The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and the Billion-Dollar Battle to Shape Modern Gaming Paperback – August 24, 2021

Having enjoyed his first volume (finished this year) I was thrilled to see that he was releasing a volume 2 focusing solely on video games in the 21st century because that account has been lacking. Going forward I hope that video game historians start their history of video games at the turn of the century because that point in time is the genesis of video games as we know them today in the age of Web 2.0, online multiplayer and cloud storage.It's mostly a history of first party console and handheld manufacturers and AAA publishers, and a great one it is at that. You do find some interesting niche chapters on state of arcade gaming, the competition between EA and Activision for the most prevalent AAA publisher in the industry, and on the discussion of whether video games are considered 'art' and why film licensed games and film adaptations of games have not been successful. You're not really going to find much detail on mobile, PC and indie games, though the author is begging for a volume 3 since he leaves off unresolved at the peak of the PS3/XBox 360/Wii era towards the end of the 10s. Hopefully he'll fill us in on those things by then when volume 3 is released which he has confirmed that he's working on that to my delight.Overall I enjoyed it. 5/5.

Once again, as in the first volume of The Ultimate History of Video Games, Mr. Kent's second volume is a fun, interesting and informative read. I especially enjoyed the quotes from the people who were present at these many industry changing moments. I am hoping for a volume three one day.

Some 20 years after his seminal book, the original "The Ultimate History of Video Games", Steven Kent has returned with volume 2. Following the same format as volume 1, the end result is good but something of a mixed bag as well.Picking up in 1996 where volume 1 left off, Kent tells the story of console releases and the people behind them. He liberally sprinkles in quotes from key players and an occasional journalist. These are entertaining and provide insights you're not going to find just anywhere. Really good stuff. And you got almost 500 pages of that kind of material. So that's a good thing, right?Well...There are numerous problems. First and foremost is ... where are the games?!!? Oh sure, SOME games are mentioned but "The Ultimate History of Video Games" - not Video Game CONSOLES but Video Games - should have coverage of LOTS of games. Where is Assassin's Creed? Where is Uncharted? Where the heck are all the RTS games that dominated PC gaming for several years? And on and on and on. There are TONS of key games missing here.Next is that, without stating it, the book stops with the PS3 generation - sort of. Lots of stuff is talked about from after that generation - but not the PS4 or PS5, not the Xbox One or Series S/X.Next, where are the games for mobile platforms? Kent talks about the PSP and DS but completely ignores phones. If you accept the arbitrary cutoff date of "the PS3 generation", this is still not acceptable. The original iPhone was released less than a year after the PS3 but doesn't exist here. Ditto for Android.Where are all the indie games? Not here.Where is Steam? Steam was introduced *3* years before the PS3 yet goes without mention here.The PSN Network was hacked in 2011 but goes unmentioned here.Speaking of PSN and its competitor, Xbox Live, the rise of online gaming is pretty much ignored here. Oh, they're discussed but only as a feature of hardware platforms rather than the global communities they've become.Next, there is somehow a lot of rehashed material here. The formation of Electronic Arts and its "album cover" boxes was discussed in Volume 1 - why is it included again here? Same thing with Activision.In addition, Kent has a somewhat strange selection of sources. He's got a lot of key players and industry insiders and then remarkably few journalists. There's a ton of quotes from N'Gai Croal, a video game journalist I've never heard of previously - perhaps because he wrote for Newsweek rather than an actual video game publication. Croal is quoted over and over and over with his words being given way too much importance. Kent also makes sure to tell us what Croal's favorite game is for no apparent reason.Finally, we get 30-some pages on movies about video games. I suppose that's OK but seems out of place here, especially considering the huge number of, you know, GAMES that are missing.At the end of the day, Kent's Volume 2 is a highly entertaining read that will end up frustrating almost as much as it entertains. There are just so many things ignored and missed that, unlike Volume 1, this one does not live up to its "Ultimate" title. I do recommend the book, just be forewarned.p.s. Don't believe the "592 pages" information. The actual book ends on page 530. The acknowledgements and index take you to 562. And there's a few pages of intro. Being very generous, there's barely 570 pages here. Realistically, it's more like 530.

When I taught a class on the history of video games in the year 2002, one of the textbooks I assigned was the original Ultimate History of Video Games. At the time, it truly was the ultimate history of games, as very few books on the subject even existed! I thought that Steve had left the games journalism field for good, so I was surprised and pleased when I learned that a second volume of his book was in the offing. In 2021, there are literally hundreds of different takes on gaming history, written from a variety of angles. The unique place that this book occupies is delivering unique, entertaining, and engaging anecdotes and stories from the people who were behind the scenes during the making of history. Primarily about the console wars between Sony, Sega, Microsoft, and Nintendo during the late 2000's and the early 2010's, this book will end up being a breezy read for anyone who wants to relive the key moments of victory (and perhaps learn from the hubris of the past).

The first 10-12% is a rehash of book one (definitely not cut-and-pasted by any means but rather repetitive if you've just finished the first book), and an entire tenth of the book (the second-to-last chapter) is spent on two "evil empires" in gaming. The rest pretty much focuses on the period from the end of gen 6 (Xbox/PS2/GC) through gen 7 (360/PS3/Wii).Considering that this book was published around 2020 and facts up until 2019 are presented in the text, I found it a massive disappointment to not see the Switch (2017) mentioned even once, let alone ANY mention of gen 8 (XOne/PS4/WiiU) aside from a passing quote or two.Also, there seemed to be much more of a linear-time problem with this one; there'd be momentum building through year such and such, and then the next chapter would take us back five years. The first book did this occasionally as well, but the jumps here made for a rather disjointed read from my perspective.It's packed with interesting information, but it already feels a decade out of date.

I bought this for my son for his birthday. It was only after I pulled it out to wrap it that I noticed that the back cover was marked up, and that there are pieces of a section of pages that are completely missing. I should have checked it earlier, but it is unfortunate it was shipped at all.