Super Mario

How Nintendo Conquered America

De: Jeff Ryan

Narrado por: Ray Porter

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“One of America’s favorite pastimes is covered in exhaustive, enthusiastic detail.” (Publishers Weekly)

Nostalgia strikes like a super smash brother

What did you love best about Super Mario?
The writing was top notch, but it was the performance from Ray Porter that really elevated this book for me. I've listened to it multiple times now as if it's a favorite movie.

What did you like best about this story?
The story was told with nuance, wit, and balance. It never felt like a piece of Nintendo propaganda, and it never felt like a chance for an outsider to tear the big N to pieces. Combined with the fact that it makes genuinely insightful observations into all kinds of elements of pop and video game culture, I was riveted while I listened and reflective after I pushed pause.

What about Ray Porter’s performance did you like?
He has such a dynamic, engaging voice, and he reads with all the flourish and confidence of a seasoned actor. This wasn't just someone reading words off of a page. This brought the words to emotive life.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I did! I laughed out loud several times - and I don't doubt that it came from a combination of the excellent writing and the superb performance from Ray Porter.

Eetsa me, your childhood

I loved this book. It was equal parts entertaining, funny, informative, and nostalgic. Highly recommended for others who grew up on video games.

As always, narrator Ray Porter is at the top of his game. I've heard so much by him and I'm waiting for the day where he calls it in and disappoints me -- to date, this has never happened.

Super Mario is Super

no matter what other companies tried to do Nintendo was always one step ahead.

Interesting topic, but numerous factual errors

I'm a lifelong Nintendo fan from the days of the NES, so I know quite a bit of Nintendo history & trivia myself. I found this book mostly entertaining, with the most interesting parts being the history of Nintendo's founders and how they made so many risky business decisions and faced so many challenges, especially in the early days, and overcame them to eventually succeed. The not so easy relationship between Nintendo's CEO and his son in law who ran Nintendo of America was also engrossing to learn about. Details of Nintendo's fight with Universal over the legal rights to Donkey Kong was a highlight of the book. The book shows its age though by the last chapter. It goes no further than the start of the Wii generation of gaming and proceeds to make poorly-aged predictions on the future of game consoles.

I do have nitpicks about the book though. For example, as many other reviews have pointed out, there are numerous little factual errors throughout the book. As a Nintendo nerd myself I caught a lot of them, such as saying Bowser is the last boss of Super Mario Brothers 2 (he wasn't, it was Wart) or claiming Mike Tyson was heavy weight champion when Nintendo signed a licensing deal with him for Mike Tyson's Punch Out (Nintendo actually took a risk by signing the deal even before he was champion). Also, Ray Porter's narration is generally good, but he mispronounces some names of characters like Samus and the game developer/publisher Konami as "Komani."

The other nitpick I have about the book is that author Jeff Ryan's fondness for constantly making random off-topic references can get distracting. This is a history of video games and Nintendo, but it's like he's deliberately trying to make his references to topics as unrelated to video games as possible, bringing up everything from Greek mythology, to Donald Trump, to the book Crime & Punishment, to the history of Napoleon, to old TV shows Mork & Mindy and Three's Company and the Brady Bunch. I get that the author's trying to be funny, and he's probably trying to show off how knowledgeable he is on so many topics, but since the topic of discussion is video games, why not make more video game-related references instead of such pop culture references as irrelevant to video games as old American comedy sitcoms?

Entertaining and Easy to Listen to

Enjoyed the fact that the narrator changed tone to emphasize certain phrases. That made it easier to follow.