Console Wars | 55
History of the 90s
Kathy Kenzora
4.7 • 610 Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2021
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After the home video game industry crashed spectacularly in 1983 one company rose from the ashes and helped breathe new life with a new 8 bit video console.
The Nintendo Entertainment System with games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda ruled the console market until another Japanese company started going after older and more serious gamers.
For the first time the Sega Genesis console and the company’s blue mascot Sonic The Hedgehog took a bite out of Nintendo’s supremacy in the North American market. And that was just the beginning of the Nintendo vs Sega Console War that dominated the 90s.
On this episode of History of the 90s, host Kathy Kenzora takes you through the twists and turns of the epic battle that defined a generation of gamers.
Guest:
Blake Harris, author and director of The Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle That Defined a Generation. www.blakejharris.com
Twitter: @blakejharrisNYC
Contact:
Twitter: @1990shistory
Facebook: @1990shistory
Instagram: @that90spodcast
Email: 90s@curiouscast.ca
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Kathy. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s |
| 0:04.7 | early and ad-free on Amazon music included with Prime. |
| 0:09.6 | When Tom Kalinsky first laid eyes on the little blue hedgehog that was supposed to become the new face of his company, |
| 0:16.7 | he couldn't believe what he saw. The hedgehog named Mr. Needle Mouse |
| 0:21.2 | looked more like a bizarre animal villain |
| 0:23.9 | with large fang, spike collar, and an electric guitar. |
| 0:28.2 | Plus, he had a sexy human girlfriend named Madonna. |
| 0:32.4 | There was no way this weird little creature was going to work. |
| 0:36.5 | As the new head of Sega America, Kalinsky |
| 0:39.3 | had his team redesign the character and christened him Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the most iconic |
| 0:45.7 | video game characters in history. It was the first of many moves by Sega that would help |
| 0:52.1 | launch the fledgling video game company into an epic battle |
| 0:55.8 | with Nintendo, as both companies look to own the video game market in North America. |
| 1:02.5 | I'm Kathy Kinsora, and this is History of the 90s, a podcast about a decade that changed the world. |
| 1:09.8 | In this episode, we're looking back at the days when Sonic |
| 1:13.3 | went head-to-head with Mario during the Nintendo versus Sega console war. If you were a kid in the |
| 1:22.1 | early 80s who was into video games, you most likely had to go to an arcade, where you fought for supremacy at the |
| 1:28.8 | top of the leaderboard, over greasy joysticks and sticky buttons, playing games like |
| 1:33.8 | Miss Pac-Man or pole position. Machines were fought over, quarters were slammed as you called next, |
| 1:40.0 | so you could get your turn, and just maybe enter your initials at the end of the game. |
| 1:45.5 | If you were really lucky, you got to play at home. |
| 1:49.0 | And instead of Space Invaders, you might have been playing Burger Time on your Intellivision, |
... |
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