Console Wars

by Blake J. Harris

  But Miles had a new best friend. Someone who believed in him. Someone who was his hero. And that friend was Sonic.

  Sonic was happy that he could help his buddy gain new confidence and new abilities. “See, Miles, you are special because you have two tails. And because of that, I’m going to give you a very special nickname. From now on I’m going to call you Tails because you should always be reminded that you are special because you have two tails.”

  So from that day forward Miles Monotail became known as Tails.

  When Nilsen finished, he folded the paper and slid it into his pocket. The members of Sonic Team, who’d been planning on hating every word out of Nilsen’s mouth, found themselves entranced by the story. One developer was even moved to tears.

  After allowing a moment to let it sink in, Naka walked up to Nilsen and said, “You may call him Tails.” Yet despite Naka’s proclamation, the issue was still not resolved. Although moved, several of Sonic Team’s other members remained unconvinced. Sensing that the momentary camaraderie was about to fizzle away, Toyoda blurted out a compromise: “How about his real name is Miles Prower, but Sonic calls him by the nickname Tails?” This suggestion managed to do the trick: the fox would go by Tails, but Sonic Team would take solace in the fact that in a fictional filing cabinet somewhere, there was a birth certificate with the name Miles Prower (although they would eventually decide to make this less fictional and graffiti the name “Miles” throughout the game).

  But in this moment, on this day, they were all part of the same story. And they would be writing the happy ending together. For now, at least.

  27.

  SOMETHING BEYOND VIDEOGAMES

  On April 6, 1992, names were on Tom Kalinske’s mind. But for the first time in months, Tails, Miles Prower, and the PhD-holding Robotnik had nothing to do with it. On this occasion, the only characters who mattered were his daughters, Karen, and the just-born boy nestled in her arms. A crowd of family members gathered around her hospital bed, inspecting the tiny creature and beginning the process of loving him unconditionally. With so many eyes fixed upon him, he flapped his elbow, as if waving hello, and wowed the room. His father was certain that he already had the Kalinske charisma. He was perfect in every way, except that he still needed a name.

  “Brandon,” Karen declared, finalizing the creation of this tiny being.

  Later that evening, eight hundred miles to the north, there was another cause for celebration. And though it lacked the sentimental drama of childbirth, this event was sentimental and dramatic to those in attendance and would perhaps lead to a playoff berth one day soon. At 7:05 p.m. the Mariners opened the 1992 baseball season, and to the delight of fifty-five thousand cheering fans, they did so in Seattle. The heroes responsible for preventing the team’s relocation enjoyed the game from the Boeing luxury suite on the third-base side. There, Arakawa, Lincoln, Senator Gorton, and a handful of minority investors commemorated the occasion by passing around a bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle, a local wine befitting the local royalty.

  Yet despite feeling like kings and having submitted the highest bid on the table, the Seattle Baseball Group had not yet had its $125 million offer accepted by Major League Baseball. This was partly due to the molasses of bureaucracy, but mostly it was the by-product of a national backlash that had been piling up against Nintendo ever since their fateful press conference. Headlines like “Japanese Bid for Seattle Team Gets Baseball’s Cold Shoulder” (New York Times, January 24) and “Buy American Cry Spreading Across Nation” (Boston Globe, January 25) described the attitude of a nation that had interpreted Nintendo’s noble motives as sinister machinations. The controversy shifted from national concern to national outrage on February 15, when the commissioner of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league, Ichiro Yoshikuni, stated that “Japanese baseball is for the Japanese and Japanese fans would try to exclude the possibility of foreign-country involvement.” Following this, Nintendo simply became a metaphor for “them” in the “us vs. them” prism that came to define America’s relations with Japan. On television, in newspapers, and inside bars across the country, denouncing Nintendo was socially acceptable—and often even socially expected.

  At this point, it would have been easy and even understandable for Nintendo to simply give up. They had tried to do a good thing, but others did not see it that way. And while it’s admirable not to base decisions on the perceptions of others, in this case those others were also Nintendo’s customers, and the bad press was hurting sales. But to Arakawa (and also Lincoln and Yamauchi), giving up wasn’t even an option. For better or worse, Arakawa believed in staying the course and doing right by those he cared about most—usually that was the gamers, but in this case it was the people of Seattle. Obstacles are a part of life, but still, it’s always better to be the tortoise than the hare.

  Instead of raising the white flag, Nintendo chose to cloak themselves in the red, white, and blue. In early February, Yamauchi said that he hoped to move Nintendo’s global headquarters to Seattle. In late February, seven new American-born minority investors were brought into the Seattle Baseball Club. And in March 1992, for the first time in Nintendo of America’s history, they hired someone to handle corporate communications. That someone was Perrin Kaplan, a PR vixen whose skills of persuasion were so ferocious that she claimed to have once convinced an Israeli soldier to smuggle her across the Lebanese border. Between Kaplan’s finesse and some restructuring of the ownership group, the backlash began to dissipate. The nation was still disgruntled, but at least they weren’t as vocal about it as they once were.

  And by opening day of the 1992 baseball season, the only voices that really mattered were those of the 55,918 fans cheering as the umpire shouted “Play ball!” and the still-in-Seattle Mariners took the field.

  Since bringing his son home from the hospital, Kalinske had developed a talent for answering phone calls before they reached the second ring. He figured this was the least he could do, what with Karen having handled the whole pregnancy, labor, and delivery side of the equation. And tonight his full range of dexterity was on display as he swiped the kitchen phone from its cradle in the middle of its first ring.

  “Tom? Hello, friend. It’s Olaf,” Olafsson said with the sly but sincere friendliness he had perfected. “Forgive me for calling at this hour.”

  “No problem,” Kalinske said. “It’s not too late here with the time difference.”

  “Ah, yes, saved by the Pacific time zone,” Olafsson replied with some relief. “I must admit that I’m traveling so much I often lose track of the hours.”

  “I know the feeling all too well. Anyway, what’s going on?”

  “Well, my friend, I am calling to offer my congratulations.”

  “You spoke with Japan?” Kalinske asked, unable to hide his excitement. After months of loose discussions, he and Olafsson had spent much of the past couple of weeks trying to formalize a partnership between Sega and Sony, an alliance based on shared respect and mutual need. As the two of them had become friendlier and grown more willing to speak more openly, it became clear that they were a natural match. Olafsson confided to Kalinske that, above all else, his goal was for Sony to get into the videogame business in a major way and stay there for years to come. This seemed like a no-brainer, but Sony’s old guard was still resistant to spending the time and resources to make that happen. In terms of software, they already looked down their nose at Olafsson’s Sony Computer Entertainment division, which had been unable to obtain the money and internal support to attract top-flight developers. And when it came to hardware, they were looking to pull the plug on Kutaragi’s work, perhaps as early as June. Olafsson was convinced that he could still make Sony a player in the videogame industry, but he needed more time. An alliance with Sega would buy him that time by ensuring that Sony would remain in the videogame business at least as long as that partnership lasted.

  For Kalinske, the upside to a relationship with Sony went beyond videogames. He envision
ed the possibility of not only creating software together, but also working on hardware, music, and one day even movies. With Sony, Sega could become the intersection of technology, entertainment, and pop culture. With Sony, Sega could own the future. “So what exactly did Japan say? Were they interested in us working together?”

  “Tom, Tom, Tom,” Olafsson playfully chided. “You must get your priorities in order. I meant congratulations on the baby boy. Brandon, is that his name?”

  “Oh, that congratulations,” Kalinske replied sheepishly. “I feel like such a fool.”

  “Don’t. Japan has been very much on my mind as well,” Olafsson admitted, which made Kalinske feel better. “I suppose your jumping to conclusions is a testament to the type of guys we are and, perhaps, also a sign of the times we live in.”

  “That sounds like a good excuse. I’ll take it,” Kalinske said, making them both laugh. “But seriously, thank you so much for calling about the baby. We’re all very excited. And it’s nice to finally have another guy inside this house of girls.”

  “I can only imagine,” Olafsson said. “Anyhow, I should leave you to more important matters. I’ll call as soon as I hear anything new. It’ll likely be a slow burn, but I think we’ll be able to make it happen.”

  “I look forward to hearing from you,” Kalinske said.

  “Fantastic,” Olafsson said. “Until then, enjoy the new dynamic.”

  Kalinske hung up and returned to his new dynamic: a happily exhausted wife, three very curious daughters, and a teeny-tiny son.

  There was certainly a sense that things were changing, not just at the Kalinske home but also at the office. For starters, only a few months after moving into the new office in Redwood Shores, Sega had moved again, to accommodate its rapid expansion. Whereas the previous building felt like a place for transition, this new location felt like one meant for transformation—from good to great, from challenger to contender, from also-ran to front-runner. The six-story, 113,000-square-foot building at 255 Shoreline Drive, with its series of elegant fountains in front and placid lagoon out back, served as a daily reminder of Sega’s legitimacy.

  The new office represented Sega’s metamorphosis, but the overall sense of changing dynamics went beyond a change in location. Ever since Sega’s coming-out party in Vegas, the company and its employees were being treated with new respect. While this was certainly good for the ego, it was even better for the bottom line. Two years ago, Toyoda had approached Warner Bros. about licensing some of their characters for Genesis games. Back then, their licensing department wasn’t even willing to have a conversation about the matter, for fear that it would get back to Nintendo. Now, two of Sega’s most promising games in the pipeline were Batman Returns, based on the upcoming Warner Bros. movie, and Taz-Mania, based on the WB-owned Looney Tunes character. In addition to Warner Bros., Sega was also having high-level discussions with Disney, Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and of course Sony.

  With Sega beginning to take Nintendo’s world by storm, Kalinske thought it was time to start giving back. While Nintendo considered purchasing a major league baseball team to be an act of charity, Kalinske thought that Sega could do something more creative and effective. So in early 1992 he formed a charitable trust called the Sega Youth Education and Health Foundation, whose mission was to fight diseases plaguing children and to sponsor a variety of educational endeavors, particularly those with an emphasis on pairing learning and technology. At Mattel, philanthropy had always been a top priority, so Kalinske relished the chance to get back in the corporate giving spirit. An individual can donate money to help support a cause, but an ambitious company can actually cause a shift in the global conversation.

  Beyond the social benefits, launching a Sega foundation also served to placate those worried about the social or education merits of videogames. Rarely was Kalinske himself overcome by such thoughts, but doubts were cropping up more frequently now. Maybe it was because as Emil Heidkamp had mentioned the games did appear to be quickly drifting toward increased violence. Maybe it stemmed from the sort of personal reflection that happens when you’ve brought a new life into the world. Or maybe his concerns came from the growing whispers of parents who were concerned that videogames might be detrimental to their children’s development. A minority of moms and dads believed that Nintendo (and now Sega) were irresponsibly raising a generation of “vidiots.” If Kalinske had wanted to face these concerns head-on, perhaps he could have better understood their origin. But that wasn’t something he wished to take on, at least not right now. There was just too much to do, and no time to waste thinking about it. Besides, even if there was any merit to these concerns, they would surely be canceled out by the good that would come from Sega’s new foundation. Yes, he realized that this type of thinking was how a drug kingpin with a penchant for charitable donations might rationalize his lifestyle, but that didn’t necessarily make it wrong, right? No, of course not. Sega was already making a difference, and for proof he need not look further than a recent conversation with Nilsen.

  A few months ago, Nilsen had ambled into Kalinske’s office. “I just got out of a meeting with Cheryl from KIIS.” This was Cheryl Quiroz from the radio station KIIS-FM, whom Nilsen had continued to work with ever since the “Sixteen Weeks of Summer” campaign. She was one of the few outside Sega who truly bled Sonic blue. “She flew up here to talk about a summer concert that they want to put on. And she brought along the station’s program director, a guy named Bill Richards.”

  “Don’t know him,” Kalinske said. He was slightly confused, but unable to hide his eagerness to find out how this all fit together. “That’s kind of unusual, that she would bring him along, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Nilsen said. “I kept wondering why they’d spent the money to fly him up here, but then it hit me: they’re desperate. Turns out that Bill, the PD, had this crazy idea to bring a bunch of hot acts together for a benefit concert. You know, something to raise money and awareness for a good cause. Except they can’t find a single sponsor, because that cause is pediatric AIDS.”

  It’s hard to accurately describe the national sentiment toward AIDS during the late eighties and early nineties, particularly when it came to children who were infected, but the case of Ryan White in Kokomo, Indiana, goes a long way toward explaining the emotional tug-of-war between fear and sympathy.

  In 1971, when he was only three days old, Ryan White was diagnosed with hemophilia A. As treatment for this disorder, he was given weekly transfusions of a blood-clotting protein called factor VIII. This enabled him to live a relatively normal life throughout most of his childhood, but that changed in 1984 when the thirteen-year-old was rushed to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia. Following a partial lung transplant, he was diagnosed with AIDS, which he had acquired through a transfusion. White was given only six months to live, but after beating those odds and regaining some of his strength, he wanted to try to resume a normal life. A large part of that normalcy entailed returning to school, but when community members learned of his intentions, they protested.

  Fearing that he might be contagious, fifty teachers and over a hundred local parents signed a petition to ban Ryan White from Western Middle School. Even though the health commissioner of Indiana informed the school that White posed no risk to other students, he was expelled from the school. The White family challenged this decision and turned to the legal system to get their son readmitted. Over the next year, White remained at home as his case went through various courts and appeals until finally, in August 1986, he was allowed to return to school for eighth grade. Although this appeared to be a major victory, White was generally unhappy upon returning to classes because he had few friends and was often accused of “being a queer.” Meanwhile, his family received threats on a nearly daily basis, and after a bullet zinged through their living room, they decided to withdraw their son from the school.

  From then until his death in 1990, White became a national spokesman for the disease, appear
ing frequently on The Phil Donahue Show and participating in charity benefits. His life even inspired a television movie on ABC. Although his efforts helped to significantly raise awareness, the cultural perception of the disease didn’t change a great deal. The mention of AIDS was still intrinsically toxic, and that’s why no corporations were willing to support the concert that KIIS wanted to put on.

  “All they’re asking for is fifty grand,” Nilsen explained. “And for that, because of the stigma, they’re offering two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of promos and ad time. An amazing cause and a fantastic deal.” Nilsen shook his head again, this time with some anger. “So I told her that Sega would be more than happy to sponsor the event. And that’s the good news.”

  When the information hit, Kalinske leaned forward. “Wait,” he said. “Let me get this straight: without my approval, you already agreed to commit a sizable amount of money to a press-heavy event for a disease whose mere mention makes people look the other way?”

  “Yes, I did,” Nilsen said tentatively, but with no hint of embarrassment.

  Kalinske slapped his desk. “Al,” he said, “I like you more and more each day. This is fantastic!” Kalinske then went on to tell him about Anique Kaspar, the family friend that the Kalinskes had run into at Disneyland. He explained to Nilsen what the resilient young girl had been going through and how he’d been trying to help her in whatever small ways he possibly could. “Paul Newman opened this great organization in Connecticut, the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. It’s a place for very sick children to enjoy the summer camp experience with others in the same position.”

  “That’s incredible,” Nilsen said.

  “It is, it really is,” Kalinske said. “And Anique deserves all the incredibleness she can get. So Karen and I are going to pay for her to go there this summer. Wait, I hope it doesn’t conflict with the concert. Do you know what day KIIS has in mind?”