The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond—The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (52 page)

Hironobu Sakaguchi of Square Soft thought
Final Fantasy
would be his swan song as a game designer.

Created by Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin of Naughty Dog, produced by Universal Interactive, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment,
Crash Bandicoot
games became Sony’s unofficial answer to Mario and Sonic. (Pictured here is concept art from the latest
Crash Bandicoot
game, which is being developed and published by Universal.)

In 1994, Nintendo allowed Tim Stamper and a team at Rare, Ltd. to use their new rendering technology to revive Donkey Kong. The result was
Donkey Kong Country.

Moviephile and
Metal Gear
creator, Hideo Kojima.

Sort of a cross between Clint Eastwood and Toshiro Mafune, Solid Snake is the mercenary hero of Konami’s
Metal Gear Solid.

John Romero, cocreator of
Doom
and
Quake.

During the 1993 joint hearings, Senator Joseph Lieberman displays a light pistol used in video games.

Nintendo’s Donkey Kong enters the ring in a PR event for
Super Smash Bros.

Because of the lasting popularity of the Pokemon craze in Japan, Nintendo opened a “Pokemon Center” store a few blocks from the main subway station in Tokyo.

In 2001, Microsoft plans to enter the video game industry with its new Xbox game console.

Seamus Blackley, whose past resume includes such impressive feats as working on the super collider and such low points as
Tresspasser
—terrible
Jurassic Park
–based first-person shooter on PC—is the main designer of Xbox.

Having helped his company launch a very successful line of PC peripherals, Microsoft “chief Xbox officer” Robert Bach is now assigned to break into the video game hardware market.