WEBVTT - The Rise and Fall of Atari: Part Three 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:13.280 Get in Touch with Technology textuffm Hey there and welcome 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:16.000 to text UFF. I'm Jonathan Strickland. With me in the 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.080 studio is Chuck Bryant. We have been here for hours. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.239 It feels like it. Literally it has been two hours. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.520 But it's funny but that we were just talking though 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.520 off Mike about how this is a three parter and 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.120 were we could do a whole season on this if 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.160 you really wanted to get into all the details. Yeah. 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.440 In fact, I came across some websites and by all this, 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.040 we're of course talking about the rise and fall of 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.080 Atari things. This was a request from Jeff on Facebook. 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.160 He wanted to know about this. We could go there 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.159 could be seven eight episodes where we talk about all 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.840 the things we're going on. There were incredible political moves 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.960 going on behind the scenes. There were some amazing technological development. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.080 We haven't really touched on the major competitors with Atari 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.560 that we're causing extra problems for them, like uh, you 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.600 know the early on the in television and Cliko, but 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.640 then later on we're talking Nintendo and Sega and then 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.520 Sony with the PlayStation. I mean by that time Atari 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.360 is pretty much out of the picture. Anyway. But I mean, 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:17.479 it's just so much to talk about. I found some 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.920 some websites that even broke it down into when Atari 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.800 hired people. And I'm not talking about the big names 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.920 we've mentioned talking about like Marty Accounting exactly. I mean, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.520 it was phenomenal. The documentation that's out there. So we're 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.680 going to now pick up in UH that tells you 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:38.759 how detailed we've been. If you haven't heard the first 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.680 two episodes in this series, go back listen to those first. 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.720 It's an amazing story. So is when something happens to 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:52.600 Atari that redefines everything, and some people consider this yet 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.560 another death of the company. That's when Warner, which had 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:01.520 purchased Attari from Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. Warner 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.720 splits Atari into two entities one of it one of 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.919 them is a home computing division, which is called the 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.800 Atari Corporation, and the other is the arcade division, which 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.919 is called Atari Games. And it sells off the home 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.600 computing division. So Atari Corporation gets sold to a man 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.800 named Jack Tramiel. Yeah, he was the original founder of 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.119 Commodore UH in the famous Commodore sixty four computer, which 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.280 was great for its time. Oh, Yeah, fantastic. There's a 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.919 full Tech Stuff episode about Commodore published on February first, 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.160 two thousand twelve. It's good, it was. It was fun 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.320 to talk about that too, to talk about the development 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:49.200 of the Commodore system. So Tramiel was another another pioneer 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.720 in personal computing and home electronics, and he saw some 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.720 promise in that home computing division of Atari, something that 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.640 after the video game crash of a lot people thought 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.240 had no value whatsoever. Yeah, he renamed it, uh I 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.080 think he renamed it the Atari Corporation. Yeah, Yeah, he 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.120 decided to call it that because obviously, you know, now 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.680 you have two separate entities that both have the Atari 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.239 name in them, Yeah, which is always confusing in the marketplace, 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:17.960 and it's going to be confusing in this episode because 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.280 we're gonna be talking about the fate of both of them, right, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:22.480 So we're gonna follow both the fate of the Atari 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.639 Corporation and the fate of Atari Games. So Atari Games 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.519 at in nineteen eighty four was still with Warner, not 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.560 not for long, in fact, would be when that changes. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.960 So some big stuff happens in home video games. That's 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.000 when the Fama com also known as Nintendo Entertainment System 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:47.160 is released in the United States, which was Tyson's punch 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:52.839 out right there. Um. Yeah, so that was something that 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.800 convinced people maybe home video games aren't as dead as 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.920 we thought they were. Because the video game crash, we 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.400 pretty much thought that's it. Personal computers are going to 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.320 take over. There won't be any home consoles dedicated video 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.080 games anymore. Because that idea played itself out. Apples on 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.480 the scene at this point, Yeah, making a stink. Yeah. 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.040 In fact, by they're selling the Macintosh because that came 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:20.360 out four so they Yeah. But the brilliant thing Nintendo 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.160 did was they learned from Attari's mistakes. They said, all right, well, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.039 we are going to license games like they have to 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.840 be certified by US. You can't develop for Nintendo independently 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.159 without submitting the game for US for certification. That way 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.840 we still have some control over warners wanted, but they 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.560 didn't get out ahead of it in time like Nintendo did. 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.760 No Act Activision pretty much doomed Atari because Activisions set 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.080 that that precedent that a third party developer can can 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.560 create uh cartridges for another platform that they don't own. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.360 Once that precedent was set and that policy wasn't in place. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.280 It was. It was game on literally for everybody wanted 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.000 to develop for Atari. Yeah, and pardon my ignorance because 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.640 I'm not a current gamer. I'm still stuck in the eighties. 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.600 Activision still around, right, uh huh, Well it's part of 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.160 something bigger. But yes, but they survived everything and did 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.120 well for them. Well, I mean I could do a 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:19.560 full episode on what happened Activision too. It's kind of 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.760 like it's kind of like a Tari you know how 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:29.680 Atari technically still exists today, so at any rate. Um uh. 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.400 Also in that's when Warner Communications sells the arcade division 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.760 of Atari Games to a competitor, Namco. Yes, so that's 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.479 the company that that developed pac Man. Yeah. Namco only 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.279 owned it for about a year, and then some employees 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.599 bought Atari Games from Namco and then uh made a 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.640 few more pretty good arcade games, Paper one, it was 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.440 a big one. Gauntlet, Yeah, Gauntlet was a big one. 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:02.080 Wizard needs food, good games, so they pumped a little 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.520 more lifeblood into the car Atari Games division. Yeah, they 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.320 also started to develop home games. But here's the thing. 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.040 When Warner split it up between uh Atari Corporation and 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:19.400 Atari games, Atari Corporation had the sole right to sell 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.440 home games under the Atari brand, yeah, which they had 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:28.360 already proved the struggle post without a really great, solid 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.320 follow up that didn't didn't jump over. Yeah. And then 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.120 you've got Atari Games that was making these these arcade games, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:38.040 and they wanted to make home video games, but they 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.400 couldn't do it under the Atari brand because that belonged 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.479 to Atari Corporation. So they created a new brand called 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:50.440 Tension t E N G E N, which also comes 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.600 from a uh an aspect of the old board game 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:59.480 Go Atari in Tension the game the board game the 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.680 Japanese for a game Go, or it's great, Yeah, it's um. 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.960 In fact, there's a great story that uh going way 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.000 back to the first episode we talked about the the 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.160 founders of Atari, they used to play Go in their office, 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.320 which was an office that was originally meant for one person, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.200 but two people had to share it, so they would 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.160 play games of Go in between actually getting any work done, 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:26.760 although according to uh Ted, Mr Nolan never really actually 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.720 did any work as far as he could tell. But 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.400 then I remember he had a lot of sour grapes 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.320 for legitimate reasons. So if you notice what's going on 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.880 now is Atari UM the corporation is getting really fractured. 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.880 Um their home computer business with the eight hundred, we're 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:51.240 doing okay, but they were behind the curve, so to speak, 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.800 and they were playing catch up. They were announcing a 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.800 new computer system, the Atari ST. They did that at 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.360 the Winter SES. I did an episode about CS once 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.720 where I explained this. But once upon a time there 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.160 were two big c S events. One happened in the 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.720 winter and one happened in the summer, and now there's 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.600 only the winter version. But so this this was back 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.440 when there were still two and at Winter c S 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.720 they announced a r S T. The ST stands for 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.640 sixteen slash thirty two, which refers to the microprocessor and 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.480 its internal and external bus connections. But anyway, it had 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.560 five kilobytes of RAM yeah, smoking fast yeah, and uh 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.400 it could be expanded up to four megabytes. So there's that. 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.840 Had a graphical user interface. So jewey uh or gooey 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.040 if you prefer. Once the whole Jeff gift thing came out, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.559 it messes everything up. I always say gooey because jewey 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.200 does not sound like it's appropriate to me at any rate. 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.840 It we'll go with gooey. I think that's the more 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.079 than more than overwhelming choice. It also had a floppy 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.880 disk drive, and it would be the cartridge drive. Yes, 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:05.720 so I had both. Yeah, and it would be produced 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.640 up until the early nineteen nineties. Yeah, and it was 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:13.280 the cheapest sixteen bit computer. Um. And like like you said, 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.120 if it was around to the nine nineties, it did okay. Yeah. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.839 In fact, in Europe it did pretty well. Here in 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.040 the United States did okay, and in Europe it did 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.920 it did better. Um. And then we've got, uh, the 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.000 Atari Corporation releasing the Atari seventy eight hundred Pro system 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.439 In nine six soft dred had come out, and then 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.080 the seventy eight hundred comes out. It had digital joysticks 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.040 rather than the older analog type, and the seventy hundred 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.680 had a weird little story and that it was manufactured 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.679 and then shelves in a warehouse basically for um, I'm 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.000 not really sure how long. Two years. Yeah, two years. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.560 They basically were just going to sit on it, and 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.720 then finally they said, well, the decision was really as 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.240 arbitrary as let's just sell these things. Yeah. They released 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.600 like a couple of early models U but in that 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.840 two year period. But they, like you were saying, they 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.640 didn't sell it like it. People talk about it being 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:11.720 uh uh re debuted or reintroduced, but it never was 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.640 fully introduced in the first place. But one cool thing 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.760 about it was it was backwards compatible with almost all games. Uh. Yeah, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:22.760 so that's kind of neat, you know, it's better than 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:28.440 theft UM and yeah, it ended up uh not really 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.680 competing very well against the Nintendo Entertainment System. It would 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:38.199 only be produced until or supported until that's when Atari 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.400 announced they would no longer UM produced games or consoles. 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:50.000 There was also JR companion model to basically that the public. 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.559 At this point, uh, Nintendo Fever had struck and Sega 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.520 started to come out with their systems, and Atari was 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.640 just kind of sadly lost in a shuffle there as 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:02.719 far as the home systems go. Yeah, if you're if 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.959 your mascot wasn't a little Italian plumber, yeah, you were 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:14.200 out of luck. So Attari would release the Atari x 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.960 E Video Game System a k a. The Atari x 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.800 E g S, which was based off the eight bit 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.400 computers Attari had previously created. UM. So think of like 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.360 the fifty two hundred was kind of the video game 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.000 console of the four eight hundred bit or four D 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.280 eight hundred Atari computers. This one was the next general 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.240 it was based off the next generation of those same 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.440 home computers. Yeah, those confusion in the marketplace, and I 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.040 think confusion within Atari. I don't think they even knew 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:43.680 what kind of company they were at this point. No, 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.280 I don't think so. And this one actually had one 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:50.839 game hard coded into it. So the Atari you could 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.800 play other games, like you could get the disks for 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.280 other games and play them, but it had one game 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.640 that was hard coded into it, and that was Missile Command. 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.520 So it's not a bad choice. But yeah, it was 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.120 again one of those things where you might feel that 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.360 Atari didn't have a clear vision for what its place was. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.040 Things just some kind of money. And in nine they 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.080 would release the five twenty st E and the ten 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.200 forty STE models of its home computer, which had an 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.520 increased color palette and a graphics processor, right, a dedicated 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.120 coprocessor for the graphics, which is something that's common now 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.319 but at the time was pretty new. Yeah. So, I 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:32.880 mean they were they were doing some of the right 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.440 things on the home computer front, but there was just 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.360 so much more competition. Now, Yeah, you had you had Apple, 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.360 you had the IBM compatibles, and you had IBM plus. 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.000 The Amiga was still out there. Um you can't forget 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.360 about the Amiga. No. I had a friend who was 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.199 a die hard Amiga fan, and I gotta admit the Amiga. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:53.520 The thing I loved about the Amiga was that, well 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.000 before anyone else, it was doing amazing sound and graphics, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.880 like years before anyone else had managed to do that 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.600 in an affordable way. And uh so, I remember my 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.400 friend had several games for the Amiga that I found 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.920 to be like light years beyond anything I could play 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.000 on my Apple two E or my two eight six 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.640 at home. Um so, but the the CPU on these 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.280 devices had a blistering speed of eight mega hurts. We're 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.760 talking about the multiple Giga hurts now, and it's a 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.480 little a little slow on that and in fact, my 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:34.760 phone is way faster than that. Um But that's also 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.840 when Atari Corporation acquired the right to manufacture and sell 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.960 a handheld gaming console that had been developed by a 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.760 different company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the links was really cool. 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.000 It had been developed by a company called Epics E 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.880 P y X but Epics had entered financial difficulty and 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.400 it owed a lot of money to various companies. The 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.360 largest that it owed money too was Atari. Actually the 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:01.000 largest amount it owed was to Atari, and so they 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.000 had this kind of settlement to say, like, well, how 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:04.520 are we going to make good on this because Epics 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.480 is on the verge of just disappearing, And as part 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.360 of the deal, essentially they signed over this this handheld 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.040 gaming system they had been developing, and that became the 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.920 Atari Links. And the Links was great. I remember I 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.680 had a couple of friends I had it. It um. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.080 It was released around the same time as the Game Boy, 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.120 but it had full color graphics. It looked better, it 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.920 sounded better. You could link them together. Yeah, you could 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.600 link them together. It was it was sort of large. Um. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:36.920 It was had a horizontal UM I guess body UM. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.160 So it was big, which wasn't great. It was a 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.920 little ungainly. The battery life would only last four to 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.240 five hours, so that was kind of frustrating because this 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.160 is this is not the era of rechargeable batteries for 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.280 most people. You were popping out old ones and replacing 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.680 them with new ones, so that could get really frustrating. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.960 But the one thing Links did not have was a 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:00.480 game called Tetrish, and that is what basically was the 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:05.480 death blow was just such a huge deal. It was 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.880 the killer app. It was the killer app, and it's 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.360 what made game Boy what it was. And I got 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:14.720 the game Boy. Yeah, and then and then like you 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.000 would think that, well, maybe if they can stick it out, 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:19.840 then the Links will have a chance because the Nintendo 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.920 game Boy, once everyone's got that, they'll see that the 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.560 Lynx has got uh better stats, and maybe I'll go 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.560 with that. But then in Sega came out with the 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:35.000 game Gear, and Sega was already doing really good business too, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.120 and that just that just meant that the Links had 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.000 no place in that competition. I feel bad for a 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.560 try at this point, because they're coming up with superior products. 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.640 In certain cases, it still can't get market. It's either 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.400 bad timing or it's a combination of bad timing and 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.880 a lack of a compelling library to these games. It 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.880 really shows how you need to have strong launch titles 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.400 to move a console. Yeah, there's a lot more to 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.440 it than just like this has the best graphics. In fact, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.320 you know, going into personal account here, I don't own 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.320 a current generation game. I love gaming. I consider myself 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.160 to be a gamer. I'm not a hardcore gamer, and 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.480 certainly I'm sure any of my listeners listening could beat 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.040 me at any game of their choice. So I don't 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:21.920 want to I don't want to put that out there, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.800 but but I will say that I love gaming. But 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.520 I haven't purchased an Xbox One or a PS four 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.680 because we're finally at a point now where it's different. 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.080 But for the longest time, the libraries weren't compelling enough 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.680 for me to make that investment. Right, so I would think, yes, 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.600 it's clearly superior to the system I have now, but 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.360 the games aren't games that I want to play yet. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.040 I want to wait until there are enough games that 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.360 I want to play to justify that expense, and now 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.040 we're at that point. I just haven't well. For one thing, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.120 I'm not allowed to have a present for another year 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.200 and a half. I have a two year two year 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.400 period where I can't get presents, or at least my 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.080 wife won't buy me presence. For a good reason, and 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.640 it's not a bad one. It's that I made a 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:08.280 substantial donation to a nonprofit and in return, the agreement 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.960 was two years no presence, you're a good man. Here's 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:16.440 my deal with gaming now is I uh played Nintendo 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:21.000 and stuff through the through the sixty in college, was 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.760 way into it and then sort of dropped out for 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.440 a long time until my stepfather, I'm sorry, my father 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.000 in law gave me his PS three a couple of 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.440 years ago because he just didn't want it. And since then, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.400 I buy like I just look up once a year 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:41.600 and buy like the two best reviewed games of the year, 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.440 and I'll play those for about a month and then 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.439 that's it. Well, we don't have the time to go 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.639 to gaming three years old, you know, to fix up 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:52.520 my house. I know, I've got a house, I got 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:56.440 a puppy, I got four animals. Yeah, we've gotten to 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.399 a white We're obviously getting a little off topic, but 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.440 it's true, like we we just have reached the point 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.000 in our lives where now you just can't game like 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:08.280 anymore about about the last of us. Fantastic game, fantastic game. 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.280 But see, I still have that gamer in me because 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.520 I was addicted to this game. Yeah. Um, and then 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:19.080 I bought one of the bio BioShock BioShock, but the 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.960 steam Punk win, right, so BioShock Infinite. Yeah, that one, 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:24.960 and I played that one through and that was really great. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.000 The music in that game is amazing. Yeah, and that's 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.879 the extent of my gaming. Now I hear two years, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.040 I'll buy the best two games. Although after the last 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:34.879 of us, I don't I mean, I don't see how 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.000 you can get any better. It was a very emotionally 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:42.520 impactful game. I mean, right at my stories. Uh so, yeah, 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:46.879 back to the get back to No, I love doing this. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.879 I would just totally continue on that conversation otherwise. But No, 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:52.639 there's only one thing I have to mention, which is 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.880 that Atari Corporation released the Atari t T zero three 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.639 zero or zero thirty. Never heard of it. It's workstation 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.760 three Mega hurts processor workstation. So they were still staying 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.840 in the home computer business at that point. Yeah, they're 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.080 they're trying to hang in there. Uh. And I don't 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.560 have any notes for ninety one, but in yeah, in 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.520 ninety two, Atari Corporation would release the Falcon, which would 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.720 be the last of its computer systems. The Falcon was 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:20.840 the last time they tried to do a home computer, 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.159 and then they made the decision to switch back to 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:30.040 trying to do video game consoles. Again. So that's why 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.320 we see the release of the Atari jag Jagua if 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.480 you want to go with the British pronunciation jack again, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.320 Atari is doing the right thing there ahead of the curve. 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.720 It's the first sixty four bit system. Yeah, so it's 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.000 so it is graphically and as far as the processor 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.240 goes more powerful than any of the competitors on the 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.439 market at that Yeah, and had had a couple of 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.880 success successful titles that think the Aliens Predator, that's one 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:58.960 that's considered to be one of the best titles for 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.960 that system. Tim This two thousand that was the other one, 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.600 was really good, um, but the controller on it was terrible. Yeah. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.520 It was huge and it was unwieldy, um, and didn't 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.720 have a lot of software support. Right to the titles 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.200 that we just mentioned are pretty much I was like, well, 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.920 beyond that, I can't really justify buying this. It says 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.680 there were sixty seven games ever released, and I don't 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.240 think more than ten of them registered on the radar. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.639 You read over the them and you're just like, well, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.359 I never heard of this there. That's got to be 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.320 one of the reasons why this Jaguar never took off. Yeah, 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.879 well in the sixty four was just awesome and they 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.959 had good games, and then you had the PlayStation coming on, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.119 like when Sony starts really throwing down then it really 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.080 this was like a last like a star in the 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.480 just reaching for that rope at the end of the rope, 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.200 trying to grab ahold of it and Nintendo and Sonny 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.720 was just pulling the rope higher. So we haven't talked 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.160 about Tory Games for a little bit. That's the that's 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.919 the branch that did the Arcade Ursians not and also 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.600 produced some home video under home video games under tension. Uh, 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.639 Time Warner Communications. Just in case you didn't know, Warner 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.919 and Time merged in nine, just a little bit of 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.520 a merger. Yeah, Time Warner Communications purchased controlling interest in 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.320 Atari Games, so Atari Games would get consolidated with other 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.880 properties in nine and become known as Time Warner Interactive. 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.720 So Atari Games was part of Time Warner Interactive. But 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.320 this means that part of Atari is back with Warner. 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.280 Remember Warner was the one that sold it off, So yeah, 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.120 Warner had sold it off to Namco. Then employees bought 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.280 it back from Namco and then Time Warner Communications buys it, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.160 and it's just this is why it gets really hard 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.960 to talk about the end of Atari UM. And in 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:57.439 another confusing thing, uh, JT Storage was a hard disc manufacturer. Yeah, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.720 JT has merges with Atari Corporate Shian So this is 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.760 the home computer one, not the Atari games one. So 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.680 JTS merges with Atari Corporation. But JTS was in a 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:13.920 tough spot because it was already had a cash flow problem, 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.320 and so it was looking for a way to avoid 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.800 going into bankruptcy and thought that by acquiring Atari, which 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:23.680 had lots of cash, but not a whole lot of 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:26.960 market share because most of the cash from Attari was 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:32.560 actually coming from lawsuits like they were going after other companies. Yeah, 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:34.920 so they weren't making money off their products as much 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:39.320 as they were off some of the lawsuits. So JTS 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:42.639 comes in, acquires Atari, then fires almost all of the 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:48.560 former Atari employees and liquidates the remaining Atari inventory as 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:53.520 a means of helping stave off this impending disaster, which 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:57.240 it did not do. Two years after that has bro 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:03.600 Interactive UM by JTS for five million bucks. Yeah, essentially 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.879 it bought the Atari Corporation from JTS for five million 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.280 JTS actually went bankrupt that year. It essentially bought the 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:13.200 Atari name for five million. Yeah, because at that point 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.119 there really was nothing left, right because and at this 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.480 point in the name, it's like your your drunk uncle 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.119