Business Wars

It’s the year 2000. Sony’s PlayStation 2 is ready to conquer the game business and leave its Japanese rivals Sega and Nintendo looking like has-beens. But Sony’s gaming success is causing alarm at Microsoft’s headquarters. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates fears Sony will use the PlayStation to conquer computer-based home entertainment and shut Windows out of the home. So he’s striking back by deploying Microsoft’s billions to create a Windows-based game console called the Xbox...

It’s 2002 and the race to build the next generation of game consoles is already underway. And Sony’s got big plans for the PlayStation 3. It wants to use it to introduce a new kind of computer architecture and it’s teamed up with Toshiba and IBM to do it. But with Microsoft’s gunning to get its next console, the Xbox 360, into stores first, IBM spies a golden opportunity. IBM can make huge profits by partnering with both rivals in the console war. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

It’s 2007 and both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are in trouble. Microsoft’s dealing with an epidemic of dying consoles. Sony lacks sales momentum. And Nintendo’s surging back with the Wii – a console that lets people play using a motion-tracking controller. But when Microsoft hits paydirt with its own motion-controller – the Kinect – it will change the direction for Xbox and give Sony an opportunity for a comeback. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

It’s 2016 and Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s leading a reboot of the Xbox brand after the Xbox One’s fumbled start. But with Sony and Nintendo surging ahead, he needs to make some big plays to get Microsoft back in action. But when he homes in on a plan to spend tens of billions of dollars to reinvent Xbox and move beyond the console war, Sony’s going to go all out to stop Microsoft from spending its way to victory. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

Can you imagine video games without Sony? A partnership between Sony and Nintendo could have changed the future of Playstation — and the video game industry — as we know it… if the deal hadn’t ended with a dramatic betrayal. Tristan Donovan, author of Replay: The History of Video Games (and writer of this season of Business Wars), joins David to tell us about the console that almost wasn’t. You’ll also hear why Nintendo is so hard to predict, and where the video games market is going next...

Before Apple and Samsung took over our wrists, there was Fitbit. The fitness tracker was just about the coolest thing in Silicon Valley, and everyone in tech was wearing one — including Wired Magazine senior editor Michael Calore and senior writer Lauren Goode! Long before the pair started hosting the Wired Gadget Lab podcast, they were crushing their steps goal while reporting on the buzziest wearable on the market...