Lily Snyder

In Console Wars (the story of Sega vs. Nintendo), one theme ran through the book. It was this quote, “the name of the game is the game.”

The name of the game is the game.

Peter Main, Nintendo

This quote is coined by Peter Main of Nintendo America. He realized that it was software that drove console hardware sales – like how it’s movies that bring people to the movie theater, not the theater itself. “This personal revelation led to a Hollywood-like title-driven business strategy, and his coining of the phrase ‘the name of the game is the game’.” (Harris 53).

Over time, the quote became a philosophy of its own. Its attribution to Main was lost. The quote became a mantra for Sega, which was funny because if they knew it was a Nintendo employee who came up with the phrase they would have never used it.

If you look up “console wars” today you’ll see articles like From Console Wars to Content Wars and Opinion: It’s Not a Console War, It’s a Content War. It looks like “the name of the game is the game” is still true today.

P.S. I started a Discord! Join us on The Metaverse Book Club to talk about books, the metaverse, and meet other metaverse enthusiasts.

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Featured Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash