Could a single uncomfortable call have changed gaming forever? How Nintendo’s silent betrayal turned Sony into a rival

In the early 1980s, America’s video game industry had collapsed, thanks in no small part to the catastrophic failure of the E.T. video game, a rushed tie-in that became an infamous symbol of overhyped flops. Amidst this turmoil, Japan’s Nintendo saw opportunity. With the 1983 release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), they didn’t just find success—they became synonymous with gaming itself. If you said “video game,” you meant Nintendo.

By the end of the decade, the NES had conquered living rooms around the globe. With the Super…