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GAME OVER

HOW NINTENDO ZAPPED AN AMERICAN INDUSTRY, CAPTURED YOUR DOLLARS, AND ENSLAVED YOUR CHILDREN

An exhaustive, gung-ho progress report on Japan's Nintendo, the transnational enterprise that bestrides the expanding market for computer/video games like a colossus. Drawing on what appears to be open-door access to corporate brass, freelance journalist Sheff (Playboy, Rolling Stone, etc.) provides a thorough rundown on the Kyoto-based company, which for much of its 103-year history had trouble surviving in the humdrum playing-card business. Credit for the family firm's dramatic breakout goes to Hiroshi Yamauchi, who first took Nintendo into electronic toys and then (as the state of the semiconductor art permitted) into ever more dazzling high-tech diversions—notably, the immensely popular Mario Bros. series of games. By Sheff's tellingly detailed account, the ultracompetitive CEO cajoled, inspired, or browbeat a small cadre of talented engineers and programmers into creating products that yielded pretax profits approximating $1.25 billion on sales exceeding $4.3 billion in fiscal-year 1992. While rivals scramble to keep pace with the industry's top gun, Nintendo could, Sheff argues, cash in on the commercial potential of its installed hardware base, now devoted solely to fun and games. At last count, roughly two-fifths and one- third, respectively, of the households in Japan and the US owned one or more of the company's playback systems. The design of these machines is such that most models could be incorporated into networks with interactive capabilities (banking, bill-paying, retrieval of information from databases, etc.) while maintaining their appeal for the youthful consumers who use them mainly for amusement. Whether Nintendo will lead the way into a brave new tuned-in, turned-on, wired-up world remains an open question in Sheff's mind, but he leaves little doubt that it has the clout and capacity to do so. A revelatory, if overlong, appraisal of the world's multimedia past, present, and future as shaped by its dominant player. (Fifteen line drawings—not seen.)

Pub Date: March 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-679-40469-4

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...

A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.

The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.

Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

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