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

Kohler, Chris

3.98

425 ratings by Goodreads

9780744004243: Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0744004241 ISBN 13: 9780744004243

Publisher: BradyGames, 2004

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Get the Inside Scoop on How the Japanese Video Game Industry Gave the World an Extra Life with BradyGames' Exclusive New Book!

BradyGames' Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life examines the history of Japanese video games and the reasons behind their success.
Explanations for why Japanese video games are so unique as well as why they resonate so well with young American players.
The origins of Nintendo, Japan's oldest and largest video game producer, is also examined, along with Japanese Role-Playing Games.
Plus much more--the process of translating and bringing Japanese games to the U.S., Pok�mon power in the states, and the future of the Japanese gaming industry.

There is no book yet written in English on the subject of Japanese video games. There are many books written on Japan, and many books written on video games. But these books cover Japanese video games only in passing, and none are written from the standpoint of trying to understand the reasons behind the success of Japanese video games. Only BradyGames' Power-Up book examines why video games are fun and what Japanese designers do to make their games more fun, in addition to covering the history of Japanese video games. The book also contains interviews with accomplished game designers, artists and muscians. Not Final Cover.

Chris Kohler currently lives in North Branford, Connecticut. He graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts in May 2002, receiving a BA in Japanese and the Japanese Language and Literature Prize. His graduation thesis was titled "The Cinematic Japanese Video Game" and earned highest honors.

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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, Pok�mon, 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 title" may belong to another edition of this title.