Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life - Softcover

Kohler, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486801497 ISBN 13: 9780486801490

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2016

Synopsis

Why are Japanese video games a worldwide sensation? This enjoyable and informative survey explores the reasons, starting with how Japanese developers raised the medium to an art form. The book also traces the ways in which the developers' ideas infused popular culture beyond the gaming world.
Interviews, anecdotes, and personal accounts offer insights from giants of the industry, including Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, and others involved in the creation of Donkey Kong, Mario, Pokémon, and other games. This revised edition includes updated material throughout the book as well as a new final chapter.
"Chris Kohler brings the passionate intensity of a hardcore fan to his writing, but he also has the background knowledge and the critical facilities to explore video games as an industry, as a medium, and as a cultural phenomenon." -- Chris Baker
"While it appears that Japanese gaming is on the wane today, it's worth your time to read about an era when nothing could be further from the truth." -- IGN
"Quite excellent... a great read." -- Hardcore Gaming 101
"Direct and insightful ... I believe that it belongs on the top shelf of any collector." -- Steve Kent, author of The Ultimate History of Video Games

About this title

From the Author:

In writing Power-Up, I wanted to take what I had learned about Japanese art and culture and apply it to the video games that I had grown up loving so much, in an attempt to explain why Japan had been so successful throughout the world, from such an early point in gaming history. 
I wrote this book while living in Kyoto, Japan, just a few minutes' walk down the road from the original Nintendo Playing Cards building. It's a snapshot of that year of my life, as well as a history and profile of Japanese games from Super Mario to Final Fantasy to Ico. 
For the revised 2016 edition available from Dover Publications, I wrote the only thing that seemed appropriate: an all-new chapter paying tribute to the life and work of Nintendo's late president Satoru Iwata.

From the Back Cover:

"Chris Kohler brings the passionate intensity of a hardcore fan to his writing, but he also has the background knowledge and the critical facilities to explore video games as an industry, as a medium, and as a cultural phenomenon."—Wired.
Why are Japanese video games a worldwide sensation? This enjoyable and informative survey explores the reasons, starting with how Japanese developers raised the medium to an art form. The book also traces the ways in which the developers' ideas infused popular culture beyond the gaming world.
Interviews, anecdotes, and personal accounts offer insights from giants of the industry, including Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, and others involved in the creation of Donkey Kong, Mario, Pokémon, and other games. This revised edition includes updated material throughout the book as well as a new bonus chapter.
Dover (2016) republication of the edition originally published by BradyGames, Sacramento, California, 2004.
See every Dover book in print at
www.doverpublications.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0486801497
• ISBN 13: 9780486801490
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336