,
It tells you everything you want to know about how the videogame industry started, and how it grew to become what it is today.
Awesome book and is fun to read.
Incredible Book 2007-10-01
Inside the Games You Grew Up with but Never ForgotWith all the whiz, bang, pop, and shimmer of a glowing arcade.
The Ultimate History of Video Games reveals everything you ever wanted to know and more about the unforgettable games that changed the world, the visionaries who made them, and the fanatics who played them. From the arcade to television and from the PC to the handheld device, video games have entraced kids at heart for nearly 30 years. And author and gaming historian Steven L. Kent has been there to record the craze from the very beginning.
This engrossing book tells the incredible tale of how this backroom novelty transformed into a cultural phenomenon. Through meticulous research and personal interviews with hundreds of industry luminaries, you'll read firsthand accounts of how yesterday's games like
Space Invaders, Centipede, and
Pac-Man helped create an arcade culture that defined a generation, and how today's empires like Sony, Nintendo, and Electronic Arts have galvanized a multibillion-dollar industry and a new generation of games. Inside, you'll discover:
·The video game that saved Nintendo from bankruptcy
·The serendipitous story of Pac-Man's design
·The misstep that helped topple Atari's $2 billion-a-year empire
·The coin shortage caused by
Space Invaders ·The fascinating reasons behind the rise, fall, and rebirth of Sega
·And much more!
Entertaining, addictive, and as mesmerizing as the games it chronicles, this book is a must-have for anyone who's ever touched a joystick.
Behind the scenes of the games industry 2007-08-28
This is a pacy and enjoyable book that takes the reader on a journey from the earliest days of the games industry to the arrival of the Xbox (around 2001). It's mostly written from a business perspective and you get a good sense of the wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes. References are made to certain games but really if that's what you're after then you'd be far better of with The Video Games Guide. The writer clearly conducted a lot of interviews to help enliven the history and although he devotes an inordinate number of pages to Nolan Bushnell and Atari some of the anecdotes are priceless (love to hear about the execs who passed on Pole Position).
Starts out strong, then fizzles about halfway through 
2007-07-23
The final impression left on me by "The Ultimate History of Video Games" is that I was actually reading two different books--one on the early history of video games (up to about the time the NES was released) and one on the late 80s to turn of the century era. The first half or so of this book is obviously a labor of love, and though it does have its limitations the narrative is both smooth and engaging. The book is not exceptionally well written, but throughout the pre-video game era and all through the Atari years Kent manages to weave a narrative that is entertaining and reads well.
A host of quotes from firsthand sources is peppered throughout the narrative, and most of them serve to add to rather than detract from the overall quality of the book. Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, and many others provide anecdotes and relate the early history of video games from the point of view of those who made it happen. The pre-video game era, the rise of Atari, the coin-op arcade business, and the advent of home console gaming is all chronicled here.
But then something happens to the narrative. Around the time Nintendo breaks into the console market with the Famicom the details become more sparse. Short blurbs about the Super NES pop up before the NES has even hit American shores, and entire chapters on litigation, with very little narrative and mostly lifted from transcripts, bog the story down. It seemed to me that I could almost feel Kent losing interest in the project, and my own interest tapered and then almost completely left as well.
The quotes are still there, but the overall feel of the book goes from a man telling the story through the eyes of the people who lived it to that of a high school book report. That may seem harsh, but the "and then this happened, and then this happened..." quality of the mid 80s through mid 2001 years left a great deal to be desired. Some of the most significant developments in gaming are glossed over with surprising indifference, and anyone who hoped to relive their glory days of gaming will be disappointed if those days occurred in the days of Nintendo, Sega, or Sony consoles.
It's hard to blame this entirely on Kent, of course, since the industry expanded so much during the late 80s and 90s that it's difficult to imagine being able to cover things with the level of detail and attention given to the 70s and first half of the 80s. Still, many of the omissions are glaring and, in my mind, inexcusable. While Sega's war with Nintendo during the Genesis/Super NES days is covered, very few games for those systems receive any attention whatsoever. Sonic, Mario, and Donkey Kong are covered, of course, but most everything else is either given scant treatment or is omitted entirely. Golden Axe is mentioned in passing, the Final Fantasy series is eventually given a couple pages (but not until he mentioned Squaresoft's defection from Nintendo to Sony). Kent leaves out the fact that there were Zelda games for both the Super NES and the N64 and forgets to mention Super Mario Kart as one of Nintendo's titles for the Super NES (he does mention Mario Kart 64 without pointing out that it was a sequel). Starfox is mentioned in passing or in a caption somewhere, and I think I saw the name 'Megaman' twice.
In addition, "Ultimate History" does not deign to discuss PC gaming with anything but a passing nod in the PC's direction. Myst and 7th Guest are mentioned, and Wolfenstein and later Doom are brought up a few times (mostly in conjunction with video game violence), but that's about it. Fans of such enormously popular franchises such as Civilization, Quake, Command and Conquer, anything made by Blizzard (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc), Age of Empires, or the Star Wars universe will no doubt wonder why their games are not considered part of the 'Ultimate History' of the video game industry, but this question will go unanswered. Online gaming, which was already very popular when this book was published in 2001, is ignored entirely.
In short, "The Ultimate History of Video Games" is anything but ultimate. I realize that the title was the idea of the publisher, but in my mind the author, who is very familiar with the industry, should never have conceded to label the book an 'ultimate history.' In fact, I think Kent should have ended his narrative when the NES console burst onto the scene and billed it as the ultimate history of pre NES video games. To that I would have conceded, and would have given the first part of the book 4 stars if I could have. The second half deserves no more than 2 (and I'm being fairly generous) and in my opinion drags this book down from something worth owning to something barely worth finishing. It's obvious the passion infused in the early part of the book is gone, which is a shame--the first few hundred pages of this book are a great source of video gaming history.
Comprehensive 2007-07-15
This book is very detailed and well done. It is 600 pages. I think a minor typo (p561) is that Playstation DVD hold 8GB or 17GB dual layer, I believe it is half that (4.7 GB and 9 GB). I also think a fun "fact" that wasn't mentioned in the book is that Donkey Kong Country on the SNES was thought to be the Ultra64 (N64) demo at the show. Otherwise, very in depth, lots of insights into the beginning of pre-pong games, creation of companies like Atari, etc., up to PS2 and Xbox timeframe. This took me a little over 8 hours to read cover-to-cover, but I was always very interested since I grew up playing a lot of arcade games, and enjoy home consoles too.
for real retro fans only 2007-05-10
Not for the casual retro fan. This book goes deep - deep into the personal ins and outs of the early video game history. Would be better if there are more photos spread over the book. In all, a good read about the people rather than the actual games.
