Super Mario
How Nintendo Conquered America
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Super Mario
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Narrated by:
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Ray Porter
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Written by:
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Jeff Ryan
About this listen
The story of Nintendo’s rise and the beloved icon who made it possible
Nintendo has continually set the standard for video game innovation in America, starting in 1981 with a plucky hero who jumped over barrels to save a girl from an ape.
The saga of Mario, the portly plumber who became the most successful franchise in the history of gaming, has plot twists worthy of a video game. Jeff Ryan shares the story of how this quintessentially Japanese company found success in the American market. Lawsuits, Hollywood, die-hard fans, and face-offs with Sony and Microsoft are all part of the drama. Find out about: Mario’s eccentric yet brilliant creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, who was tapped for the job because he was considered expendable; Minoru Arakawa, the son-in-law of Nintendo’s imperious president, who bumbled his way to success; and the unexpected approach that allowed Nintendo to reinvent itself as the gaming system for the nongamer, especially now with the Wii.
Even those who can’t tell a Koopa from a Goomba will find this a fascinating story of striving, comeuppance, and redemption.
©2011 Jeff Ryan (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.What the critics say
“One of America’s favorite pastimes is covered in exhaustive, enthusiastic detail.” (Publishers Weekly)
As a result, the first half is jam packed with a very nice flow and interesting tidbits gleamed from those previous works. The narrative starts to fall apart post SNES and in the transition to the N64. Not surprisingly this is around where Sheff's Game Over leaves the scene.
As has been pointed out in some other reviews, there are many factual inaccuracies ranging from small to large. Though they mostly don't detract from the overall cohesion, telling Nintendo's story post 1995, where the narrative isn't a simple rise or fall, is difficult, and Jeff Ryan makes a good attempt at it.
With the book's publication date in 2011, it landed squarely in the last half of the Wii / DS boom years for Nintendo, and does feel quite dated in 2021 (the date of this review). Most of the book's predictions about the future fall flat, and in the intervening years, we've seen the rise and fall of facebook darlings like Zynga that the author hyped up as a potential Nintendo competitor.
With all that said, covering Nintendo up to the Wii and DS affords Ryan the opportunity to construct a redemption arc after the lucklustre GameCube and he does a competent job at it, though he tends to fall for too much of the internet chatter and armchair histories from what he calls the 'video game intellgentsia' of the period.
If you want a high level view of Nintendo, this isn't a bad start, just be prepared to accept some facts relayed are either wrong, garbled or based on urban myths and the book skips over large chunks of interesting histories of Nintendo at its height, notably the fight with Mirrorsoft and Atari to gain the home rights to Tetris, or most of the console wars shenanigans of the 90s. For those, further reading such as the aforementioned Game Over or Blake J. Harris' aptly titled Console Wars will be required..
Lastly, the audio book's narration by Ray Porter is increadible. The narrator really engages with the material.
A competent retelling of Nintendo's history
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Biased
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lol there is a 15 word minimum for this review
I love this narrator though
Excellent narration
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Loved it!
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GOOD
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