This book details the history of two legendary game consoles, both released in 1994. The 300 pages are divided in two parts. The first part tells with great details the history of the PlayStation, and the making of its 10 most popular games (Wipeout, Tekken, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid…). The second half is dedicated to the history of the Saturn and 10 of its best titles (Nights, Guardian Heroes, Grandia, Panzer Dragoon, Daytona USA…). Despite already abun
[...]
Keywords : playstation, saturn, history
The history of video games if full of forgotten titles. Most of the time, they are game projects cancelled before completion. But, sometimes, full and complete games are cancelled just before their commercial release. We call them "unreleased games", as they are waiting to be be discovered by historians or collectors who can reveal their existence to the world. Today, Ludoscience is proud to present you an "unreleased" PlayStation game called X-PO : 2089 Cyber Revolution
[...]
Keywords : history, video game, serious game, playstation, unreleased, japan, france
If you like books and are into video games, then this resource may interest you. Ludoscience is building a big list of books about video games. It currently features more than 150 books dealing with various topics: history of video games, game creators biographies, Game Design, Serious Games, video games studies & analysis... Each book is presented through a personal abstract, as we have read each book before adding it to the list :). It gathers books in English or French
[...]
Keywords : bibliography, videogame, books
This book is based on a unique idea: reviewing the history of video games in France between 1974 and 2013 through the "news" briefs published in video games magazines. This first volume is solely focused to news related to video games consoles. The author has selected many news related to the most interesting or odd stories from the last 40 years: release of a console, an accessory, a special issue of magazine, a tv show, public drama, games collector editions, etc. Each chapter of the
[...]
Keywords : history, video game, france, console, news
This book focuses on a little known and hardly discussed period from the history of video games: the ends of the 70's, and more specifically the 1976-1980 years of the home consoles. The books explains how, after Ralph Baer's pioneer invention of the Magnavox Odyssey, and the success of Pong in arcades, home video games takes over TV sets around the world thanks to... General Instrument. Indeed, the introduction of a new integrated chip, copying Pong and sold for a few dollars only, allowed many
[...]
Keywords : pong, globalization, economic history, home console, 70's, japan, france, usa
This book deals with the war opposing Sega to Nintendo during the 90's, in the USA, for the control of the home console market. Over 550 pages, it follows the story of Tom Kalinske, who ran Sega US branch from 1990 to 1996. The book tells the many efforts the man and his team made to push the Genesis / Megadrive onto the US market, to try to make a dent in Nintendo's near monopoly over this market. This war is made of many battles, such as an offensive marketing campaign around the game Sonic (1
[...]
Keywords : sega, nintendo, 16 bits, usa, marketing, sony , tom kalinske, genesis
A 260 pages book dedicated to the history of the Genesis / Megadrive, the famous 16 bits Sega home console. The book is divided in 4 sections. The first one details the birth of the machine, while the second one is focused on the ads used by Sega to promote it ("Genesis Does!"). The third section presents a selection of emblematic Genesis titles. Each game is described over a single page with a short text and several screenshots. As this section is organized chronologically, it's a gre
[...]
Keywords : history, genesis, megadrive, sega, sonic, streets of rage, advertising
This book presents 100 music albums based on famous video games original soundtracks. The author reviews each album over two pages, featuring beautiful illustrations. The author successfully shares his passion for video game music through this book. The text is easy to read and full of interesting information. My only complaint lies in the author's choice to focus on game OST published in separate CDs, which tends to heavily bend his OST selection towards Japanese console games, and J-RPG in par
[...]
Keywords : music, video game, album
Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA (Enhanced Edition) is a book on the history of SEGA as a console manufacturer. After a brief introduction telling the birth of the company, this thick 480 pages book details the story of all its home consoles: SG-1000, Master System, Mega Drive / Genesis with its Sega CD and Sega 32X addons, Saturn and the Dreamcast. While the beginnings of SEGA and its first two consoles are explained rather quickly over 30 pages, the main part of the bo
[...]
Keywords : history of videogames, sega, genesis, sega cd, sega 32x, saturn, dreamcast
The first part of a non-official biography of Shigeru Miyamoto, famous creator of Mario and Zelda. William Audureau, a keen expert of his works, invites us to a journey through his life, from his childhood to the release of the first Zelda episode in 1986. In the absence of a direct involvement from Miyamoto in the book, the author relies on more than 150 of his interviews published in press, alongside with a trip to Japan. Very easy and pleasant to read, this book manages to go beyond "ins
[...]
Keywords : biography, shigeru miyamoto, nintendo, mario, zelda