Aankomende maand is het precies 25 jaar geleden dat er een grote oorlog begon, één die zelfs tot op de dag van vandaag van belang is. Want een kwart eeuw geleden bracht SEGA de MegaDrive uit en kwam Nintendo met de Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) uit en daarmee werd mijn jeugd opgesplitst in twee kampen waar geen midden weg was. Toen der tijd bevond ik mijzelf in het Nintendo kamp en geniet op de dag van vandaag van beiden systemen omdat deze hun eigen unieke en vooral erg leuke games hebben en de games nu in ROM vorm zijn te downloaden of voor een paar Euro te koop via de bekende webshops en winkels.

De website Fastcompany.com schreef dit erg lange, maar vooral erg interessant artikel over de oorlog tussen de twee bedrijven die elkaar zwart maakte, marketing kreten bedachten en bakken met geld smeten om aandacht te krijgen en klanten te winnen.

Twenty-five years ago this month, Sega was more than some pixelated challenger squaring off against a daunting foe at the end of a video game level. The August 1989 U.S. release of the company's 16-bit Sega Genesis game console was a seminal moment for the industry, one that would serve to directly pit the upstart company against a deep-pocketed video game Goliath called Nintendo.

In 1990 Nintendo had a 95% market share and a solid lock on young male gamers. Game makers signed ironclad exclusivity agreements with Nintendo, and for the privilege of peddling Nintendo content in its stores, retailers had to agree to a strict list of requirements.

Sega, by comparison, was a bit player with barely a toehold in the U.S.

Sega's Genesis release ushered in a showdown between the two companies during the 1990s that journalists came to describe as the "console wars."

Feeding that competition was the race to attract new players to either platform, and to keep them hooked with games that were both addictive and worth telling their friends about.

Nintendo's Apple-like insistence on quality control, served to help an industry that in the 1980s had become flooded with low-quality games. And Sega, a scrappy underdog, was beset behind the scenes with clashes over culture and vision between its American and Japanese offices.

At its core, it's a story about the nature of competition and market leadership--how business leaders can achieve it, and how it can be snatched away.