Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-665531-20130507173623/@comment-665531-20130508134927

Thanks for the advice so far guys!

My idea for a book is basically that Nintendo creates its own version of the internet in the late 80's and early 90's. Therefore, instead of having a world wide web, we end up with companies creating their own miniature versions of the internet, competing against each other using hardware, software, and services. This would lead to major companies forming alliances and/or buying each other to become players in a highly centralized version of the entertainment and information world, owned by less than 10 groups of people. Dystopia ensues.

I have to thank KMNC for suggesting I read Game Over, that book, which is about early Nintendo history as viewed from 1993, discusses how Nintendo actually created a version of the internet as early as 1988 in Japan. I have also read about how media and electronic companies of the time were buying into other markets, such as how Sony entered the music and gaming industries in OTL.

This is how I imagine the lines being drawn:

There are several major factions, each of which have hardware, software, entertainment, and information components. These are some of the possibilities I'm thinking of, all based on real relationships:


 * Atari/IBM
 * Panasonic/3DO
 * Sony/Sony Music/Sega
 * Nintendo/Philips/Universal Pictures
 * News Corporation/Fox Movies/Harper Collins
 * CBS/Simon & Schuster
 * Warner Bros/Warner Music
 * Vivendi/Universal Music/Activision Blizzard
 * NEC/Hudson Soft
 * Disney Film/Disney Music/Marvel/ESPN/Capcom/Electronic Arts
 * Dell/Warner Bros/DC/Midway
 * Apple/Namco Bandai games and anime
 * Microsoft/Sega

Rough, I know, but I'm still unsure exactly how this will end up.

Any alliances you think would be likely in a multimedia corporate war?