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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and Back in three

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Speaker 1: a new video game console created by the founder of

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts launched, and just three years later that console

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Speaker 1: would be discontinued and essentially taken off the market. It

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Speaker 1: was a massive failure. The company that made the console

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Speaker 1: would stick around a little longer, ultimately closing up shop

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three. This is the story of the

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Speaker 1: three d O Company and the console that wasn't meant

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Speaker 1: to be. Now, for this episode, We're going to focus

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Speaker 1: a lot early on at some prehistoric and Eastern terms

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Speaker 1: of three d OH information, because I think it's helpful

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Speaker 1: to get an understanding of the man who championed the

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Speaker 1: idea of the three d O to kind of see

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Speaker 1: where he was coming from, what his thought process was.

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Speaker 1: If I just focused on the console or even the

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Speaker 1: company all by itself, it would be kind of unusual, strange.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't understand why anyone would make these decisions. So

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Speaker 1: it's helpful to have the background. Also, I just think

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Speaker 1: it's kind of an an interesting story with lots of

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Speaker 1: ups and downs. And that story begins with William M. Hawkins,

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Speaker 1: the third a k a. Trip Hawkins. He was born

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty four. He grew up in California, and

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Speaker 1: his mother, Dr. Helen Hawkins, was a producer and host

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Speaker 1: at a California public broadcast station. She was also a

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Speaker 1: prominent feminist and a publications director, very much a influential woman.

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Speaker 1: And his father, William Hawkins Jr. Had earned a degree

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Speaker 1: in physics before becoming a sales and marketing executive for

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Speaker 1: various companies in California, primarily those in the tech sector.

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Speaker 1: In the late fifties and then into the sixties. Trips

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Speaker 1: father would take a job with a company called Spectral

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Speaker 1: Dynamics Corporation, which employed another person who will be an

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Speaker 1: important figure early on for the young Trip, that being

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Speaker 1: a man named Lane Hawk. But we'll get back to him. So,

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Speaker 1: as a kid, Trip loved games, not just playing them,

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Speaker 1: but kind of learning how they worked right, What were

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Speaker 1: the mechanics behind the games? What was the theory behind

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Speaker 1: the games? What led to making a game a fun

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Speaker 1: playing experience? You know, it's not easy to develop an

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Speaker 1: actual game that is rewarding that balances everything out, and

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Speaker 1: he was really interested in that model, and when in

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Speaker 1: high school, he would attempt to make his own version

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Speaker 1: of various types of games, like he would take inspiration

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Speaker 1: from games that existed that he enjoyed and try to

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Speaker 1: make his own. He was particularly interested in games that

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Speaker 1: simulated sports. He himself loved sports, and so these games

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Speaker 1: kind of gave him an outlet to kind of imagine

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Speaker 1: himself being part of, like a top class athletic team.

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Speaker 1: According to later interviews, Hawkins enjoyed board games but saw

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Speaker 1: that many of his friends preferred to spend their spare

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Speaker 1: time watching stuff on television, and during a visit to

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Speaker 1: the home of his father's coworker that the aforementioned Lane Hawk,

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Speaker 1: he saw something that would spark his imagination for a

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Speaker 1: future industry. So Lane was fascinated with games as well,

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Speaker 1: just like young Trip Hawkins. And he was also really

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Speaker 1: into computer systems, which at the time were not a

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Speaker 1: consumer product. This is the early seventies. This was even

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Speaker 1: before there were hobbyist kits to purchase. Lane had spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, like more than five grand, which

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, wasn't even more princely some than

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Speaker 1: we would think of today, And five thousand dollars is

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, but he spent that to buy

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Speaker 1: what today would be an incredibly primitive mini computer. But

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Speaker 1: at the time it was well, it was kind of

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Speaker 1: showing its age at the time, but it was at

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Speaker 1: one point state of the art. It was called the

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Speaker 1: PDP eight. Now, when this computer first debuted in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, when it really was, you know, cutting edge

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Speaker 1: type of technology, it costs a whopping eighteen thousand, five

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Speaker 1: hundred dollars, but this was well beyond the heyday of

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Speaker 1: the PDP eight. And it was also a really big computer.

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Speaker 1: It was like the size of like a cabinet, like

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Speaker 1: a wardrobe, or a small refrigerator. It was a twelve

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Speaker 1: bit machine, meaning it could handle a range of in

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Speaker 1: jurors from zero to four thousand ninety five, or you

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Speaker 1: could do from negative two thousand forty eight to two

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Speaker 1: thousand forty seven. Zero would be taking up that pesky

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Speaker 1: spot in the middle. And programming for the machine was,

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Speaker 1: from what I understand anyway, not intuitive. It was not

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Speaker 1: an easy thing to program for. But Lane wanted something

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Speaker 1: that he could kind of work on in his spare

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Speaker 1: time to putter around with. It was almost like a

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Speaker 1: project car for someone who's a gear head. For Lane,

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Speaker 1: it was a PDP eight and he hooked up this

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Speaker 1: computer to a teletype printer. There was no display, There

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Speaker 1: was no monitor for the PDP eight, so you couldn't,

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Speaker 1: you know, look at a screen and see what you

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Speaker 1: were working on. And instead you used a teletype printer

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Speaker 1: and the printer would print out the information that you

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Speaker 1: were working on. With the computer, you would read it,

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Speaker 1: you would make changes, it would print on a new page.

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Speaker 1: It's a pretty painstaking process. Well, Lane created a game

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Speaker 1: he called MoU Oo, as in what cows say, at

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Speaker 1: least in the United States, and the game was pretty simple.

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Speaker 1: The game would generate a four digit number and it

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Speaker 1: would keep that number secret. So the game has a

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Speaker 1: four digit number and it was your job as the

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Speaker 1: player to figure out what that four digit number was,

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Speaker 1: and you would submit your own guests. You would put

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Speaker 1: in a four digit number and the computer would tell

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Speaker 1: you how many digits, if any, you got right, and

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Speaker 1: whether or not any of those digits were in the

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Speaker 1: right place. So let's say that the secret number the

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Speaker 1: computer comes up with is eight to nine five, and

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Speaker 1: my guess is one five nine three. The system would

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Speaker 1: tell me I got one correct digit in the right

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Speaker 1: location because I got the nine correct and it's in

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Speaker 1: the right spot. And I got a second digit correct,

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Speaker 1: but it's not in the right spot. My five is

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Speaker 1: in the wrong position of that four digit number. So

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Speaker 1: it's similar to a board game that would come out

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Speaker 1: a little later called Mastermind. That one uses colors, not numbers,

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Speaker 1: but it's a similar idea. Now, move did this using

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Speaker 1: moves and cows. A cow would indicate that you had

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Speaker 1: the right digit, but it was in the wrong place.

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Speaker 1: A move would indicate that you had a right digit,

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Speaker 1: but and it was in the right place. But you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be told which one was which right. You wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be told which of the digits was the correct one.

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Speaker 1: You would just know, Oh, I've got, you know, two

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Speaker 1: moves and a cow, and then my fourth digit is wrong.

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Speaker 1: So I've got to start changing this out and narrowing

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Speaker 1: down what that four digit number could possibly be. And

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Speaker 1: I assume you had to do it in a certain

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Speaker 1: number of turns, But none of my research found anything

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Speaker 1: about that. But for our story, The important part is

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Speaker 1: when Trip Hawkins saw Lanes set up, something must have

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Speaker 1: switched on in Trip's brain. He saw the potential for

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Speaker 1: computers to bring together the world's of television and bore

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Speaker 1: to games. He imagined a world where one day people

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Speaker 1: could play games on computers with displays, and that's what

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Speaker 1: he wanted to do. He wanted to make games for computers.

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Speaker 1: There was no real way to do that at that time.

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Speaker 1: There was no way for the average consumer to even

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Speaker 1: get hold of a computer at that stage, but Hawkins

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Speaker 1: was certain this was where things were going to go,

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Speaker 1: and Lane Hawk would go on to develop some early

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Speaker 1: arcade games, but that's a story for another time. According

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Speaker 1: to Trip Hawkins himself, around nineteen seventy five, he laid

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Speaker 1: out a long term plan that would lead towards the

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Speaker 1: founding of a computer game company by the year nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty two, but he had a lot of challenges to

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Speaker 1: overcome to actually make that happen. Now. He applied and

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Speaker 1: was accepted at Harvard and he was a student there

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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen seventies, and he wanted to work

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Speaker 1: in an industry that just didn't exist yet, and that

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Speaker 1: also meant he face a love challenges when it came

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Speaker 1: to his studies. It's not like there were degrees and

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Speaker 1: what he wanted to do, because the thing he wanted

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Speaker 1: to do wasn't a thing yet. So he started to

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Speaker 1: kind of put together his studies in a piecemeal fashion,

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Speaker 1: you know, taking classes and computer science and programming and

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Speaker 1: related topics. And at the end of his stay at

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Speaker 1: Harvard he hadn't just earned a degree, he had essentially

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Speaker 1: invented a degree in applied game theory and design. Hawkins

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Speaker 1: then went on to pursue postgraduate work at Stanford, where

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Speaker 1: he earned an NBA in nineteen seventy eight. By this time,

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Speaker 1: technology was slowly starting to build the foundation that Hawkins

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Speaker 1: would need to pursue his dream of creating a video

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Speaker 1: game company. UH the twenty hundred he debuted the year

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Speaker 1: before he got his m b A, and that took

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Speaker 1: a leading position in the new field of home video

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Speaker 1: game consoles. That same year, in nineteen seventy seven, Apple

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Speaker 1: would unveil the Apple two computer, which was the first

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Speaker 1: personal computer from Apple that took aim beyond the relatively

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Speaker 1: small harp hobbyist market. The original Apple computer was a

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Speaker 1: kit you might even see pictures of old Apple one

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Speaker 1: computers in wooden cabinets. That's the original Apple. But the

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Speaker 1: Apple two was the first real consumer personal computer, and

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Speaker 1: it was still too soon for Hawkins to really pursue

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Speaker 1: his plans to make a video game company. In addition,

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Speaker 1: while in college, Hawkins had made, marketed, and sold his

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Speaker 1: own board game after taking a loan from his father.

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Speaker 1: His father loaned him the princely some of five thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: which again that's a lot of money. And people liked

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Speaker 1: the game that Hawkins made, but there weren't enough people

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Speaker 1: who actually bought it to make it a success. It

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Speaker 1: was a failure. And that failure, I think convinced Hawkins

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Speaker 1: that he really needed to be methought iCal and patient

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Speaker 1: before launching his business. It would be a bad idea

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Speaker 1: to rush into things. He had already seen what you know,

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Speaker 1: a misstep could do. It could be a very expensive mistake.

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Speaker 1: So Hawkins would conduct the first complete study of the

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Speaker 1: personal computer market in nine and that's back when it

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Speaker 1: was a very young field. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: different computers out there, the Apples, the trs a D

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Speaker 1: or trash a D computer, the you know, the Tandy,

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Speaker 1: the Commodore sixty four. Those were coming out around this time,

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Speaker 1: some of them a little later, and he started to

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Speaker 1: get a feel for where things were headed and how

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Speaker 1: he might best be able to take part in a

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Speaker 1: technological revolution. While in school, he attended a computer fair

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Speaker 1: and he actually saw the Apple two debut in person.

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Speaker 1: He was at that computer fair and he decided that

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Speaker 1: he would apply to work for a computer company upon graduating,

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Speaker 1: and he did. He applied to a lot of different places,

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Speaker 1: and the one that gave him an offer that he

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Speaker 1: accepted was Apple. The company was happy to bring him

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Speaker 1: on board. He was the first MBA in the company,

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Speaker 1: which he joking Lee said, is always a scary thing.

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Speaker 1: You never want to be the first NBA in a company.

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Speaker 1: But he joined when there were somewhere between twenty five

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Speaker 1: and fifty people working there. Sources don't fully agree on this,

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Speaker 1: which is often the case when I researched stuff in

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Speaker 1: computer history, though Hawkins himself has said there were about

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Speaker 1: fifty employees. However, twenty five of them were primarily responsible

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Speaker 1: for physically assembling the computers, so maybe really the sources

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Speaker 1: kind of agree. It's just that some of the sources

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Speaker 1: ignore the assembly line workers and only focus on the

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Speaker 1: you know, the Apple management and officers. That seems a

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Speaker 1: bit elitist to me, but maybe that's what's going on anyway.

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Speaker 1: This was right as the Apple two started to get

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Speaker 1: some traction. As one of the earliest successful personal computers

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Speaker 1: that was available on the market. At Apple, Hawkins would

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Speaker 1: gain a lot of real world experience while taking on

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Speaker 1: an increasing amount of responsibility. He helped guide Apple's efforts

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Speaker 1: to getting computers into workplaces, and he encouraged the development

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Speaker 1: of various productivity applications like spreadsheet programs. Hawkins has said,

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Speaker 1: quote I didn't invent the spreadsheet, but I did bring

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Speaker 1: the first spreadsheet apps into Apple end quote. This would

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Speaker 1: allow Apple to compete in markets where previously IBM was

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Speaker 1: really the king of the castle. Four years after joining

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Speaker 1: Apple Trip, Hawkins was the director of Strategy and Marketing, Which,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's a heck of an achievement to go

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Speaker 1: to a director level position within four years, even if

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Speaker 1: you and you know, take into account the fact that

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Speaker 1: the office staff had really only numbered twenty five employees

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Speaker 1: when he joined the company and Apple had just held

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Speaker 1: its initial public offering, and that ended up making Hawkins

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Speaker 1: a pretty healthy amount of cash. But this means that

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Speaker 1: we were just getting up to two. And if you

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Speaker 1: remember what I said a little earlier in this episode,

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Speaker 1: that was the year that Hawkins had predicted way back

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Speaker 1: in n that he would launch a computer game company,

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Speaker 1: or at least that's what his plan had called for,

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Speaker 1: and other computer game companies were already getting off the

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Speaker 1: ground around this time. At home video game consoles like

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Speaker 1: the AD had spawned numerous game development companies. Hawkins made

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Speaker 1: his move to follow through on his plan that his

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Speaker 1: younger self had created, and he left Apple to found

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Speaker 1: his computer game company, now Trip. Hawkins says that at

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Speaker 1: the time, he thought video game developers were, on the

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Speaker 1: whole not treated so well. They were frequently treated like

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Speaker 1: cheap contract labor on a game by game basis, and

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Speaker 1: Hawkins aimed to create a company that turned that on

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Speaker 1: its head. And that was the birth of Electronic Arts

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Speaker 1: better known today as e A. And it was back

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Speaker 1: in two. When we come back, we'll give a super

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Speaker 1: high level overview of hawkins vision of e A and

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Speaker 1: how that would lead him to found another company, the

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Speaker 1: three D O Company. But first let's take a quick break. Today.

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Speaker 1: The name E A has I guess it's fair to

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Speaker 1: say a little bit of baggage along with it. The

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Speaker 1: company has a reputation for doing some stuff that rubs

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Speaker 1: gamers the wrong way, the big one being that it

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Speaker 1: has a history of scooping up smaller video game developers

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Speaker 1: and then kind of sapping the intellectual property those video

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Speaker 1: game developers had created and just draining it dry and

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Speaker 1: having the developers anguish a bit before shutting them down.

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Speaker 1: U e A has done this to companies like Origin,

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Speaker 1: which made The Wing Commander and Ultimate Series, Maxis Pandemic

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Speaker 1: Bull Rug Studios. The list is long. In two thousand

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Speaker 1: and twelve, e A even made headlines for a really

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Speaker 1: not super awesome reason. It was voted the worst company

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Speaker 1: in the entire United States. But back in two it

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Speaker 1: was a very different company. Hawkins said that he funded

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Speaker 1: e A out of his own pocket for the first

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Speaker 1: six months, and at the very beginning he was the

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Speaker 1: only employee and he was working out of his home

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Speaker 1: until he was able to secure some office space in California,

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Speaker 1: and then he started to hire on employees, and it

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Speaker 1: was only in October, months after he had started. He

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Speaker 1: got started in the spring of nineteen eighty two. So

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Speaker 1: the fall of nine two he got together with his

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Speaker 1: twelve employees. This is starting sound a little biblical, and

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Speaker 1: together they brainstormed up the name of the company Electronic Arts.

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Speaker 1: And Hawkins had really wanted to stress that games can

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Speaker 1: be a form of art and that video game developers

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Speaker 1: are artists and they should be recognized as such, and

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts was born. E a's early identities centered around

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Speaker 1: compensating and crediting game developers above and beyond what the

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Speaker 1: competition offered. You know, like most video games at the time,

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Speaker 1: you had no idea who worked on that game. If

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Speaker 1: you found out, it was only because some industry magazine

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Speaker 1: wrote up an article about the person. Chances are you

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Speaker 1: just knew which titles went with which companies, if you

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Speaker 1: were even paying that close attention. Hawkins wanted to change that.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to say, no, you will start to recognize

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Speaker 1: the work of specific video game developers and the ones

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Speaker 1: that make the stuff you like, you'll know to keep

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Speaker 1: getting their stuff. That was the idea, and the company

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Speaker 1: launched early titles like Mule m u l E. It

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Speaker 1: was a combat simulation game, and Our Con, which was

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite early computer games. It was a

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Speaker 1: chess like game in which players would control pieces that

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Speaker 1: represented different sort of magical and mythological creatures and characters,

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Speaker 1: and you were trying to take control of a board

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Speaker 1: by controlling the space occupied by your opponent. So you

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Speaker 1: can move a piece into an opponent's square, and that

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Speaker 1: would initiate an arcade style dual where you would try

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Speaker 1: to beat the other player or your computer opponent in

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Speaker 1: a little arcade style game, a little shootout, and different

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Speaker 1: pieces had different abilities. Some of them were super fast

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Speaker 1: but not very powerful. Some shot very powerful beams but

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Speaker 1: moved slowly, and so on. Anyway, I'm getting off track,

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Speaker 1: but it was a great game. It's again one of

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Speaker 1: my favorites. Any ar Con fans out there give it

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Speaker 1: a shout out. The as Man that was one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite early computer games. Hawkins, however, his favorite games

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Speaker 1: were still sports titles. One early e A sports game

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Speaker 1: was Dr J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which,

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Speaker 1: if you're not you know, up on the sports ball,

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Speaker 1: it's a basketball game. Uh you know. Dr J and

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Speaker 1: Larry Bird both famous basketball players, amazing basketball players, and

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Speaker 1: Hawkins himself designed the game, or at least was very

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Speaker 1: heavily involved in the design of the game, and he

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Speaker 1: also brought both of the basketball stars into the design

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Speaker 1: phase and the marketing of the title, and that gave

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Speaker 1: it some prestige in the market to actually, you know,

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Speaker 1: attach real world athletes to this video game title. And

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Speaker 1: if you know your video game history, you also know

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Speaker 1: that this early period of e A coincided with a

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Speaker 1: catastrophic market event around the home video game market began

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Speaker 1: to wobble, and by it was in the shambles. And

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Speaker 1: I've done full episodes about the video game crash of

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Speaker 1: eight three, but the short version is that there were

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Speaker 1: a confluence of problems from a flood of bad games

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Speaker 1: by fly by Night developers. There were a series of

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Speaker 1: terrible business decisions at multiple companies. There was the overproduction

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Speaker 1: of titles that meant that the once lucrative industry imploded.

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Speaker 1: Then there are other elements to like licensing popular games

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Speaker 1: or or entertainment franchises that ended up being a cost

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Speaker 1: that you could never recoup that kind of thing. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of really bad decisions and entire companies

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Speaker 1: disappeared within a year, and video games in general we're

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Speaker 1: seen as a failure so much so that retailers didn't

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Speaker 1: want to carry video games or video game consoles. And

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Speaker 1: it was only by kind of pivoting toward computers that

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Speaker 1: companies related to the video game space could stay afloat.

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Speaker 1: And you know, e A had primarily been developing titles

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Speaker 1: for computers, but it wasn't immune to this problem either.

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Speaker 1: The company shifted a little bit in its initial strategy.

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Speaker 1: You know again that was originally to promote games by

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Speaker 1: associating those games with the designers who made them. But

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Speaker 1: now e A was focusing more on promoting specific game

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Speaker 1: titles and making franchises out of them, rather than saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is a game by so and so. The company

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Speaker 1: focused exclusively on developing games for various computer platforms like

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Speaker 1: the Apple computers you know, IBM PCs, the Commodore sixty four,

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Speaker 1: and others at that time. Then Nintendo came along and

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Speaker 1: managed to do what most analysts thought was impossible. Nintendo

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Speaker 1: was able to bring consoles back from the dead. The

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Speaker 1: Nintendo Entertainment System here in the United States, also know

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Speaker 1: as the Famicom, became a Grand slam home run of

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Speaker 1: a hit. I thought I would use an analogy that

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Speaker 1: Trip Hawkins himself would probably appreciate, but it would take

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Speaker 1: many years for e A to start to develop games

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Speaker 1: for console systems in earnest because Hawkins was one he

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Speaker 1: was wary of consoles after the Crash of three and two.

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Speaker 1: He was pretty sure the PC was going to be

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Speaker 1: the future of gaming. When Sega launched the Sega Genesis

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Speaker 1: a k a. The Mega Drive in nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 1: at least in North America, it launched in different parts

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Speaker 1: of the world at different times. It launched in Japan earlier,

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Speaker 1: for example, but trip Hawkins would relent a bit and

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Speaker 1: negotiated a favorable but not perfect deal with Sega for

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Speaker 1: the e E for e A tow to publish games

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Speaker 1: on Sega's console, and at that point e A would

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Speaker 1: also develop a few games for the Nintendo Entertainment System

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Speaker 1: and got a little bit out of that niche market

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Speaker 1: of just developing computer games. Now we get to a

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Speaker 1: point where we start to see where the three D

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Speaker 1: O company idea starts to creep into hawkins mind. Now

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Speaker 1: to understand why Hawkins would try to get into the

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Speaker 1: console market after he had kind of grown wary of

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Speaker 1: it after the Crash of three, you have to know

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Speaker 1: a bit about the relationship between video game developers and

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Speaker 1: the companies that actually manufacture the hardware that those games

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Speaker 1: run on, the main the console manufacturers. In other words,

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Speaker 1: Sega in particular was kind of a thorn in the

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Speaker 1: industry side, particularly for Trip Hawkins. Sega would insist on

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Speaker 1: steep royalties. Now that meant that game publishers would have

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Speaker 1: to pay a certain amount of money per game sold

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Speaker 1: back to Sega in order to have the games run

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Speaker 1: on Sega machines. So let's say that you, as a consumer,

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Speaker 1: are going out to buy an e A game for

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Speaker 1: the Sega Genesis. Who is getting paid, Well, it turns

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Speaker 1: out a lot of people are getting paid. First, there's

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Speaker 1: the brick and mortar store where you bought your game,

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Speaker 1: because again this is back in the late eighties, there's

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Speaker 1: not really any other opportunity. But those merchants in turn

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Speaker 1: had to spend money to get the stock to sell

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Speaker 1: in the first place. So they would buy their copies

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Speaker 1: of the games that they sell to consumers like you

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Speaker 1: from e A or from a video game distributor. But

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Speaker 1: let's not get too complicated. E A in turn would

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Speaker 1: have to share a portion of each of those sales

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Speaker 1: two retailers back with Sega. Sega demanded high royalties, so

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Speaker 1: that meant a smaller percentage of the money would go

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Speaker 1: to e A. E A would develop the games, but

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Speaker 1: some of that money was gonna go to Sega, not

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Speaker 1: to e A. And Hawkins felt that there was a

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Speaker 1: big power imbalance there and he wanted a way to

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Speaker 1: address it. And he thought if he could make a

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Speaker 1: company that designed video game systems and he didn't impose

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Speaker 1: such high royalties on publishers, then creators would have a

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Speaker 1: later degree of freedom and a large incentive to develop

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Speaker 1: games for that system, and it would usher in a

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Speaker 1: new era of amazing games. This was keyed back into

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Speaker 1: that artist's first mentality and let's face it, a desire

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Speaker 1: to keep more of the revenue for the publisher, not

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Speaker 1: send it off to, you know, the console maker. The

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Speaker 1: three D O model was to impose a flat three

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Speaker 1: dollar royalty rate per games sold, which was much lower

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Speaker 1: than the royalties that were being imposed by Sega or

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Speaker 1: Nintendo at the time. Hawkins had a fairly radical idea. Now,

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Speaker 1: the standard practice for console hardware is for a single

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Speaker 1: company like Nintendo or Sega or Sony to design and

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Speaker 1: manufacture the systems themselves. These companies could have their own

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Speaker 1: in house development studios, but they would also negotiate deals

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Speaker 1: with external video game studios to publish titles on those consoles.

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Speaker 1: And Hawkins wanted to kind of turn that model on

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Speaker 1: its head, and his idea was to create a company

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Speaker 1: that would design the specs and architecture for a video

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Speaker 1: game console, but then that company would license out the

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Speaker 1: design for other manufacturers to actually make to fabricate those consoles.

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Speaker 1: So if you listen to my episode about ARM processors,

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Speaker 1: you'll recognize this model as ARM followed the same pathway.

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Speaker 1: It's something that in Vidio does with graphics cards, although

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Speaker 1: in Video also will manufacture cards in house in addition

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Speaker 1: to licensing out the designs to other fabricators. To focus

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Speaker 1: on three d O, Hawkins stepped down as the CEO

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Speaker 1: of e A, which would come back to haunt him later.

436
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: He would remain the chairman of the Board of Directors

437
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 1: for a while, but he would become the CEO of

438
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: three d O now and all these initialisms are really

439
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: wearing me out. Beyond the goal of creating a design

440
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: for a new console, there were a few other considerations

441
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: going in to the three d OH. But it helps

442
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 1: if we take a snapshot look of where the video

443
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 1: game console industry was in ninete. That was the year

444
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: of three d O s founding. So what was going

445
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: on with video game consoles in ninety one, Well, generally speaking,

446
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 1: the consoles of we're in what we would refer to

447
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: as the fourth generation of video game consoles. The first generation,

448
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: which started in the nineteen seventies, had largely been consoles

449
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 1: with games that were hardwired onto the systems, meaning you

450
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: couldn't switch out games or anything. The console would have

451
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: one or more games programmed on it and that was that.

452
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: That was what you were limited to. The second generation

453
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: of consoles is the one that had the Atari twenty

454
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: hundred in it. That was part of the second generation.

455
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 1: This was the generation that was around during the Crash

456
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three. A lot of these consoles had,

457
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,640
Speaker 1: you know, cartridge based system so you could switch out

458
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: games and that kind of stuff. The third generation included

459
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 1: the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Sega Master System, and a

460
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: few other consoles. Now keep in mind, these generations aren't

461
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: like hard and fast with solid boundaries. It's not like,

462
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: you know, after seven you go from one generation to

463
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: the next, they're a little more fuzzy. But while Hawkins

464
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: was working on the design of the three D O,

465
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: the leading consoles on the market included the Super Nintendo

466
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: Entertainment System which came out in nine, the Sega Genesis,

467
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: which had actually come out in nine, and the Turbo

468
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: Graphics sixteen. These were all fourth generation video game consoles. Uh.

469
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: There were others that were on the market as well,

470
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: they just weren't as popular. There was the Phillips c

471
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: D I UH, Sega would include the Sega c D

472
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: as a type of system, and there were a couple

473
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: of other systems that were on the horizon in nine

474
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: one when three D A was coming together. But while

475
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: the systems like the S and E S, the Genesis,

476
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: and the base Turbo Graphics six team, we're all cartridge

477
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: based games where the game is you know, hard coded

478
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:10,239
Speaker 1: onto the circuit board of a video game cartridge. The

479
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: future was moving toward optical discs compact discs in the

480
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: game space. That was clearly where things were going, although

481
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: some companies cough Nintendo cough would resist that longer than others.

482
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: Now the standard of the time, the fourth generation consoles

483
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 1: was for sixteen bit graphics with processors that ranged on

484
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: the low end with eight bit CPUs. The Turbo Graphics

485
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: sixteen had an eight bit CPU, and eventually the fourth

486
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: generation would include a couple of systems that had thirty

487
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: two bit CPUs with like the sake of thirty two X.

488
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: Although thirty two bit systems saw limited release in the

489
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: fourth generation and limited success, they really came in on

490
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: the tail end of the fourth generation that would play

491
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: a bigger part in the fifth generation of games. It

492
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: would take a couple of years to design the three

493
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: d O and land licensing deals with manufacturers interested in

494
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: making the new console. The launch of the three d

495
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: O would put it in direct competition with consoles that

496
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: belonged to the fifth generation of game systems. More in

497
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: those in a minute, so the pressure was on. The

498
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,479
Speaker 1: three d O would need to be better than the

499
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: existing consoles in the fourth generation or it would quickly

500
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: be left behind by the next generation of systems from

501
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: other manufacturers. So the lead designers for the three d

502
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: O were a couple of guys named Dave Needle and R. J. Michael,

503
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: both of whom had worked on systems or other companies together.

504
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: In fact, Needle and Michael had both worked with Commodore

505
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: to design the Amiga computer system. I've done episodes about Amiga,

506
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: and that story is pretty darn interesting. I really recommend

507
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: you look into it. It's a fascinating story. So I

508
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: recommend checking out those episodes. In particular, I think I

509
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: did a bang up job, if I don't mind saying so,

510
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: And you can see how that particular project came about

511
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: and how it gradually faded away. But the two had

512
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: also designed the Links handheld system for Atari. That's l

513
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: y n X because Atari was naming their systems after

514
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: cats for a while, and now they would be designing

515
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: the three D O specs for trip Hawkins now. According

516
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: to at least some versions of the story, the design

517
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: for the three D O really got to start in

518
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: nine nine, when Needle and Michael had sketched out their

519
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: ideas on a napkin and Trip Hawkins had known these

520
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: two for for years, and after learning about what they

521
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: had in mind, he decided he wanted to join forces

522
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: with them in an effort to shape this into the

523
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: three D O idea he was kind of thinking on.

524
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: So together they formed the three D O Company. The

525
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: full name for the console would become the three d

526
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: O Interactive Multiplayer, but a lot of people just call

527
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: it the three d O. That does make things a

528
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: little confusing because that was also the name of the

529
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: company as well, and we'll learn the company managed to

530
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: stick around a little longer than the console did, so

531
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: it gets a little, you know, fuzzy when used to

532
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: just use three d O as the name. Hawkins looked

533
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: to partner with different electronics manufacturers to license the design

534
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 1: for the actual production of the three d O Building

535
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: a hardware company would have been monumentally expensive, so he

536
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 1: decided that licensing it just made more sense, and he

537
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: approached in particular Panasonic, Sony and Sego. Now, Sony had

538
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: recently had a really bad experience with Nintendo. The two

539
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: companies were supposed to introduce a CD ROM peripheral that

540
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: was intended for the Super Nintendo system and Sony was

541
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: gonna make it, and they had gone really far in

542
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: the in the whole process, but then Nintendo backed out

543
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: of the deal. Worse than that, they backed out uh

544
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 1: in public at CS and switched to a different company.

545
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: They chose Phillips instead, and ultimately that didn't really go anywhere.

546
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: That product just kind of faded away, so it was

547
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: all for nothing. But Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who

548
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: was in charge of this super disc project, pivoted with

549
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: the intent to use the super disc technology as the

550
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: backbone of a new product from Sony, the first PlayStation prototype,

551
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: which actually was very different from the PlayStation that would

552
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: officially debut a couple of years later. But not surprisingly,

553
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 1: Sony declined Hawkins's offer to license the three d O

554
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: design for manufacture because they already had their PlayStation in development. Sega,

555
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: which if you recall, was the company that had kind

556
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: of inspired Hawkins to pursue the three d O project

557
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: in the first place, also passed on the opportunity to

558
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: make the three D O. Apparently, Sega executives felt it

559
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: would have been too expensive with too small of a

560
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,479
Speaker 1: profit margin to really get into the three d OH

561
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: manufacturing game. And this is one of those cases where

562
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: Sega made the right call. Uh. Those often can seem

563
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: few and far between if you know a lot about

564
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: Sega's history, but this was the right decision. Panasonic, however,

565
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: was a different story. This electronics company was one of

566
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: the biggest in the world, but they didn't have a

567
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: video game console. They didn't develop those. There was an

568
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: entire sector of the electronics market out there that Panasonic

569
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: was not serving. So the company became the first to

570
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: license the three D O design and start on fabrication.

571
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:41,399
Speaker 1: A little bit later, another Japanese electronics company called Sanio

572
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: would start making their own three D O consoles. They

573
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,640
Speaker 1: also licensed it from three d O. Now. Snio started

574
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:53,879
Speaker 1: off in n during what was effectively a purge at Panasonic.

575
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: It was a post World War two purge of the

576
00:34:57,160 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: Japanese company. For that whole story, you should listen to

577
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: my episodes about the history of Panasonic because I mentioned

578
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: it there. I just find it interesting that the first

579
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: two companies that would sign on to to fabricate three

580
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,879
Speaker 1: D O s also shared d n A in their

581
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 1: corporate history. Also, while this doesn't really play into our

582
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: three D O story, I thought I would just go

583
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: ahead and mention it. Those two companies would join up

584
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine when Panasonic would acquire Sanio, which

585
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: is just evidence that we live in a really weird world.

586
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: And there was a third company that would manufacture three

587
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: D O consoles and this one was gold Star, a

588
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 1: South Korean company. Gold Star is still around today, except

589
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,439
Speaker 1: it's by a totally different name, and it's a name

590
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: that you would recognize. That name is LG Electronics. It

591
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: changed its name in so the company is still around,

592
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: but under a different name. While Panasonic, Sanio and gold

593
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: Star would produced three D O consoles, there were a

594
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: few other companies that had agreed to license the design

595
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: and build their own three D O s, but those

596
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: consoles just never materialized in the marketplace. Uh. Game Pro

597
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: magazine was a great resource for this episode when I

598
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: was looking into this. According to one issue, Samsung was

599
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: one of the companies that signed on to produce three

600
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 1: D O s, although they didn't announce any sort of

601
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: timeline for production and ultimately it didn't go anywhere. Another

602
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 1: Game Pro issue revealed that the electronics company Toshiba had

603
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: secured a licensing deal they were going to actually manufacture

604
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 1: a handheld or portable three D O system that also

605
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,720
Speaker 1: never went anywhere. And and yet another issue of Game

606
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: Pro but they were really big into covering the development

607
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: of three D O back in the day. But I

608
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: found that A T and T apparently showed off a

609
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 1: prototype three d O system of their own at the

610
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 1: Consumer Electronics Show. But uh, as far as I know,

611
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: nothing beyond the prototypes that A T and T made

612
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,879
Speaker 1: ever got produced. I do wonder if there are any

613
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: of those A T and T three d O s

614
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: floating around out there anyway. Gold Star, Panasonic, and Sonio

615
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: would each release a few different versions of the three

616
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: d O s they produced. Some were never meant to

617
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: be consumer products. They were rather designed to help game

618
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 1: developers who needed, you know, actual hardware to test their

619
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: games on, essentially debug kits for their games. Others would

620
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: swap out basic parts on the systems. A lot of

621
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: the early three d O s had a motorized c

622
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: D tray, which is both expensive and it's a point

623
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: of failure. You know, eventually the motor is going to

624
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 1: give out and the tray is not going to extend

625
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: or go back in, and so some of them in

626
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: the subsequent models of the three D O replace that

627
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: with a top loading c D tray, so you just

628
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: flip open the top and put a c D in

629
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: that way, as opposed to ejecting a tray. Now, when

630
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: we come back, I'll run down what the basic spects

631
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: were for the three d O console, what set it

632
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: apart from other consoles of that era, and why the

633
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:17,320
Speaker 1: console ultimately failed, as well as give a brief rundown

634
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: on what happened to the company three d O, which

635
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: again hung on for a few years after the death

636
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,720
Speaker 1: of the console. We'll get to that after this quick

637
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: break So what makes a three d O a three

638
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: d O? Let's learn about the specs of the console. Now.

639
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: For the purposes of this breakdown, I'm really just gonna

640
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: focus on the first consumer model of the three d

641
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: O console to hit the market. That would be the

642
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,359
Speaker 1: Panasonic three d O Interactive Multiplayer f Z one. This

643
00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: is the system that first debuted. In the rains of

644
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 1: the machine was a thirty two bit CPU that was

645
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: a risk style processor r I s C that is

646
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: reduced instruction set computer. Now I talked about this with

647
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 1: the story of ARM, but basically, it means that the

648
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: instructions that this style of CPU handles are relatively simple,

649
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:23,800
Speaker 1: and that means that each step, each instruction is easy

650
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: to carry out and therefore it goes pretty fast. More

651
00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: complicated instructions might require lots more steps, and that slows

652
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: things down. The clock speed, or the number of pulses

653
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: the CPU has per second to carry out instructions, was

654
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: twelve point five mega hurts. That's twelve million, five hundred

655
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 1: thousand pulses per second. That sounds like it's really fast,

656
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: but by comparison these days, we talked about processors that

657
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 1: are in the giga hurts range with more than a

658
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: billion pulses per second, so we've come a long way.

659
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: Paired with the CPU were a couple of video coprocessors

660
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 1: meant to offload some of the heavy lifting when it

661
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: comes to graphics processing. In a way, it's similar to

662
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 1: what graphics cards would do for PCs in the late

663
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. By handing off tasks like texture mapping to coprocessors,

664
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: the CPU could focus on other tasks while running games

665
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: on the three D O. It also had a math

666
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: coprocessor in addition to those to also kind of spread

667
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: out the load. Now, this was in the dark times

668
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: before h D t V was even a thing, though

669
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: Hawkins has said on occasion that the three d O

670
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: could have been upgraded to h D t V. I

671
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true based on what I've seen. However,

672
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: as it was sold. The three d O would generate

673
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: images that would be shown at a resolution of sixty

674
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: pixels by FO pixels you know, essentially, you know, standard definition.

675
00:40:53,960 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 1: It was capable of replicating sixteen point seven million colors.

676
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: The three d os of or did Dolby surround sound.

677
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: It had two megabytes of d RAM, one megabyte of

678
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: v RAM, and of s RAM. But what the heck

679
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: does that mean? Well, d RAM stands for dynamic RAM,

680
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 1: which at the time was the standard RAM of machines.

681
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: It must be continually refreshed, or rather occasionally refreshed I

682
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: should say, not continually occasionally refreshed by the microprocessor or

683
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: else the memory deterior rates. V RAM is video RAM,

684
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: a type of RAM that the computer can actually read

685
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: and write to simultaneously, and it was particularly useful for

686
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: handling graphics. And s RAM stands for static RAM, which

687
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 1: was a much faster form of RAM than d RAM.

688
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: But if it's better, why don't just why don't you

689
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: just use s RAM? Man? Well, it's because it was

690
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: also way more expensive, so it would drive up the

691
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: cost of productions. That's why the three d O also

692
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: had some expansion ports and had a single control part,

693
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: but it allowed for daisy chain can actions of up

694
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:04,240
Speaker 1: to eight peripherals, so you could have multiple controllers plugged

695
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: into it. But it had the one port that you

696
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: used to do that with. Uh now when the system

697
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: went on sale. Oh and it also had a CD

698
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: ROM drive. I mentioned that earlier, but you know I

699
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:17,560
Speaker 1: should throw that in there too. When I went on sale.

700
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: It did so for six hundred nine nine dollars. That

701
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: is a lot of money. If we adjust for inflation

702
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: in today's US dollars, it would be equivalent to about

703
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred sixty bucks or so. So imagine

704
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: that you go into a store and you see a

705
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: video game console and its ticket prices one thousand, two

706
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: hundred sixty dollars. This is not a fully fledged computer.

707
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: It's not like a gaming rig or anything. It is

708
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: a video game console akin to something like the PlayStation.

709
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: By comparison, the Sega Genesis, which was again already on

710
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: the market. It had been since the late eighties that

711
00:42:56,719 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: one cost a hundred eighty nine dollars winn't launch, and

712
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which was the reigning champ

713
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: at the time, had cost one when it launched, so

714
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: the three d O cost more than both of those combined.

715
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,919
Speaker 1: It almost cost twice as much as both of those

716
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: put together. Now, granted, the three d O was a

717
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: thirty two bit system, whereas the S and E S

718
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 1: and the Sega Genesis the regular Sega Genesis were sixteen

719
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,399
Speaker 1: met systems, So the three d O could run more

720
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:34,280
Speaker 1: sophisticated games with better graphics. But at that steep price point,

721
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 1: would anyone actually buy one? And why was that price

722
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: so high? Well, it goes back to the three d

723
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,840
Speaker 1: O business model. See Hawkins idea was to leave the

724
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: manufacturing to other people, and then to make money through

725
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: licensing the technology to those manufacturers and later to develop

726
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 1: games for the system itself and to collect on royalties

727
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 1: for all the consoles and games that were sold for

728
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 1: the manufacturers. That meant that the three d O was

729
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:07,800
Speaker 1: inherently more expensive than if those companies had actually developed

730
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: their own hardware in house. Manufacturers, we're going to have

731
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: to pay three d O for every console they sold

732
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: to consumers. So to make up for that cost, that

733
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: loss and revenue, they increased the price of the consoles,

734
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: but that ended up pricing the systems well out of

735
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: the budgets of most video game fans who are out

736
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: there now. Typically, the way video game console manufacturers make

737
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:36,440
Speaker 1: money is through software, not hardware. Most companies will actually

738
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 1: sell the hardware the consoles and a loss, so the

739
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: retail price will actually be below what it costs to

740
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:47,359
Speaker 1: make and ship those consoles to consumers. Now why would

741
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: you do this, Well, it's because consoles are really no

742
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: good without content to play on those consoles, so the

743
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: manufacturers would use the consoles to secure customers for stuff

744
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: like video games and other content. Microsoft and Sony and

745
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: Nintendo can stand to lose money on console sales if

746
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: they can make it back by selling enough first party

747
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: games or making royalties off of games that are licensed

748
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: to run on those systems. But since these manufacturers, like

749
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: Panasonic didn't own the i P, they couldn't rely on

750
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: that same model. They weren't going to make royalties off

751
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: of game sales the way that three d O would. Heck,

752
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: if if Panasonic had made a game for the console

753
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: that they were manufacturing, they would have to pay a

754
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: royalty to three d OH. Now, sure it was a

755
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: lower royalty than what it would be if you were

756
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:43,879
Speaker 1: to make a game for Saga or Nintendo. But since

757
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:47,960
Speaker 1: Panasonic was actually fabricating the three d O, that's a

758
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: big difference, and so the company passed the costs onto

759
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: the consumer. Understandably, that meant that the sales of the

760
00:45:55,880 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: three d O were modest at best, while the Royal

761
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 1: lt fees meant that, you know, developers were interested in

762
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: making games for the console. The fact that the consoles

763
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: weren't really selling well was a huge problem. Developing a

764
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 1: game is a time consuming and expensive process, and if

765
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: you see that very few people have bought the console

766
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: in the first place, well there's not a lot of

767
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: incentive for you to make games for it. I mean,

768
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 1: if you do spend that time and money, there's a

769
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: really good chance you won't see a return on that investment.

770
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: There's literally not enough people with the console out there

771
00:46:30,640 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: to buy enough copies of your game for you to

772
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: make a profit. So the three d O had sort

773
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 1: of defeated itself. Now this wasn't because of the hardware, though,

774
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: to be fair, other systems that could go toe to

775
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: toe with the three d O were soon on the

776
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: market afterwards, like the Sony PlayStation, But the failure was

777
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: more in the business model. Hawkins, for his part, has

778
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 1: said that most retailers actually marked the price down to

779
00:46:54,920 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: five dollars, not six, because the ret oller said, we'll

780
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: never be able to sell these things if it's that expensive,

781
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: So I guess that's something. But even so, at five

782
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: nine it was far more expensive than the consoles that

783
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: competitors on the market had. Heck, when the Sony PlayStation

784
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: would debut in two years after the three d O

785
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: at first hit the market, Sony priced it at two

786
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: hundred nine dollars, and like the three d O, the

787
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,799
Speaker 1: PlayStation had a thirty two bit processor and had comparative

788
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: amounts of RAM. The f Z one would be the

789
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: most expensive three d O console to hit the market,

790
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: that was the first one, but even the less expensive

791
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: ones were still more expensive than the competition. Gold Stars

792
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: three d O would debut at three dollars. Even the

793
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 1: expensive f Z one would drop to four dollars later,

794
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: but the damage had been done. Adding to the enormous

795
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: problem of a high price was the fact that developing

796
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: games for the system was a new process. It was

797
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: a brand new set of hardware, and that meant that

798
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: game development was gonna a little more slowly than what

799
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: the three d O team had hoped, and that meant

800
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 1: that some titles that had been intended to be launch titles,

801
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 1: like a Jurassic Park game, trailed behind by several months

802
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 1: as developers tried to work out bugs in their code.

803
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,320
Speaker 1: In fact, the only title that was available at launch

804
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:29,879
Speaker 1: was a game called Crash and Burn, a futuristic racing game.

805
00:48:30,560 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: The console would fare a little bit better in Japan,

806
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: where there were six whole launch titles to go along

807
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: with it when it went on sale in n but

808
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 1: after an initial interest in three d O, that interest

809
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: in Japan died down and sales died with it. And

810
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: one bitter part of the story is that e A,

811
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: the company that Trip Hawkins had founded back in two,

812
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 1: ultimately bailed on three d O to develop more software

813
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: for Sony play station. Hawkins found out his old company

814
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: would not be developing exclusive titles for the three d

815
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: O console, but they would be doing it for the

816
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 1: Sony PlayStation, and that had to be a knife in

817
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: the back to see the company he had founded undercut

818
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,399
Speaker 1: the next company he had found it yikes, the three

819
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 1: d O company was looking at a new console design

820
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: to try and salvage things They code named it the

821
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: M two. This was going to be the successor to

822
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: the three d O and it was intended to be

823
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: backwards compatible with the three d O systems, so that,

824
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: you know, you wouldn't totally irritate all the three d

825
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:40,760
Speaker 1: O fans out there. And the M two was needed

826
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 1: because other game consoles were hitting the market that could

827
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: compete on a technical level pretty effectively with the three

828
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: d O and they were much cheaper, and that, unfortunately,

829
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: was just never meant to be. The company stopped development

830
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 1: of the M two and sold it off to Panasonic.

831
00:49:56,880 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 1: It's probably a good thing because they avoided the sunken

832
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:04,839
Speaker 1: cost fallacy. By the writing was on the wall and

833
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 1: the three d O system was discontinued. The three d

834
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: O Company switched gears and instead of designing hardware specs

835
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: and then licensing those out the fabricators, the company would

836
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: focus solely on developing software for other existing consoles like

837
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 1: the Sega Saturn and even the Sony PlayStation, as well

838
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: as for other computer platforms. The company restructured, layoffs followed.

839
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:31,760
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no need for the hardware design teams

840
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: at that point, and by the company had sold off

841
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: its hardware business division to Samsung. Hugh Martin, who had

842
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: been president while Hawkins was serving as CEO and chairman,

843
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: left the company at that time, leaving Hawkins with the

844
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: full leadership of the three D O Company. The three

845
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: DO Company would go on to develop games like the

846
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: Army Men franchise, the Mind and Magic Series, and High

847
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: Heat Major League Baseball, which was possibly another nod to

848
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: hawkins love of sports. But while some those franchises would

849
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 1: do well, ultimately the company was unable to stay in business,

850
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:08,399
Speaker 1: and in two thousand three, ten years after they had

851
00:51:08,440 --> 00:51:11,160
Speaker 1: founded the company, Three D O had to file for

852
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. Its assets were sold off, with

853
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 1: different franchises going to other game developers, and our story

854
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: comes to an end. Well. As for Trip Hawkins, he

855
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: ran to some other challenges. In two thousand eleven, the

856
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: i r S, that is, the Internal Revenue Service in

857
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: the United States, the agency kind of in charge of

858
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:36,439
Speaker 1: overseeing federal taxes. They alleged that Hawkins owed around twenty

859
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: million dollars in back taxes and that number would steadily

860
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 1: go up. A judge said that Hawkins quote continued to

861
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: spend money extravagantly with knowledge of his liabilities. In the quote,

862
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 1: essentially he was saying that Hawkins was using a personal

863
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:57,280
Speaker 1: bankruptcy to kind of shield his wealth and was still

864
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:01,439
Speaker 1: spending money like crazy on a lavish lifestyle, or, as

865
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 1: an old timey type person might say, he was making

866
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: hay while the sun was Shannon. He was doing this

867
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: with the help of a little accounting company called KPMG.

868
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: By the way, this sort of financial gymnastics that Hawkins

869
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: was accused of performing are not that dissimilar from the

870
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: allegations leveled against a certain United States president. Right now,

871
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 1: Hawkins would go on to pay some of those back

872
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: taxes back, but he would be embroiled in various legal

873
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: proceedings regarding the bulk of those taxes. As for Electronic

874
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 1: Arts or e A, it is now the second largest

875
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 1: video game publisher in the world, right behind Activision Blizzard,

876
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: another behemoth in video game publishing, and as I mentioned earlier,

877
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 1: EA has built up a pretty spotty reputation over the years.

878
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: Oh and as for Apple, you know, the first employer

879
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 1: of Trip Hawkins after he got out of college. Well,

880
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 1: Apple is still doing pretty good these days. I hear

881
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 1: they actually have a new phone out so good on them.

882
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the tragic tale of the three

883
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 1: d O and the three d O Company and the

884
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: misadventures of Trip Hawkins, which I think would make a

885
00:53:14,680 --> 00:53:18,240
Speaker 1: great title of a choose your own adventure novel. What's

886
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 1: next for Hawkins? I don't know. He founded another company

887
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,759
Speaker 1: called Digital Chocolate, which well maybe I'll talk about in

888
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: another episode. Uh, and you know he's still active out there.

889
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, this was one of those stories where like

890
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:33,399
Speaker 1: he had some great ideas and he had a real

891
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 1: passion for games, something that I think is is really noteworthy. Um,

892
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 1: and he made some great moves, but not everybody you know,

893
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: bats a thousand. In fact, very few people do, and

894
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: this is a reminder of that. Anyway, that wraps up

895
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: this episode. If you have suggestions for future episodes of

896
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,239
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, reach out to me. You can find me

897
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 1: on Twitter to handle his text Stuff hs W and

898
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:05,000
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Yeah. Text Stuff

899
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from

900
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

901
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.