As the decade of the 1980s faded into memory for the video game and console industry, many changes were about to occur to hearken in the decade of the 1990s.
Atari, the main player in both the arcades and home video games/consoles, found its star starting to descend as other companies started to get into the fray. Two of the biggest companies, Sega and Nintendo, were at the forefront of the next generation of video games and consoles. Thus, began the console wars of the decade of the 1990s. Of course, like any war, not all was straight-forward, proving the Clausewitz axiom “No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy”. This, of course, translates to the fact that every company thought they had the best but the consumer was the final determiner.
For purposes of this article, only the North American console wars will be discussed. If console sales for North America cannot be listed, then world-wide numbers will be used. In addition, only consoles will be discussed and hand-helds will be excluded.
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Since he played on the first Magnanvox Odyssey in 1973, Kevin was bitten by the video game bug. It didn't matter what the games looked like, they were just fun. When Space Invaders was released in the United States in the late 1970's, he spent a ton of quarters in his local Aladdins Castle trying (unsuccessfully) to master the game. He continued to play on various console and arcade games (even learning to program the Apple II+) until he joined the navy in 1983. Joined the navy in 1983 and became a Hospital Corpsman in 1984. While in the navy, Kevin was able continue his hobby of programming PC's and playing videogames. In the early to mid 1990's, Kevin learned to program the Atari ST and worked for Majicsoft for a couple of years. Before retiring from the navy in 2004, Kevin started to write FAQ's for GameFAQ's. His forte was arcade FAQ's since that was his real passion still. His FAQ's have appeared in many places that seek to preserve the arcade game history. This is especially true for the MAME project where his guides are a part of the documentation. After retiring from the navy, Kevin has been more involved in computer repair, networking, and computer security but he still is involved in the arcade history arena. He currently lives in Neosho MO with his wife and one son who is also a video game hobbyist.
