In 1990, SEGA, a fledgling arcade company assembled a team of misfits to take on the greatest video game company in the world, Nintendo. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pit brother against brother, kids against grownups, Sonic against Mario, and uniquely American capitalism against centuries-old Japanese tradition. For the first time ever, the men and women who fought on the front lines for Sega and Nintendo discuss this battle that defined a generation.

CNBC examines the history of the video game industry from the first tennis game developed for an oscilloscope to the Atari and video arcade game boom of the early 1980s. It looks at the history of electronic game all the way up to the current Nintendo, Playstation, and Xbox game systems.

This is the story behind the fiendishly addictive game, a tale of high stakes, intimidation and legal feuds set against the backdrop of Cold War tensions between East and West.