Best Books About 90s Video Games and Gaming History
This site's general affiliate policy favors recommending games over books; this particular article is a deliberate, disclosed exception, since its actual subject, per our own editorial plan, is a book buying guide. The titles below are real, currently published books verified through their Amazon listings and publisher information, not a claim that every page of every one has been read cover to cover by this site.
Console histories
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris, based on the publisher's own description, is built from interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees and focuses directly on the console rivalry at the center of this site's Nintendo and Sega coverage.
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation
Blake J. Harris's account of the Sega-versus-Nintendo rivalry, built from interviews with former employees of both companies, discussed above.
Check price on Amazon →Game design books
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner covers id Software's John Carmack and John Romero and the making of Doom, a title with its own coverage in our PC Games category, according to the book's publisher description.
Choosing depth versus nostalgia
Console Wars reads more like a business narrative built from interviews, while Masters of Doom centers on two specific developers rather than an industry wide view. Neither is a technical reference; readers wanting primary release-date and platform facts should use this site's own category hubs instead, which cite sources directly for that kind of claim.
Frequently asked questions
Has this site actually read these books cover to cover?
No claim like that is made here. These are real, currently published books verified through their Amazon listings and publisher descriptions, recommended for their direct relevance to this site's coverage, not reviewed as a full read-through by this site.
Why does this article recommend books when the rest of the site avoids that?
This site generally favors recommending games over books as affiliate picks, but this particular article's actual subject is a book buying guide, so books are the article's intended content rather than a fallback recommendation.
Is Console Wars or Masters of Doom more historically comprehensive?
Console Wars covers the broader Sega-versus-Nintendo business rivalry through interviews; Masters of Doom focuses specifically on id Software's Doom rather than the wider industry, according to each book's own publisher description.
Sourcing and corrections
This is a researched buying guide, not a claim of a full cover-to-cover read of every listed book. Titles, authors, and publisher descriptions were checked via web search against each book's Amazon listing in September 2026. Recommending books here is a disclosed, deliberate exception to this site's general games-over-books affiliate policy, since this article's assigned subject is a book buying guide.