There are a number of typos towards the end, as well as an entire page-long passage copy/pasted in an awkward place. The biggest is a lack of editorial review. I do have a few complaints about the book. It sounds confusing, but is well organized considering this is ultimately a history tied together of anecdotes and the author's long history of research. The book is structured by console, and generally completes the lifecycle of one system before backtracking to start with another overlapping system. Sega's relations with Microsoft leading up to the Xbox launch.

the impact of piracy on the Dreamcast's software sales.

Saturn's 5-star game policy and the lack of imports.

Why developers favored the PlayStation over the Saturn.

Pirate TV (Europe), and the Sega scream (USA) If you don't know about them, it's time to get schooled. Here's just a sample of topics covered in the book. It contains many quotes from the industry published in magazines of the time, and gets right down to the complex relations between developers, sometimes on a personal level. The author is most certainly a gamer and a Sega fan, and I think that is the only point of view that is easiest to relate to in this historical account. The hardware and technical specs, the competition, business (mis)management, marketing, and the hit games. It's a real miracle they haven't gone under like Atari, Midway, or SNK. In a period of 5 years, Sega had gone from being #1 to being 7 billion dollars in debt. Sega threw a hail-mary with the Dreamcast, and it was everything fans could want in a console, but it was too little, too late. The Saturn released early at a high price point and few hit games, setting Sega up to get steamrolled by the new kid on the block, Sony. The Sega CD and 32X add-ons ate away at the profits generated by the Genesis and arcade divisions. First to market for the 16-bit generation the Genesis (Mega Drive) took Sega to the #1 position in the game market, and marked the first significant console war with Nintendo. After the collapse of the home game market, Sega tried to enter only to be locked out by Nintendo. This arcade amusement company already had stakes planted in both the US and Japanese markets before Atari revolutionized video entertainment, both at the arcades and at home. Before video arcade games, there was SEGA.

Service Games by Sam Pettus