This book unveils the story of a very important home console: the Sony PlayStation. It focuses on Ken Kutaragi, the key person in this project, who is today acknowledged as the "father of the Playstation." The author tells us how this visionary engineer lead Sony to tackle the home video game console market, in spite of the vigorous opposition shown by many other people in the company. Each chapter of the book details the different stages of the PlayStation project: the initial inspi
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Keywords : playstation, revolution, sony, ken kutaragi, industry, home console
This bible is dedicated to the PC Engine home console (also known as TurboGrafx 16). This second volume starts by telling you the story of how this console arrived in France, alongside with the story of studio RED, the creators of the famous "PC Kid" game. But the main part of the book is a full listing of every game ever released for this console on the CD-ROM format (more that 400 games). Each game is presented with a screenshot alongside with a small text describing it. A refere
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Keywords : history, pc engine, turbografx 16, cd-rom, bible
The autobiography of Ralph Baer, the inventor of home video game consoles. Released in 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey is one of the starting points of the history of video games. First of all, it's the first video console solely dedicated to games. Moreover, one of its titles, Ping-Pong, was a direct source of inspiration for Atari to create Pong. Through a book featuring many pictures, Ralph Baer details us the process he followed to invent this first console ever. As a natural-born engineer,
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Keywords : ralph baer, magnavox odyssey, first video game, simon, lawsuit, biography
Abstract : According to the french government, the video game industry has now reached a turnover of 3 billion euros (or 10% of the turnover of the french cultural industry), making it the second European country. This market could reach 3.8 billion by 2014, that is a 27% increase in 3 years. Video game was since always an entertaining technology, not requiring the player a significant interaction or intellectual investment result. Today, video games require more and more players to interac
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Keywords : Video game, State of the art, History, Use, Innovation
An analysis book dedicated to the "Metal Gear" game series. This text-only book is divided in two main parts. The first one, which represents about 3/4 of the book pages, begins with a quick presentation of each title in the series (from "Metal Gear" to "Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker"). It then tells you the scenario of the whole series, rewritten as a one-piece story. This story is very interesting, and is greatly rewritten to be as entertaining as any good thril
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Keywords : metal gear solid, analysis, story, hideo kojima
An analysis book dedicated to "The Legend of Zelda" game series. This text-only book is divided in two main parts. The first one, which represents about 2/3 of the book pages, begins with a quick presentation of each title in the series (from "The Legend of Zelda" to "The Legend of Zelda : Spirit Tracks"). The story of each episode is detailled in one or two pages, before analyzing the special features of its game design compared to the other episodes. But
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Keywords : the legend of zelda, analysis, psychology, story
An comical essay where the author analyses the "life lessons" embedded in some of the classical videogames from 8 and 16 bits home consoles (namely NES, Super NES, Genesis). For example, the two-players mode in Contra is about having a best friend, while Paperboy will teach you the basics of customer service. The quality of the different book chapters is very variable, but some chapters are excellent and they will undoubtedly makes you smile or laugh (in particular the hilarious chapte
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Keywords : humor, nes, super nes, genesis, life lessons
DownLoad is a magazine dedicated to videogames available solely through online distribution channels, with a clear focus towards indie games. About ten titles are detailed in each issue, with an in-depth interview of the game creators, who provide us with many unique and interesting details about how they made their game. This magazine, which looks more like a book (thick paper, content not directly related to current news but focused on in-depth interviews...), has unfortunately stopped after t
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Keywords : indie games, dematerialized
This bible is dedicated to the Nintendo NES home console (also known as Famicom). The first part of the book tells you the history of this console through a quite detailed chapter featuring a lot of pictures. The second and main part of the book is dedicated to a list of every game ever released for this console, featuring all games using cartridge or disk (Famicom Disk System) formats. Each one of the 1900 games is presented through a couple of screenshots alongside with a small text
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Keywords : history, nintendo, nes, famicom, nintendo entertainment system, bible
An excellent book featuring a deep analysis of the experiences offered to players by videogames. Being at the same time a gamer and a scholar, the author provides us with his very thoughtful and stimulating ideas on this topic. The first three chapters are tackling the issue of defining games, video games, and the relation between games and movies / storytelling. As they are full of concepts and references, these chapters are a bit harder to read than the others. The three following chapters are
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Keywords : history, philosophy, sociology, experience, critical, gamification