Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation
3.5/5
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About this ebook
Now a documentary on CBS All Access.
Following the success of The Accidental Billionaires and Moneyball comes Console Wars—a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video game industry.
In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.
The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.
Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It’s the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.
A best book of the year: NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Goodreads
Blake J. Harris
Blake J. Harris is the bestselling author of History of the Future and Console Wars, which is now a CBS All Access feature film by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. He has written for ESPN, IGN, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, /Film and The AV Club. He is also a regular guest on Paul Scheer’s How Did This Get Made? podcast, where every week he interviews some the biggest names responsible for some of the worst movies ever made. Harris lives in New York with his wife.
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Reviews for Console Wars
124 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The second generation of video games happened while I was in college and was relying on my own money to buy consoles and games. With the small brain of college student I was swayed by the marketing and hype on which system to buy and which games to buy. Sega or Nintendo?Harris tells the story largely through the eyes of Tom Kalinske. Sega, the underdog, transformed its fortunes when it hired this American businessman to run US operations. Kalinske was a former president of Mattel, and was responsible for reviving Barbie and created the He-Man franchise.It was Kalinske who was in charge of Sega when it rolled out the Genesis system, Sonic the Hedgehog and those commercials that ended with the "Sega" scream. Mr. Harris presents the novel as more of novelization. He puts forth in the prologue that he has “altered, reconstructed or imagined” the scenes and “re-created” the dialogue. It feels artificial most of the time. As someone who lived on the consumer side I found it fascinating to find out what was happening on the corporate side.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very well written book that tells the very interesting story of Sega vs Nintendo. It was a trip down memory lane, rediscovering those old consoles and games I played so may years ago.
Highly recommended! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5THIS BOOK. I want to find my older brothers Sega and Nintendo systems and games and have a decent crack at them. Console Wars is such a great read. I grew up during this era, but I had no idea what was going on. All I know for certain now is my brother was spoiled, he had both systems (as well as all the others I think minus the portables) and so many games and he did not like for me to play on them often. Spoiled. That didn’t stop me from playing them when he wasn’t at home though :X.
Console Wars tells the great story of how Sega went head to head with Nintendo in the early 1990s. Nintendo was dominating the video game industry and Sega was some little company trying to get in the game in Japan and America. Tom Kalinske made that dream a reality, he is the reason people know of Sega and Sonic in America. The book goes into great deal of who the main players area and the events that built both Sega and Nintendo and the eventual downfall of Sega. It flows wells, there is a warning about the conversations being fabricated but based on what people remember and with the point of getting the main true points across. You know going in what the ending is going to be, but I kept somehow hoping that there was some way Sega and Tom turned it around and were still in the industry in a different sense, but ya just read it. I really hope Blake Harris does a Xbox vs Playstation book!1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Awful disappointing, disappointingly awful. As a video game fan, I was astounded that author Blake Harris could make a hobby that I enjoy so much into boring drivel, but he did it in spades.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To tell the truth, this book left me cold. Not because it was badly written, far from it, but because as a long-time PC gamer, I regard consoles as toys, and nothing I read in this book did anything to alter that viewpoint. Basically it is the story of How Tom Kalinske took Sega of America from a struggling arcade game company to a giant that briefly toppled Nintendo from its seemingly unassailable position at the top of the home console tree, through a mixture of catchy slogans, edgy advertising and Sonic the Hedgehog, and then saw it all slip away due to intransigence by the Japanese parent company and a dual onslaught from Nintendo and Sony. The book is fast-moving, quirky, strongly oriented to the personalities rather than the technology, all around a good read if like me, you love games and gaming. However, the utter childishness of some of the activities by supposedly grown adults to bring down or denigrate their competitors is not edifying, and you can never really forget that this is basically dealing with children's toys. Unfortunately the book's rather abrupt ending is a minus, its a pity Harris didnt include an epilogue detailing the story since, when Sony and Microsoft have reduced Nintendo itself to a second-rate player in the console industry, which would have put the end of Sega into some sort of perspective. A great read, but it not going to change the opinion I and other hard-core PC gamers hold about consoles.
1 person found this helpful
Book preview
Console Wars - Blake J. Harris
DEDICATION
For Katie, the girl with the shiny eyes
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
FOREWORD BY SETH ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
PART ONE: GENESIS
1. THE OPPORTUNITY
2. R & D
3. THE STORY OF TOM KALINSKE
4. RUDE AWAKENING
5. THE HISTORY OF NOA
6. THE NAME OF THE GAME
7. POSTCARDS FROM ARKANSAS
8. THE BIRTH OF AN ICON
9. TRIPPED UP
10. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
11. LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE
12. THE REVOLUTION WILL BE PIXELATED
PART TWO: SONIC VS. MARIO
13. THE WINDS OF CHANGE
14. SEGAVILLE
15. THE PHYSICIST IS DISPLEASED
16. ROPE-A-DOPE
17. SHOWDOWN
18. THE UNDERDOG DAYS OF SUMMER
19. THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
20. WORTH WAITING FOR
21. THE HEART AND THE BRAIN
PHOTO SECTION
PART THREE: THE NEXT LEVEL
22. TARGET PRACTICE
23. SEQUELS, SKIRMISHES, AND BASEBALL IN SEATTLE
24. FYRIRGEFNING SYNDANNA
25. BACK 2 WORK
26. ORIGIN STORIES
27. SOMETHING BEYOND VIDEOGAMES
28. BOCA
29. AFTER THE BLACKOUT, BUT
BEFORE THE SURGE
30. JUST DO IT
31. TOO HOT, TOO COLD, AND JUST RIGHT
32. THE KUTARAGI DREAM MACHINE
33. A QUICK LAP AROUND VICTORY LANE
34. COPS AND ROBBERS
35. SHOSHINKAI
36. PROMETHEUS REVISITED
37. THE SEGA-SONY-NINTENDO LOVE TRIANGLE
38. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
39. AND AWAY WE GO!
PART FOUR: CIVIL WAR
40. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS
41. FUGU
42. BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
43. MAGIC CARPET RIDE
44. CRAZY LIKE A FOX
45. UNACCEPTABLE
46. BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TIERS
47. THE MAN WHO CAME FROM PEPSI
48. MARCH OF THE LEMMINGS
49. SWITCHING SIDES
50. THE TIPPING POINT
51. THE LAST AND BEST OF THE PETER PANS
PART FIVE: THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE
52. NEXT GEN
53. MAN’S BEST FRIEND
54. NIGHT TRAPPED
55. IT’S JUST WINDY . . . NOT A METAPHOR
56. COMBAT PAY
57. LIFE ON MARS
58. ROSES ARE RED
59. BLAST FROM THE PAST
60. KINGS OF THE JUNGLE
61. AND THEN THERE WERE THREE
62. FORK IN THE ROAD
63. KILLER INSTINCT
64. GAME OVER
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
FOREWORD BY SETH ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG
SETH
Hi! Welcome to the foreword for Console Wars by legendary author Blake J. Harris!
EVAN
Videogames are great, but books about videogames are even better!
SETH
We grew up as videogames were on the rise, and they played a major role in our upbringing.
EVAN
And that’s why we couldn’t say no when Blake asked us to write a 2,500-word foreword for this awesome book you will love reading!
SETH
How many words is that?
EVAN
Like, 150.
SETH
Crap. Okay, what next?
Evan thinks intensely and an idea comes to him.
EVAN
Let’s talk about what systems we preferred.
SETH
Solid idea, partner-ino!
EVAN
I preferred Nintendo.
SETH
I preferred Sega. I’ll never forget the first time I ripped someone’s spine out playing Mortal Kombat.
EVAN
Yeah, Sega always seemed to go to a place that Nintendo didn’t, and that opened the doors for videogames that weren’t just targeted at kids but teenagers and even . . . adults. I don’t think games like Grand Theft Auto would even exist without Sega making games that went places Nintendo never would have gone.
SETH
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But Mortal Kombat definitely felt like a wonderful step in a new direction at the time. I was awesome at it too. Sub-Zero was my man.
EVAN
Me too. Hey, here’s a Sega question: what was up with Sonic and Tails?
SETH
What? It was just your classic platonic speedster hedgehog and two-tail fox relationship.
EVAN
I felt some tension there. Sexual.
SETH
Oh, it was sexual.
Seth and Evan exchange awkward looks in what is clearly a sexually charged moment of their own.
SETH
How many words we at?
EVAN
I’d say 400-ish.
SETH
Use letters. Four-hundred-ish. It takes up way more space.
EVAN
Mega true. I’ll say it in letters from now on. Like four-zero-zero.
SETH
Don’t hyphenate them, dumbass. It makes them count as one word. [sigh] Here’s a videogame fact that will take up at least thirty-five words.
EVAN
What is it?
SETH
I used to own a power glove. I got it right when it came out.
EVAN
Sweet petunia bush! Please elaborate using as many words as possible!
SETH
It didn’t work that well at all. I remember the bad-ass dude in The Wizard (arguably the most important videogame movie of all time), and mine didn’t work worth crap.
EVAN
I was always confused by TurboGrafx-16. As far as I recall, there were only two games for it. Keith Courage and Bonk’s Adventure. I only ever played Keith Courage.
SETH
I played Bonk’s Adventure. A friend of mine had it, and it truly blew my mind. I also remember renting Sega CD in high school. It had that raunchy horror game with real controversy surrounding it.
EVAN
Yup, that was Night Trap. You had to stop drill-wielding serial killers from impaling sorority girls. That was the first time I remember thinking to myself, Well they have just gone too far this time.
And I was twelve or something . . .
SETH
Then came Sega Saturn, and kind of shat the bed.
EVAN
And then there was Goldeneye.
SETH
I would confidently say the reason I never really had a girlfriend in high school was because of Goldeneye. I specifically remember leaving parties to go play it.
EVAN
Our favorite level was the Facility. We would sit with our buddy Fogell for hours and hours on end and play it.
SETH
I memorized every level. The game was as much about watching your friend’s screen as your own.
EVAN
When I went off to college, I met a group of guys from out east that were way better at Goldeneye than we ever were, and it crushed me. They were operating at a whole other level.
SETH
Then you got super into Super Smash Brothers.
EVAN
Yeah. It was on Nintendo 64. My buddies and I would have tournaments that would go for hours: entire evenings. I was the nimble-footed puffball of power, Kirby.
SETH
That game makes no sense. The whole thing is based on a percentage of the likelihood that you’re going to fall off a magical island, and it goes up to like 600 percent and that’s bad and you’re actually trying to keep your score low, which I find confusing and counterintuitive.
EVAN
Well, games are getting continuously confusing. I don’t even know what my grandparents would think if they played Grand Theft Auto.
SETH
Remember when Martin Starr and I taught you to drive around LA when you first moved here by playing the game True Crime: Streets of LA, because it had a realistic map of Los Angeles?
EVAN
That was sincerely helpful. It’s crazy how they started doing stuff like that.
SETH
I bet soon games will start calling our cell phones and e-mailing us and stuff.
EVAN
Maybe that’s how Skynet finally happens and we all end up in a Terminator/Matrix nightmare version of the future where mankind is nearly wiped out and machines rule the world.
SETH
Well, I guess it’s time to address the elephant in the room— porno. We all know we’re going to be getting dirty with our videogames, and if not us, our children, or our children’s children.
EVAN
The future can wait. We have to live in the now!
SETH
You’re right. These days I mostly like to play games where you shoot people. Call of Duty, GTA5, and such.
EVAN
I’m an iPad tower defense addict. There’s something wrong with me. I just love games where things are sent in waves and I get to destroy them with strategy.
SETH
That’s a dark want.
EVAN
It’s who I am.
SETH
A crazy thing I think about sometimes is that there are teenagers operating videogames connected to deadly drones that fly around the world blowing stuff up. That eighties movie War Games is real now. And what to us is a nonthreatening drone will eventually probably turn into, yes, Skynet. All roads lead to Skynet.
EVAN
I think at this point most people would agree that a robot takeover is how things end. I’m personally at peace with that inevitability.
SETH
I still can’t get over the whole Nintendo Wii revolution, with these games you have to move around to. When we were growing up, playing videogames made you fat and lazy, not nimble and coordinated.
EVAN
I really got into Wii Fit for a while. It was pretty addictive at first but then it made fun of me too much and mucked up my self-esteem.
SETH
Now kids are getting their self-esteem messed with through videogames way more than when we were kids, thanks to this whole online gaming thing.
EVAN
I try to get into online gaming every now and then, and I constantly find there’s young kids out there who are so much better than me I can’t even participate.
SETH
Yeah. It’s weird to think we are thirty-one and already we can’t keep up.
EVAN
Eventually we won’t even understand the images on the screen.
SETH
Like how my grandmother would view death metal.
EVAN
I’m not a huge fan of death metal myself.
SETH
Death Metal
’s a great name for a videogame.
EVAN
I read once that the band Journey had a videogame where you could put your face onto the main character. I want that. It’s silly that I can’t be the character in the game yet.
SETH
Yeah. And it’d be cool if it used your contact list for names and incorporated your real life a lot.
EVAN
But then, once again, robots would take over the world.
SETH
So what we’re realizing here is videogames may not ever get better than they are now, because if they did, robots would take over the world.
EVAN
I think so.
SETH
How many words is that?
EVAN
About 2,300.
SETH
Then let’s take this full-circle and connect it to the book our honorable reader is about to read: Nintendo was king of home videogame entertainment systems, then Sega came in and was a contender for the crown. Sega almost toppled Nintendo with their subversive and more adult-oriented games, and these games have led us to a world where GTA and Call of Duty are the top games, and the next step is to have the games incorporate stuff about us and our personal lives, and then sentient technology will inevitably disassociate from mankind and some robot like Skynet will rise up and destroy us all. Hence: the Console Wars
between Nintendo and Sega is what began a series of events that will lead to the end of humanity as we know it.
EVAN
Bam! That’s what videogames mean to us.
SETH
Damn. I think we nailed this foreword stuff. Our style may have been unconventional, but we ultimately tied it to the downfall of mankind, which is cool.
EVAN
I couldn’t agree more. Our next movie should be called Foreword and be about this process.
SETH
Or Foreskin and be about a circumcision that changed humanity forever.
EVAN
Both good ideas.
SETH
Okay. We should probably get home to our wives now.
EVAN
Yes. We love our wives. Let that be noted.
SETH
See you at work!
EVAN
Ditto!
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are childhood friends, and the writer/director/producers of This Is the End and The Interview. Together, the duo has also written and produced Knocked Up, Superbad, and Pineapple Express.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Console Wars is a narrative account based on information obtained from hundreds of interviews. Re-creating a story of this nature, which draws from the recollections of a multitude of sources, can often lead to inconsistencies; particularly when dealing with industry competitors and especially when dealing with events that took place more than two decades ago. As such, I have re-created the scenes in this book using the information uncovered from my interviews, facts gathered from supporting documents, and my best judgment as to what version most closely fits the documentary record.
In certain situations, details of settings and description have been altered, reconstructed, or imagined. Additionally, most of the dialogue in this book has been re-created based on source recollections of content, premise, and tone. Some of the conversations recounted in this book took place over extended periods of time or in multiple locations, but have been condensed, or reorganized in a slightly different manner, while remaining true to the integrity and spirit of all original discussions.
PROLOGUE
In 1987, Tom Kalinske was at a crossroads. He had spent the better part of his career working at Mattel, where he enjoyed towering success transforming the Barbie line from a niche, has-been series of dolls into a timeless, billion-dollar property. Recognizing his potential, the company groomed him to become their next president. But shortly after taking the reins at only thirty-eight years old, he found himself embroiled in a dangerous game of office politics. With no resolution in sight, Kalinske decided that rather than wage an internal war, he’d prefer to fight an external one. So he ceded control of Mattel to a rival executive, and left the company to become president of a competitor: Universal Matchbox.
Although Matchbox’s toy cars had historically gone toe-to-toe with Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand, when Kalinske took over, his new company was hemorrhaging money and had recently been placed into receivership. He knew this going in—it was part of what had enticed him—but taking on Goliath eagerly didn’t do much to change the incline of the uphill battle ahead. To revive the wounded company from receivership and give Hot Wheels (and, of course, Mattel) a run for their money, Kalinske needed to reorganize Matchbox, and do so in a flash. He spent the next couple of years traveling the globe and implementing ambitious restructuring plans, much of which hinged on moving all production to labor-cheap regions in Asia.
By 1990, his strategies appeared to be working and Matchbox had become relevant again. They were still miles away from bridging the gap with Mattel, but with revenue now over $350 million, the company had managed to turn a profit for the first time in years. Matchbox cars were starting to sell all around the world—except, for some reason, in Spain. So Kalinske went there to find out why not.
After arriving in Barcelona, Kalinske hopped in a cab to meet with the distributor in charge of selling Matchbox cars in the Spanish territories. Instead of embarrassing himself by trying to pronounce the address where he was headed, he simply passed the distributor’s business card to the cabdriver. The driver glanced at the card, noticed the Matchbox logo, and nodded.
Kalinske was baffled. His distributor worked out of a tiny office; how could this driver possibly know where to go based on only the logo? Once again, Kalinske tried to present the business card to the driver only to be waved off. Matchbox, sí,
the driver said firmly. Kalinske was confused, but ultimately he decided he wasn’t a Spanish cabdriver and it wasn’t his job to know such things. He leaned back, took in the panoramic view of a sprawling Barcelona, and tried to remember if you’re supposed to tip cabdrivers in Spain or not.
Shortly thereafter, the driver stopped in front of a large yellow building. Kalinske stepped out of the cab and compared the address to the one on the business card. It didn’t match. In broken Spanish, Kalinske tried to argue with the driver, but the guy remained insistent that this was the right place. Kalinske finally gave in and told the driver to wait outside as he entered the building. But as soon as he stepped inside, he was greeted by a surprise.
Thousands of surprises, actually. The building turned out to be an industrial factory, churning out tiny die-cast Matchbox cars by the minute. Huh? Kalinske had moved all production to Asia, so why were shiny little cars shooting off a rusty conveyor belt in Spain? Was this why profits had been lagging? Who’d authorized this?
Returning to his broken Spanish, Kalinske asked the first worker he saw if he could use a phone. He whipped out the calling card he’d been using to stay in touch with his wife, and rang up his business partner David Yeh in Hong Kong.
What’s up, Tom?
Yeh asked. You make it to Barcelona okay?
Kalinske had no time for small talk. I thought production had been moved to Asia. All of it.
It was.
Then why do we have a factory in Spain?
What do you mean? We don’t have a factory in Spain.
Kalinske looked around. Cars continued to pop out. I’m definitely in Spain, and I’m definitely in a factory.
Oh, shit!
Yeh belted. Tom, get the hell out of there and call the police.
Kalinske looked up. Dozens of unfriendly eyes were now staring in his direction, and seconds later the gruff group of Spaniards began to approach him. Without even hanging up the phone, Kalinske sprinted out to the street, jumped into the cab, and yelled one of the few Spanish words he knew: "Vamanos!"
Kalinske went straight to the police, and shortly after, the illegal factory—set up by the very distributor he was in town to meet—was raided. This unexpected Spanish adventure full of twists, turns, and toy cars led Kalinske to the following thoughts:
1. Hey, at least the cars were selling in Spain, even if we didn’t make a dime.
2. Good thing for that driver or the mystery might never have been solved.
3. It’s probably time for me to leave Matchbox and go do something else.
Though the incident served as a catalyst for his leaving, this was only a small factor in his departure. Ultimately, Kalinske left Matchbox because it would never be Hot Wheels. It would never be number one, and it could never be big enough to prove to Mattel that they were wrong. He needed that chance . . . but where?
Lost, frustrated, and unsure what to do next, Kalinske receded from the world in the safety of his home. He was perfecting the art of becoming a hermit until his wife, Karen, prescribed a remedy for his mood. We need to get you out of the house,
she explained. So guess what? Congratulations! You’re taking your family on a vacation.
Karen, the perpetual voice of reason, was right again. And so with this advice, in July 1990, Kalinske took his family to Hawaii, where Karen enjoyed the beach, their three girls enjoyed building (and then stomping on) sandcastles, and Tom tried his best to stop thinking about a million things at once.
It was exactly what Tom Kalinske needed, but midway through the trip, an unexpected guest showed up . . .
PART ONE
GENESIS
1.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Tom Kalinske had a secret.
For years he had managed to keep it to himself, covering it up with a combination of white lies, noncommittal nods, and uneven smiles, but as he lay on a magnificent beach in sunny Maui with his loving wife and three energetic daughters, he could no longer keep it inside. He had to tell someone.
The right person to tell was Karen, of course. She had always been there for him, and most important, she seemed to possess a magical ability for making his anxieties disappear. She really was his voice of reason, the love of his life, and apparently very much asleep. Hey, Karen,
he said, nudging her now-tanned shoulder. Karen?
He lifted up her sunglasses, which confirmed that the blazing sun had knocked her into a slumber. Kalinske considered some other subtle means to poke or prod his wife into waking up until, upon further inspection, he noticed that their newborn daughter, Kelly, cradled in her arms, was also asleep. Sorry about that, ladies,
Kalinske said, honoring the unwritten rule that all fathers should abide by: do not, under any circumstances, wake an infant, especially when her fragile little nap allows Mom a rare moment of uninterrupted sun-filled dreams. Karen, it appeared, was off the hook, and wouldn’t have to play the role of secret-keeper this time.
Kalinske thought about telling one of his other daughters, Ashley (five years old) or Nicole (three), but they were ankle deep in the ocean capturing hermit crabs in a bright yellow bucket and making the kinds of memories that they’d inevitably forget and only their father would remember. So he returned to reading a day-old New York Times, but as he scrolled through previews of baseball games that had already been played, a slender silhouette covered his newspaper. Hello, Tom,
a cheerful voice said. You are a difficult man to track down.
Kalinske looked up to find a Japanese man with piercing brown eyes and a messy, wind-mangled combover: Hayao Nakayama. What are you up to?
Nakayama asked, trying to emit a friendly smile, which came out looking more like an ominous smirk. Kalinske would soon learn that Nakayama was incapable of producing a genuine smile. His round face always held too much mystery, making simple, genuine emotions too hard to pull off.
Well, I was trying to have a nice, relaxing moment with the sun here, until you got between us,
Kalinske gracefully shot back. He never allowed himself to appear off guard in conversations and was committed to masking any discomfort or unease with a Jamesdeanian coolness. Nakayama suddenly realized that he was casting a shadow over Kalinske and took a couple of steps to the side. As the sun hit his face, Kalinske smiled and greeted his unexpected guest. Great to see you, Nakayama-san. What brings you out to Hawaii?
I came here to find you. As I just said, you are a difficult man to track down.
Nakayama spoke nearly perfect English, albeit with a strange slight Brooklyn accent. It was smooth and seamless, except for the occasional broken phrase. His errors, however, seemed to have less to do with grammatical difficulties and more to do with the rhythm of his conversation. It was almost as if he threw in a few mistakes
from time to time as camouflage; allowing himself to hide behind the language barrier and play the role of clueless foreigner if need be. When I heard about your departure from Matchbox I left many messages at your home.
Nakayama tried another smile, this one coming out like a spooky grin.
Kalinske bowed his head a bit. After leaving Matchbox, he had tried his best to hide from the universe. He screened all his calls, turned off the fax machine, and rarely left the house. He had been feeling small in the world and he dealt with it by making his world as small as possible. Karen had been good about dealing with his reclusive behavior. She knew he was down and didn’t press the issue. Her husband had bounced back from many things over the years, and there was no doubt in her mind that he would soon return to the world more spectacular than ever before. In the meantime, she didn’t mind having him around the house. For a temporary recluse, he was quite friendly, good with the dishes, and only sometimes a liability when doing the laundry.
Yeah, I got your messages. Sorry I hadn’t gotten back to you yet,
Kalinske said. I’ve just been trying to take some time to myself and figure things out a little.
Ah, yes,
Nakayama said. But don’t you know that this is why I called?
Then, right there in the middle of Kalinske’s family vacation, Nakayama made him an offer to become the next president and CEO of Sega of America. As unusual as it was to be offered a top-level executive job on the beach, Kalinske wasn’t completely shocked. After all, Nakayama was the president of Sega Enterprises, and there had been rumors for some time that he was looking to replace Michael Katz, the current head of Sega’s American operation and a man Kalinske knew personally and considered a friend. Nakayama cleared his throat. What do you say, Tom? I am certain you are the man for the job. We have a wonderful new videogame console.
Kalinske looked at Nakayama, studying the weathered version of a face he knew well. They had first met in the late seventies, when Kalinske was still the golden boy at Mattel. At the time, there were two companies that were the envy of all others: Apple and Atari. Though it was unrealistic for Mattel to jump into the high-tech, high-risk world of personal computers, it could certainly afford to try its hand at mimicking Atari. Though Kalinske mostly dealt with dolls and action figures, he couldn’t help but see how ridiculously popular and profitable videogames were becoming, and he decided that Mattel’s Toy Division would release handheld electronic games like football and racing. The gameplay was repetitive and the graphics were mediocre at best, but the handheld games were a smashing success. As Kalinske looked to quickly expand this line of business beyond sports, he sought out Nakayama to talk about turning some of Sega’s popular arcade hits into a line of portable games. The handheld technology turned out to be too simplistic to handle Sega’s games, though, so no deal could be reached. Despite not moving forward together, Nakayama found Kalinske endearing and was impressed with his encyclopedic knowledge of the toy industry. The two had remained on good terms ever since.
Kalinske’s adventures in the videogame industry, however, turned out to be short-lived. After releasing this series of primitive yet highly successful handheld devices, Mattel had decided that videogames were the future. As a result, the company formed an Electronics Division, hired a bunch of brainiacs, and took away anything with batteries from Kalinske’s team in favor of this brand-new department. Kalinske was forced to watch from the sidelines as Mattel made a big push to redefine itself behind these handheld devices and their dazzling home console: Intellivision. Kalinske was irked by the move; he had helped create this future and thought he deserved the chance to decide how it should turn out. But ultimately, he didn’t care all that much. Videogames were fascinating, but they did all the work for you. No amount of graphics or gameplay could possibly compare to the entertainment value of toys, which, of course, didn’t run on batteries but rather were powered by the world’s only unlimited resource: imagination.
Besides, the quick end to his relationship with videogames turned out to be for the best. By 1983, it seemed that every company had copied Mattel (who had copied Atari) and gotten into the gaming racket. The market quickly became oversaturated, and the burgeoning videogame industry collapsed. Mattel lost hundreds of millions, Atari lost billions, and Americans from coast to coast lost interest in buying the latest and greatest videogames. After teetering on bankruptcy, Mattel learned their lesson and decided that videogames were no longer their future. Their future would be the same as their past: dolls and action figures.
Kalinske knew that even though Americans had given up on videogames, this wasn’t the case overseas. While Atari famously buried three million copies of their notoriously unsuccessful game, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in a New Mexico landfill, the Japanese were flocking to arcades faster than ever. So although Nakayama and Sega seemed to not be welcome in America, the company continued to survive and enjoy success with a generation of Japanese kids and teens who instinctively took to rapidly blinking, brightly colored arcade screens like moths moving toward a glowing light in the dark.
Raising an eyebrow, Kalinske turned to Nakayama. This new thing you’ve got is like the Nintendo, right?
Kalinske had never played Nintendo’s 8-bit system, dubbed the Famicom in Japan and the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States, but he was certainly aware of its massive success. Everyone was. Nintendo was a small but ambitious Japanese company that, in 1985, dared to try to resuscitate the videogame industry in the United States where it had been dead since the failures of Atari and Mattel. Against immense resistance, the NES finally knocked down the fickle walls of pop culture and proved that videogames were not a fad: they were big business. Now, by 1990, less than five years later, Nintendo owned 90 percent of a $3 billion industry. The other 10 percent of the market was made up of wannabes who had seen Nintendo’s success and wanted in on the action. Among this group was Sega.
Nakayama rolled his eyes. No, it is nothing like the Nintendo. Our system is much better. The Nintendo is a toy, but what we have, it is like . . .
He trailed off, struggling to find the perfect words. Tom, I need for you to come with me to Japan. You must see this for yourself.
Before Kalinske could find a respectful way to protest, he was saved by his five-year-old daughter, Ashley, calling his name, Daddy!
In that ghostly way that kids can appear out of thin air, she stood before both men and raised her clasped hands to show him something. After doing so, she noticed Nakayama and took a small step backward. Who is he?
Nakayama introduced himself and offered the young girl a smile.
Sweetie,
Kalinske said tenderly to his daughter, Daddy needs some advice. Would you be willing to give your father some advice?
Ashley loved telling people what to do. She nodded.
Great,
Kalinske said, and paused to figure out how to phrase his question. So my friend here wants me to go with him on a little vacation to Japan. He wants to show me something there. But I don’t think that’s a good idea because, you know, I’m already on a vacation with you, your sisters, and Mommy. What do you think I should do?
Ashley bit her lip and gave this question tremendous thought. As her eyes darted between her father and the man with the funny hair, Kalinske was struck by how fast his daughter was maturing. He felt a pang of pride followed by a pang of sadness. All this time she’d been growing up and becoming a person, and he’d been busy chasing his tail at Mattel or at Matchbox. It was all going on right before his eyes, and he was missing everything. Ashley interrupted his thoughts. You should go to Japan with your friend.
What? No.
Listen to her, Tom,
Nakayama said. She is a wise one.
Kalinske looked into his daughter’s eyes. You don’t want me here?
Of course I want you to stay. But he just wants to show you something, Daddy,
she said, exasperated. Jeez!
Kalinske was struck by the wisdom of her kid logic. Well, if that’s what you think . . . then I’ll go.
Okay, okay, whatever,
Ashley said. Now can I show you my surprise?
Amid all the potential life-changing decision making, Kalinske had forgotten that his daughter had come over with a surprise in her hands. Oh, yes, please.
She opened her hands and revealed a clump of sand.
What is it, sweetie?
A devilish smile crept across her face. It’s a snowball that’s made of sand.
She laughed a few times, then threw it at her father’s stomach. It left a little mark just above his bathing suit before falling to the ground. This was too funny for Ashley to handle, and she ran off laughing so hard that she practically fell over.
Kalinske turned to Nakayama. Well, I guess I’m going to Japan.
You will like what I show you.
I better. Because my wife is not going to be happy.
She will not be happy now, but she will be happy later,
Nakayama said. When you become president of Sega.
You’re pretty confident, eh?
I do not mean to be so forceful,
Nakayama said. I understand this is your family vacation. If you wish to remain at the beach for the rest of the day, we can leave in the morning.
Uh-oh, are you getting nervous that I might not be as impressed as you first thought?
Kalinske said, sensing a playfulness within himself that had been absent for some time. He felt youthful, curious, perhaps even excited, and he could hear it in his own words. The world seemed slightly bigger, and he felt the private pride of being the only one who noticed it. He looked at his unexpected guest, wanting to say something to extend the moment. Nakayama-san, can I tell you secret?
Yes, Tom. Of course.
Kalinske looked over his shoulder before leaning in and confessing the dirty little secret to his new friend. I don’t even like the beach.
Nakayama didn’t seem to react to the words, but Kalinske had gotten them off his chest. I mean, I understand why someone would like it. The sun, the sand, the water; I guess that’s relaxing. But I just don’t feel that way. All that stuff, I think it’s . . .
Nakayama jumped in to finish his sentence. Boring.
Yes!
Kalinske said. Exactly. It’s nice and all, but it’s boring.
Of course, Tom. Of course,
Nakayama echoed. It is boring for people like us.
Suddenly, strangely, Kalinske didn’t feel so alone.
Nakayama put his arm on Kalinske’s shoulder. Okay, then, let us now go on a real vacation.
Kalinske smiled. Let me just ask my wife if it’s okay.
He turned to Karen, who continued to lie motionless on her back.
You have my permission, honey. Go conquer the world and all that,
she said.
Kalinske was caught off guard. You’re awake? You heard everything?
He asked, before quickly converting his clumsy surprise into a sly sureness. Sneaky move, Karen. I’m impressed.
Don’t be. You’re not as quiet as you think you are,
she said as she lifted up her sunglasses, revealing her shining brown eyes. Oh, and honey, everyone knows you don’t like the beach. It’s not exactly a well-guarded secret.
Karen winked at Tom, and with her blessing, he was on his way to Japan.
2.
R&D
Like a shark swimming by a school of fish, a hulking yellow Cadillac de Ville crept past awestruck motorists on Tokyo’s busy streets. Kalinske and Nakayama sat in the back of the chauffeured car, watching the people they passed instinctively try to peer through their tinted windows. Guppies.
Unlike most wealthy Japanese businessmen, who favored the comfort and grace of a limo, town car, or even an upscale Nissan, Nakayama had an entirely different opinion when it came to transportation. He had imported a big, bulky left-hand-drive Cadillac that was so large and exotic, it made other cars on the street appear to shrink in comparison. Wherever he went and whatever he did, Nakayama always stood out.
As the automotive extension of Nakayama’s personality cruised through narrow streets, Nakayama and Kalinske drank whiskey and argued the merits of karaoke. Like most Japanese, Nakayama held enormous respect for the activity and considered it an art, and like most Americans, Kalinske thought it was a cheesy thing to do that seemed like a good idea when drunk but usually ended with regret. These men may have been from two different worlds, but at least they could both appreciate fine whiskey. They refilled their glasses, agreed to table the karaoke discussion, and downed their drinks.
Kalinske finished a nice long sip. I have a question.
Perhaps I have an answer.
Kalinske leaned forward. What about Katz?
What about him?
What happens to him?
To Katz?
Kalinske shook his head. He had been waiting for the right time to ask about Katz, which was starting to feel like never, but if he was even going to consider taking the job and replacing a friend, they needed to have the conversation. Oh, don’t play it like that. You know we have a history. You had to know I was going to ask about him at some point. So, yes: what about Katz?
Katz, of course, was Michael Katz, a no-nonsense pragmatist who was already something of a journeyman in the nascent videogame industry. His experience stretched all the way back to 1977, when he had served as the marketing director for Mattel’s brand-new line of LED handheld games. After growing the new product line into a $500 million business, Katz moved on to Coleco for their short-lived console venture. After that, he became president of a small, unprofitable computer game company called Epyx, before moving on to Atari in 1985, which by that time was a shell of its former self. Katz had experienced the highs and the lows, and his year as Sega of America’s president could probably most accurately be described as somewhere right in the middle.
After a series of gimmicky electronic game systems (like the frigidly named SG-1000, which was cheaply built with spare, off-the-shelf parts), Sega’s first real foray into the wide world of home videogames came with the release of the Master System. This was their own NES-like 8-bit console, intended to rival the staggering success of Nintendo. But it was not exactly the triumph they had in mind. The Master System was released first in Japan in 1985, and then in North America in 1986, but in less than two years it was clear that Sega wasn’t going to be able to make a dent on the force that was Nintendo. Nakayama decided that if they couldn’t win the battle on 8-bit terrain, then they would move the location of the war, and this time at least have the advantage of being there first. They quickly and unceremoniously retired their Master System and shifted their attention to the next generation of videogames: 16 bits, twice as powerful as the NES. Again, they created and released their cutting-edge 16-bit system first in Japan, where it was called the Mega Drive, and next in North America, where they dubbed their technological dynamo Genesis.
In October 1989, Katz was hired to make the Genesis a smash hit in America. In Japan, the Mega Drive had achieved mild success with its initial release, and this gave the powers that be high hopes for their American counterparts. So high, in fact, that Nakayama came up with the rallying cry Hyakumandai!
(one million units). Despite the shadow of Nintendo, Nakayama fully expected that Katz would be able to sell more than a million Genesis systems by the end of his first year on the job. Katz had tried his best to reach this goal and make a name for the Genesis, but after that year was up he had sold only about 350,000 units and Sega still lacked an identity. Not great results, but not terrible, either. The problem was that Nakayama just didn’t think he was the right man for the job. He had good ideas, but he lacked follow-through and the grace to get things done. Big talk, that’s what he was, and nothing personified this better than the ad campaign he had chosen: Genesis Does What Nintendon’t.
Not only did this bother Nakayama-san because competitive advertising was frowned upon in Japan, but even more so because it was just an empty promise. Genesis does what Nintendon’t? What, not make money? Katz knew what Sega was not, but Nakayama believed that Kalinske knew what Sega could, should, and would be.
Katz had his chance.
Kalinske raised an eyebrow. His chance? A year?
He was only hired for the job until the right person came along.
Still . . . one year?
He thinks he’s running a movie studio, not a videogame company. He spends my money like a madman and then calls it an investment. He thinks everything is an investment.
Katz had spent a lot of money to secure deals with celebrities, highlighted by $1.7 million for Joe Montana and, most recently, boxer James Buster
Douglas, the current heavyweight champion of the world. He has no vision for the company. No identity. So all he does is go out and try to buy one.
Kalinske considered this. Well, Nintendo has Mario. So naturally you guys should have your own mascot character, someone to crush that little plumber.
See! You get it, Tom!
Nakayama said, so thrilled that someone else saw the world the same way. I have tasked our most loyal employees with coming up with our own Mario. You will be astounded by their work, I assure you,
he said, his voice vibrating with excitement. Katz doesn’t understand. He just likes to spend money.
While Nakayama’s accusation that Katz had spent a lot of money was true, the insinuation wasn’t exactly fair. Katz knew that the secret formula to selling a million units lay in making popular games. If people craved the software, then they would undoubtedly buy the hardware. This had been Nintendo’s approach: dazzle the market with much-talked-about hits like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as a result, seduce an entire generation into buying the NES. Unfortunately, this approach presented a problem for Katz because Nintendo held an iron grip on software developers. If game designers wanted their game on the NES, then Nintendo had them sign an exclusive agreement with a stringent noncompete clause. So if Nintendo got a game, there was no way that Sega could offer it on their system, and given Nintendo’s monstrous success, why would anyone choose Sega over Nintendo? Katz’s solution was to hitch Sega’s wagon to household names, believing the association between Sega and the likes of Joe Montana and Buster Douglas would bring about a certain level of respect and legitimacy.
You know Katz, though. He’s a builder,
Kalinske said. As much as he understood where Nakayama was coming from, he had a soft spot for Katz. They had become buddies at Mattel, they played tennis together, and their wives got along. Katz is slow and steady. I thought that’s what wins the race, no?
This is not a fable, Tom.
Nakayama shook his head. I want you to take his job because you will be able to do it better.
Again, I appreciate the flattery, but I don’t know the first thing about videogames. I know toys. I’m a toy guy.
No, Tom. You are a salesman.
Kalinske thought about this as Nakayama refilled his glass and the Cadillac de Ville continued along, turning heads on the streets of Tokyo.
They were dropped off in front of Sega headquarters, which Kalinske was surprised to find was bland and innocuous. It looked almost like a college dorm complex, openly nondescript and painted in a crusty, faded-looking yellow-white. The only difference here was that at the top of this humble ten-story building, the name SEGA was emblazoned in blue capital letters.
Nakayama led Kalinske into the building, which somehow turned out to be even more unspectacular on the inside: drab lighting, crowded workstations, and uninspiring windowless conference rooms. As Nakayama introduced his great white hope to the most senior of the hundred or so employees, Kalinske was already having second thoughts.
They made their way into a boxy gray elevator, where Nakayama attempted to reassure his now-skeptical guest. It gets better.
No, no, it’s fine,
Kalinske said.
The elevator stopped on the third floor and Nakayama led Kalinske into what he considered the crown jewel of Sega’s operation: the top-secret R&D lab, where long tables were overrun by large computers, unrecognizable mechanical tools, and several televisions that had been taken apart. Kalinske felt like he had entered an evil scientist’s lair—that is, if the evil scientist in question had planned to take over the world by means of videogame domination.
Nakayama proudly escorted Kalinske around the room, introducing him to all sorts of gadgets and gizmos that seemed too small and sophisticated to actually exist. With marvelous graphics moving at racecar speed, these seemed less like games than they did playable dreams. This stuff was light-years ahead of what Kalinske remembered from his days at Mattel.
Nakayama pulled him over to a small station and handed him a little black device. This is called the Game Gear. It will come out here in October and then sometime next year in America.
The Game Gear felt great in Kalinske’s hands, and as Nakayama turned it on, the screen flooded with graphics that seemed too good to be true. Kalinske didn’t know much about Nintendo’s home console, but he was familiar with their handheld device, the Game Boy. Like most everyone else, he had been caught up in the whirlwind of Tetris, the addictive puzzle game that came with the Game Boy. The Game Gear featured a similar game called Columns, which seemed to Kalinske to be equally as addictive, yet instead of staring at the dull-yellow coloring of the Game Boy, he was playing a game with vivid, glorious colors. Nakayama wanted to show him more, but Kalinske couldn’t stop fixating on the Game Gear. You take it,
Nakayama said with a nudge. You take it and show it to your daughters. They will love it so much.
Eventually Nakayama pried him away and dazzled him with more glimpses of tomorrow: a CD-based device that played games with near movie-quality graphics, a pair of 3-D glasses that could be worn to bring certain games to life, and some kind of hefty virtual-reality headset. Finally, the tour concluded in front of Nakayama’s crown jewel: the Sega Genesis. Kalinske stared at this beautiful black beast. It was sleek and seductive, with graphics and gameplay that blew what little he knew about Nintendo out of the water. He wondered how the hell Katz had struggled to sell this.
Nakayama watched Kalinske’s eyes widen like a kid who not only was inside a wondrous candy shop but had just been told that he now owned it. You like?
Kalinske took a moment to compose himself. It’s okay.
Ah, yes, sure it is,
Nakayama said. Shall we go somewhere more private to continue our discussion?
Kalinske put down the controller he had been inspecting. He couldn’t get over how comfortably everything fit into his hands; it was as if they were designed specifically for him. He left with Nakayama, trying his best to hide his boyish enthusiasm. He didn’t know exactly where they were headed, but for the first time in a while he felt excited about whatever would come next.
3.
THE STORY OF TOM KALINSKE
Nakayama took Kalinske to a popular hostess bar downtown. Despite the sizable crowd of businessmen, their sporadic drunken chuckles, and the constant flirtatious giggling of the pale-faced women dressed as naive schoolgirls, the place offered a certain level of solitude. Perhaps it was the dim lighting, or maybe it was the collective sentiment that everyone there seemed to want nothing more than a moment of privacy and had no interest in getting entangled in the business of anyone else.
What exactly are your concerns?
Nakayama asked, as one of the bar’s geisha girls strolled over to him and Kalinske with small glasses of sake.
For starters, I’m not too thrilled about the idea of uprooting my family.
Sega of America’s headquarters were in San Francisco, and Kalinske would have to move his family there from Los Angeles.
Northern California is the place to be. That’s where things happen. What else?
Kalinske sipped his sake. What else? A lot of things.
Nakayama skeptically squinted his eyes. I think that beneath ‘a lot of things’ is just one thing. So tell me, what is the problem?
Perhaps Nakayama was right. Perhaps the stresses that came to mind were just tiny planets of anxiety that were all orbiting a single sun. Okay,
Kalinske said, gathering his concerns. I don’t want to put in everything I have only to watch the carpet get pulled out from under me. I want to be able to try things. I want to be able to fail. I want to be able to make this exactly what I think it ought to be and not have to explain myself every step of the way. Basically, I don’t want Mattel to happen again.
Kalinske abruptly finished, realizing that he’d struck a nerve that had been buried for years. Nakayama finished his glass of sake. Okay, fine,
he said. You come work for me and I let you do things your way. This is the deal. No tricks.
These were the magic words that Kalinske had been waiting for, but when they finally came he was momentarily distracted by something unusual across the bar.
Do you have an answer?
Nakayama asked.
Kalinske heard the words, but his mind was locked on a well-dressed man sitting at a table about twenty feet away. This man, whose elegant outfit screamed success, was surrounded by beautiful women, scheming friends, and copious amounts of alcohol. Yet despite these temptations, the well-dressed man was completely entranced by only one thing: a Game Boy. As his fingers jabbed the buttons of Nintendo’s handheld console, nothing else in the world mattered.
Tom?
Nakayama asked, trying not to sound too curious.
I need to think about it,
Kalinske replied, and then he pulled out the Game Gear he had received earlier as if this might somehow hold the answer. Could he seriously see himself jumping into the videogame industry? Did he actually believe he had what it took to topple Nintendo? And, for that matter, did anyone? As he considered these questions and thought more about the well-dressed man, the machine came alive in his hands and Tom Kalinske’s life flashed before his eyes.
Suddenly his mind was flooded with the sights, sounds, and feelings of being a little boy, racing a red die-cast toy car up and down his legs in the backseat of the family’s station wagon, wedged uncomfortably between his brother and sister, as his family moved from Iowa to Chicago. The family had moved a lot during his childhood, which was difficult on a small boy, but he remembered it being a little easier because he always had that toy car by his side. He loved it not only because it was always there for him but because he had built it from a kit and painted it the exact color he wanted. He’d savored so much being the creator of something.
He remembered liking Chicago, mostly because he was only five years old, liked life, and thought that life was Chicago. But then his father got a new job at a water treatment facility in Tucson, Arizona, and the family moved again. Tom had been nervous, but he had his toy car, which he felt kept him safe from everything changing around him.
His family stayed in Tucson for good, and that allowed Tom to dive headfirst into the thick desert heat and become many things: a Boy Scout, an athlete, a baseball card collector. When he was twelve years old, his mother convinced him that he had a beautiful singing voice and dragged him down to the so-called Temple of Music and Art. There he auditioned for and was accepted into the prestigious Tucson Boys Chorus, whose past members included George Chakiris and John Denver. He soon discovered that he really was good at singing, which filled him with red-hot ambition. Within nine months, Tom was promoted to the chorus’s traveling group. Over the next five years, he toured the entire country, sang on The Ed Sullivan Show, performed at the White House, and traveled through Australia, Mexico, and Canada while cutting albums for Capitol Records.
That period of his life had moved fast—it was still a whirl in his mind all these years later—but the velocity had served him well. He returned home full-time to Arizona for his junior year of high school and made heads turn with his blazing speed. He joined the track team and earned a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin but lost it junior year when he got injured in a car accident. Even now, so many years later, he could still viscerally feel not just fragments of the pain, emotional as well as physical, but also how his now-or-nothing persona had emerged at that time. Without the scholarship, he needed to make money in order to pay for classes and graduate, so at twenty-two, with his back up against the wall, that red-hot ambition returned, steering him toward marketing.
Tom Kalinske and his friend Jonathan Pelligrin had both recently taken an advertising class and decided that male students were a very hard demographic to reach. So Kalinske and Pelligrin decided to start a magazine, called Wisconsin Man, that was specifically designed to reach male students. The magazine would feature stories about sports, cars, women, and how to do things like ski, barbecue, or interview for jobs. Local and national advertisers recognized the value in targeting the readers of Wisconsin Man and paid handsomely for space in the magazine.
This experience proved to Tom that he was capable of bigger things, so he enrolled in business school at the University of Arizona to study marketing. This time, to pay for school, he wrote and sold ads for a local company that owned radio and television stations. In 1968, his writing, résumé, and colorful life experiences earned him a job with J. Walter Thompson, the renowned New York advertising firm. His responsibility was to come up with new product lines for existing customers. Within a couple of months, Kalinske made a name for himself with the work he did on the Miles Laboratory account.
Miles Laboratory was a health products company that had risen to prominence in the 1940s with their One A Day multivitamins. In the 1960s, they wanted to expand their business to children, and developed Chocks, the first chewable vitamin. Though parents liked the idea of providing supplemental nutrition to their children, kids avoided the vitamins because they seemed to be too much like medicine. To change the minds of this fickle demographic, Kalinske suggested that the vitamins be shaped like characters that kids liked, and arranged for the licensing rights to a recently syndicated cartoon from the animation company Hanna-Barbera. This deal resulted in the creation of a successful new product called Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.
As all these memories flooded back to Kalinske, he couldn’t help but feel a certain retroactive naturalness to the trajectory his life had taken, and recognize the confidence that had been a constant presence throughout his life. That confidence had never been more on display than in 1970, when Senator Margaret Chase Smith arranged for a series of subcommittee hearings to investigate the advertising tactics used to sell high-sugar products that were heavily fortified with vitamins and minerals. The allegation was that advertisers were attempting to create a false perception that the health hazards of such products (like cereal, juices, and candy-like chewable vitamins) were offset by the added nutrients. During the hearings, Kalinske took the stand, where he was reprimanded by Senator Smith for essentially selling candy wrapped in a flimsy excuse of good health. So, Mr. Kalinske,
she said, pointing a finger at him. Do you really think selling drugs to children is a good idea?
Kalinske knew that he was supposed to sit up there and transform himself into a fountain of apologies, but with the finger pointed in his face, he decided to opt for the truth. I think it’s a great idea! Fifty percent of America’s children are malnourished, and, frankly, I don’t care how they get their vitamins as long as they get them. We’re helping kids stay healthy.
The room went silent. After he was dismissed from the stand, he was approached by executives from Mattel who had been watching the proceeding and were impressed with his performance. They offered him a position as product manager of their preschool business.
Two years later, he was invited to speak with the founder and president of Mattel, and experienced his first career-defining moment. People are saying that Barbie’s done, finished, kaput,
Ruth Handler proclaimed in her usual raspy, exasperated, yet somehow optimistic voice. Barbie just had her first-ever down year last year. And you know what that means. In this business, once you dip, you drop and you don’t stop.
She finished her rant with a powerful but gentle nod of the head. People are saying it’s time to kill Barbie and devote our resources to other things. What do you say?
An idealistic but unpolished twenty-seven-year-old Tom Kalinske stood in front of her desk, wearing a pleasant smile, as he tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. He desperately wanted to impress his boss, the living legend responsible for making Barbie the most famous plastic doll ever. To avoid saying the wrong thing, Tom continued to hide behind the shield of his smile.
Nope,
Ruth said, her eyes unflinching. You don’t get to where I am without becoming fluent in the language of smiles. And that one you’ve got slapped across your face right now says, ‘I have no idea how to answer her question, so I should try to remind her that I’m handsome and charming.’ Am I right?
Tom chuckled, and this time he gave her a very different kind of smile.
Okay then, that’s much better. But just because I called you charming and handsome doesn’t mean you’re off the hot seat. Now answer the question, mister.
Well, Ruth,
he said, almost surprised to hear himself sound so calm, that’s the craziest thing I ever heard. Barbie, done? No way.
Kalinske shook his head profoundly, now controlling the room with his every word, gesture, and expression, a gift that would reveal itself to him more and more over the years. Look, I think it’s fair to say that both you and I are in good health and seem destined to live nice long lives. And let me tell you something: Barbie will be around long after you and I are gone.
Oh, is that a fact?
she asked.
It is,
he said confidently.
Ruth’s eyes zeroed in on his. What makes you so sure that people won’t get bored of a doll, albeit a fetching blond one?
A tiny smile delicately bent half of Ruth’s face. She wasn’t the only one fluent in the language of smiles, and Tom knew what it meant: genuine curiosity, with the potential for an impulsive decision.
They won’t get bored,
he said, because Barbie’s not just a doll. She’s an idea, a promise to girls of all ages that you can fulfill any dream or fantasy out there. Through Barbie, a girl can be anything she wants to be!
Kalinske nodded slowly. And yeah, it doesn’t hurt that she’s not bad-looking.
Ruth emphatically slapped her desk. Great, that’s the right answer. You’re promoted. You’re now the marketing director on Barbie.
Without missing a beat or giving him a moment to gloat, she shooed him away. You’ve convinced me. Now get out of my office and go convince the rest of the world.
And that’s exactly what he did. He revived the Barbie line with the novel idea of segmenting the market. Instead of simply selling one doll per season, Mattel would offer a multitude of Barbies for differing interests, at diverse price points, and targeted at girls of different ages along the spectrum. There would be a Twist N’ Turn Barbie, Ballerina Barbie, Hawaiian Barbie, and even President Barbie. In addition, Mattel would vigorously expand the line for her family and friends with the likes of Big Business Ken and Growing Up Skipper, a version of Barbie’s younger sister whose breasts would get larger and waist would shrink with the rotation of her left arm. Looking to fill every possible segment of the market, Kalinske even started a line of high-priced collectible Barbie dolls, which came with limited-edition fashions by famous designers like Oscar de la Renta and Bob Mackie. As a result of this new approach, annual