After years of sitting on the sidelines of the next-generation console war, Nintendo is finally ready to make its move. But, the years it’s spent building it’s reassuring family-friendly reputation is now a weakness. Nintendo children of the 80s are all grown up, and want adult games. Sony is able to release edgier fare like Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider. The half-decade cold war between Sony and Nintendo is about to turn hot. Their next head-to-head battle is a multi-billion dollar clash that will define the future of video games. And in the real world, just one of them can prevail.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
it's one thousand nine hundred and ninety six and Sony is taking the fight quite literally, to Nintendo's front door.
Outside of a Nintendo's US headquarters and at
a giant costume, stands outside the door
he's dressed as a happy looking bright orange cartoon marsupial, a Sony video
true trails behind it.
As cameras. Roll crash grabs a bull
morning swaggers around Nintendo's parking lot. I got a little surprise for you here check it out. What do you think about that
get real time. 3D lush, organic environments. Does that make you feel like your days are numbered costumed characters name is crash. Bandicoot,
and he's Sony's answer to Nintendo
of STAR Mario a few months earlier,
stations, visionary KEN Kutaragi had been furious,
about this idea.
Snarling and shaking with anger he had screen?
did mark Cerny the amiable,
didn't have universal pictures? Video game division
I first heard about crash bandicoot
rocky rants for nearly forty minutes. The diplomatic
level headed Cerney injury
verbal assault, but was left utterly shaken
derived finally stopped off. What could detests about crash bandicoot is
everyone else at Sony, wants crash to become the playstation's answer to Nintendo's Mario mask.
If you will, the very idea in
and he,
never misses the chance to vent his feelings about this to his colleagues placed
he doesn't need a mascot, certainly
got some cartoon character. Leave
cuddly animals to Nintendo
station is not a toy crash. Bandicoot is
Everything playstation isn't, but the
only team was a nervous
Nintendo was leading its attack on the playstation with the bouncy
mission of Super Mario Sixty four, which
journalists are now calling the best game ever made Sony needed to fight back so
when the Playstation team saw crash bandicoot, they saw
the friendly game that could death the Mario juggernaut after weeks of clashes about crash to rocky
the argument which brings us back to this Sony. Publicity stunt with a
Escale crash bandicoot stomping around the Nintendo headquarters parking lot
it's cameras. Roll crash grabs,
bullhorn and swaggers around Nintendo's parking lot. Plumber boy
slash man, your worst nightmare has around. I, the Nintendo Security Guard RON would have to ask you to leave your email, but it is an Australian, a
Film footage becomes Sony's latest tv ad campaign, but it fails to
on the growing excitement over Nintendo's Super Mario game. It seems
it's inconceivable that even with all of Sony's techno savvy and its manufacturing muscle, it can't stop
fat man and dungarees. Yes, in Tendo
is back in the game. Business wars is brought to you by the capital. One Walmart rewards card.
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From wondering this is
business wars, I'm David Brown, you're. Listening to our sixth and last installment
Nintendo versus Sony Series. It's called no surrender.
In our last episode, Nintendo pushed back against gamemakers pressure to give up cartridges for cds. Instead, Nintendo focused on
helping its own games and a clever controller that allowed players
effortlessly move characters around in 3d it took years
to create a nintendo, sixty four console, but now ninten
so is ready to challenge Playstation head on, but the games,
is this Nintendo and Sony are fighting for control of is changing fast,
It's not even Halloween yet, but millions of kids already know what they want for Christmas. A new video game system called Nintendo. Sixty four
and those new game machine is sixty four bits making it the most powerful machine on the mark
the Nintendo. Sixty four is being touted as the hottest toy for Christmas, one thousand nine hundred and ninety six and it's vanished
store shelves fast
There might only be two games to play on Nintendo's new console, but one of them
The Super Mario Sixty four and for many well that
more than enough to justify buying Nintendo's latest console within four days,
which release Nintendo sold. Three hundred and fifty thousand New Nintendo Sixty four consoles making it the fastest selling console in US history,
so can't make them fast enough consume
clear the shelves as fast as storekeepers restock them Janu,
one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven Nintendo headquarters
the intercom
Nintendo Boss, Hiroshima Cheese, office buses
Comanche I had the president of Nintendo of America on the line. He has the sales figures for Chris,
put through immediately
This is your much so how
use the Nintendo Sixty four performing in America, it's doing very well.
Tales of the Nintendo. Sixty four in Sony. Playstation were neck and neck in the holiday season. If it wasn't for RC
why issues. We would have outsold Sony
good, very good. This
My problems are almost resolved, so that should no longer hold us back, but we can't be complacent.
I'm putting one hundred million dollars into promoting the Nintendo sixty four and one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven, and that should be enough to match Sony's marketing budget for the playstation now go. Take them down.
Nintendo and Sony may be going toe to toe on promotional spending, but there
Reading strategies couldn't be more different, so
why is positioning the playstation is something distinct,
the traditional game console something closer to
The tv's camp camcorders and walk when they're known for Sony
the playstation to be seen as
unsophisticated sophisticated device
adults wouldn't be ashamed to put under their tv's on
the Nintendo Sixty four with its chunky, curvy preschool plastic casing. To achieve this
Sony rewrites the rules of video game advertising. It presents the playstation.
Aspirational product and not just for kids it even
runs commercials where neither the playstation or it's games are on display commercials like
This european tv ad called double life
You may not think it to look at night, but I have commanded armies or cold quick worlds in achieving these things. I've said morality aside. I have no regrets for those of later double life. At least I can say, I've left only the
final unspoken, onscreen slogan reveals what
really being sold here. It says: do not
underestimate the power of Playstation Nintendo.
Goals to match. Sony's bold promotions,
The reassuring family friendly reputation, Nintendo spent years building is now a liability. Then, in
no kids of the 80s are now adults.
And they want to move on from the cartoon heroes that are Nintendo's calling card feeling threatened. Nintendo
tries to get with it and mimic Sony's appeals to young adults. Compromise live the game. We will be in control of some. We will change, but the voice of
there's rebellious call to arms. Just doesn't work.
For the Nintendo bubble. Gum games on screen
Nintendo also eases up on its family friendly rules to make room for a first person shooter game based on the
James Bond movie Goldeneye?
Nintendo's chief designer flinches when he
these goldeneye spurts of blood and sniper rifle headshots. He figures he's gotta dial it back. So
he faxes, a list of suggestions to Martin Hollis, the stick thin,
a six year old director of the games company making goldeneye
A bemused Hollis pause the fax off the machine,
and reads it aloud to his team. Can we
make a blood less red who here's? What
we have all the people killed during the game, get up at the end to shake hands to show. No one really got hurt
the hand to forehead moment, but Hollis agrees to tone down the blood for the ending they compromise
the characters slaughtered by the player Arsene alive and well during the credits like actors at the end of the film Sony.
On the other hand,
has none of Nintendo's qualms, and so it goes on a bloody, violent spree.
And it's kind of jarring one moment cute crash Bandicoot
Who prancing around a playstation and the next it's the
it's in the teeth, zombie, horror, game, resident, evil and then
it goes even darker, but Sony doesn't even bat an eyelid at the original grand theft, auto game that offers players bonus points to mow down lines of Hari Krishna's in their car to play
asian brand, is so flexible. It can
turn the 1990s most unlikely. Pin up
into a massive star, even a pin.
Who was never meant to be it all started when core design
a little known british game studio run by Jeremy Heath Smith began
a game inspired by the Indiana Jones movies.
First time, he's developers showed Heath Smith what they done when his horrified on the screen was
character. That was the spitting image of Harrison Ford's fedora wearing adventurer. He
He told his team to get rid of the Indy look alike. We can use
Lucasfilm will sue us to kingdom come come up with a different character. Two weeks later, he
return to check in on the new character
and he wasn't pleased what the Hell
It's a girl. The games
smiled and said. Yeah
her name is Laura Laura Croft Great. Isn't she no no she's not,
I mean, there's never been a popular female video game character. Teenage boys play this game, come on
Do you seriously think they're going to want to plays a woman? The designer was not ready to cave,
well what about? We leave her in there for now and see how it goes when two
arrives on the playstation in November, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety six Sony immediately sees shapely Laura's appeal and potential
has a tiny waist and huge breasts, but she's strong, intelligent
and in no need of a man, not
only does Laura appeal to both sexes. She's visual proof that
the gaming, is different. Sony pays big bucks to make
sure her adventures will appear only on playstation and
in one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven, the whole world is smitten with her
September. One thousand nine hundred and ninety seven, the
in computer trade. Show in London.
No one has seen anything like this before the computer trade show a crush if papparazi jostle to get closer the object.
Retention, Lara, Croft or rather
her flesh and blood double as flashbulbs pop
british model. Rhona Mitra poses in the large trademark turquoise best hot pants. Ensemble she's become a pop culture icon
first tomb, raider game sells seven
million copies she's uh
cover of countless magazines and big br.
Hands now by get endorsements from this playboy proportioned virtual hero now
one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven draws to a close Sony
Tomb Raider two
will seal the holiday season. Victory for the playstation in ten
meanwhile, is betting that the
Georgia claims surrounding goldeneye double seven
with steel, Sony's thunder goal
nice selling fast. I will
actually sell eight million copies worldwide.
As the store shut on Christmas Eve. The question is which of
british Heroes, the steamy sharpshooter or the shape
play tomb. Raider will win the hearts of America. Business wars
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Another Christmas
is Chief Hiroshi Yamauchi
is reading the nineteen ninety seven holiday sales report in Japan
The playstation is crushed the Nintendo Sixty four, when Nintendo
clung to its cartridges. It effectively
Japan's beloved role playing games, final fantasy and dragon Quest to Sony. Now,
Even the Sega Saturn is cell
better in Japan than the Nintendo. Sixty four Hey
at the news from the West, was better that Christmas meal
names of people in the United States and Europe were buying Nintendo sixty fours, but the trouble is
that still wasn't enough for every
Nintendo Sixty four console Nintendo, so Sony sold two Playstations Playstation
Now has an unassailable lead over the nintendo. Sixty four then,
It was still profitable. It still has huge
cash reserves and world Class game studios, and it's
mobile console the game boys raking in millions from the freakishly successful pokmon games, but
Mancino's that in the home
console market. The game has changed. Tendo is on the defensive.
No matter what Nintendo does next. He knows that the playstation will win this round in the console wars. It's best bet,
is to hold on to its current market share so that it can stage a comeback in
next round of console wars. Luckily,
Ammachi knows that in the cubicles on the floors below his office, his game
developers are working on a game that can defend
Nintendo's position. The latest edition
companies, long running fairy tale adventure Series, the legend:
of Zelda
Archie sits in his office in Kyoto, died.
Testing Nintendos disappointing Christmas over in Tokyo. The mood at Sony is jubilant
the crazy dream Kutaragi had in nineteen. Eighty four at making Sony the leader of the video game. Business has come true. The place
is now the world's favorite game console
Sony is sitting still
Rocky wants Sony to spend one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight going
through the one market segment playstation is yet to conquer the market and in ten
regards as its own
future rocky wants to peel the preteens away from Nintendo
leading Sony's efforts to lure kids to Playstation is Spyro the dragon, a game about a
baby dragon. That would have looked right at home on the Nintendo, sixty four, as for
one thousand. Nine hundred and ninety eight arrives Nintendo
to start Playstation from taking anymore of its territory,
Nintendo tries to build a fortress around its crown jewel, the legend of,
Delta ocarina of time,
it spins millions to promote the new Zelda, a tent poles game that could
read the Nintendo 64's last stand
is the game's release approaches
Promotion runs in more than ten thousand movie theaters across America. The ad with
high drama, music and gothic style. Subtitles begins with a dark times coming
and comically wraps with
and, in the end, will bow
just sore or willst thou suck. He does
not suck
Sony fights back against the buzz around Zelda with the latest tomb raider game
sixty foot high murals of Lara Croft on buildings in major cities across the U dot S, take that Zelda
The critics say: Zelda is the best video
game ever made two weeks
after it goes on sale, it's
A million copies within weeks
that number more than doubles Zelda
read what Nintendo needed it to do.
The game, didn't narrow the gap between Playstation and Nintendo. Sixty four, it did
hold Sony's advance at Bay.
Nintendo emerges from the battle of Christmas. One thousand nine hundred and ninety eight with this market share intact. Not
Nintendo's resilience bothers Kutaragi too much.
Playstation is still miles ahead and well on its way to becoming the first console to pass.
One hundred million sales mark,
to rocky is shocked by the scale of the playstation success. The playstation
and much more than topple, Nintendo and lay waste to Sega. It is.
Huge Sony
during the early, 1990s Sony's winning
shrieking consumer electronics had come to an end
today's when Sony repeatedly wowed the world with products like Trinity,
On color tv, CD players and the walk band
Oh God, Sony had lost its mojo, but with the playstation
Sony Computer, entertainment,
the lowly regarded part of the company that had
please, Sony, Hq Q survive all those years ago is now the
successful part of the Sony Empire, Gujarati the outspoken.
Corporate revel is now being tipped
there's a future Sony. President Playstation transfer
from the game. Business too, with its efforts to make gaming cool
win over adults, so took video games into the mainstream.
Just two years earlier, most game players were kids
The majority of players are adults.
Games are no longer toys. Just for the boys about a quarter of
station users are women and girls thanks to the Playstation
Video game sales are at an all time high today
four years since one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight game sales have doubled to more than six billion
dollars a year in the USA alone, the
game. Industry is still the kid brother to Hollywood, but it's cat
fast and Hollywood is taking note.
In America, Nintendos Goldeneye game, grossed, more
Twice as much as the James Bond Movie, it was based on
in nineteen? Ninety nine playstation is ninety Nintendo, but is beta. Nintendo Kutaragi
has no time to bask in the glory of the playstation success. He's
King of the new advanced playstation, two in Kyoto
Archie is contemplating a successor to the Nintendo Sixty four with what he once thought: unthinkable a console without cartridges.
Yes, it's a personal defeat.
But he knows he has to embrace cds- to win back the game. Publishers who deserted Intento for Sony Good,
Oggy and your maschi are each drawing up diabolical plans to crush the other. Why wouldn't they that's? What they've always done? What they don't know is that the next console war
the two way fight they imagine and the new unseen challenger is about to enter the ring.
May one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine
boardroom less than a mile from Nintendo of America's headquarters in Redmond WA, a group of businessmen are arguing
they've been there locking horns for hours,
day has turned tonight, but the
even show no sign of stopping. You are listening to what I'm saying we.
Have to make a video game console and we must do it now nonsense:
after to do anything, your plan
just blow a billion dollars. One billion dollar
getting into the video game business in the hope that one day far in the future, we might- and it's most definitely I might-
earn some money from doing it. What kind of dumb
this plan is that the
this single glare at each other across the room for a moment, and then one
breaks. The silence but
What about Sony? If we
nothing Sony will own the living rooms of the world. That thought
silence is the room. Suddenly he
thanks for Bill gates and his number two Steve Ballmer Gates, stare
is the Microsoft team in front of him, though,
I want him to throw a billion dollars behind a games console called the Xbox,
cancel that could ensure Microsoft,
had Sony holds the keys to the
picture of home, entertainment,
one want the world's richest company
to do this Sony, what Sony did a nintendo?
Employees want the xbox to be the first console with a hard drive built in
they also wanted to be the first to support online gaming via broadband
even though almost no one has broadband internet in nineteen. Ninety nine these features, however, will make the Xbox
very expensive, and so the plan is Microsoft will take a loss on
Free Xbox it sells. That's why the
box project is going to cost Microsoft. A ton of money.
No wonder gates worries about the cost, but gates isn't one to shy away from a fight
thinks about taking on Sony his face. Brightens
He smiled and says you know what I like this plan. It's a good plan. Let's go make the Xbox.
For almost a decade, Nintendo and Sony have been fighting for dominance over a multi billion dollar business. They bloodied and bruised each other and brought Sega to its knees in the process, but now,
well now the war for console dominance has a new fighter in the ring.
Hope you enjoyed this final episode of Nintendo versus Sony. New episodes of business wars come out every Tuesday and Thursday. You can subscribe now, an apple podcast, Spotify,
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Kristin Donovan wrote this story. He is the author of we play the history of video games.
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created by earn on Lopez or wondering conventional thinking.
Would have you believe, joy comes from within that it,
from having a sunny disposition or how we look at the world and our place in it, and we're told that death
only doesn't come from material possessions or fleeting pleasures, but according to Ingrid to tell Lee we couldn't be more wrong. There's a new
podcast from one recall the next big idea and in their episode why ordinary objects can make you extraordinarily happy. Ingrid Fratelli asks us to challenge that conventional wisdom. Consider how simple things like colorful clothes in a monotone office curves in a straight edge world and nature in a concrete jungle, can bring us joy in unexpected, yet powerful ways and for deeply rooted biological reasons. So
After to the next big idea on Apple podcast, Spotify or
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Transcript generated on 2019-11-14.