Sega: How An American Slot-Machine Company Became Japan's Arcade King, Dethroned Nintendo — And Then Destroyed Itself

In 1940, three American businessmen set up a coin-operated amusement company in Honolulu to service US military bases. Eighty-five years later, the hedgehog those businessmen's company invented is a billion-dollar movie star. In between: the birth of the video game arcade, a name invented for a slot machine, a Brooklyn kid who fell in love with Japan and built an empire, the single greatest marketing upset in the history of the games industry — and one of the most spectacular acts of corporate self-sabotage ever recorded.