WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Rise and Fall of Atari: Part Three 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.520 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.120 I love all things tech. It is time for us 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.720 to conclude our tech Stuff classic series where we were 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.200 looking at the Rise and Fall of Atari. So two 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.680 weeks ago we did part one. Last week we did 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.280 Part two. This week we did part three. This is 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:36.640 all assuming that I don't change the actual order of 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.519 classic episodes, which I have been known to do. I 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.320 record these way in advance, so who knows. But anyway, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.760 this particular episode was originally published on March nine, two 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.200 thousand fifteen, The Rise and Fall of Atari, Part three, 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.600 hope you enjoy. There could be seven eight episodes where 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:56.240 we talk about all the things that we're going on. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.000 There were incredible political moves going on behind the scenes. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.160 There were some amazing technological development. We haven't really touched 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.800 on the major competitors with Atari that we're causing extra 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.039 problems for them, like, uh, you know, the early on 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.640 the in television and Coliko, but then later on we're 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:16.320 talking Nintendo and Sega and then Sony with the PlayStation 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:18.400 I mean by that time, ATRII is pretty much out 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.160 of the picture anyway. But I mean, it's just so 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:24.560 much to talk about. I found some some websites that 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:29.520 even broke it down into when Atari hired people. And 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.360 I'm not talking about the big names we've mentioned talking 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.959 about like Marty and Accounting exactly. I mean, it was phenomenal. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.480 The documentation that's out there. So we're going to now 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.920 pick up in that tells you how detailed we've been. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.319 If you haven't heard the first two episodes in this series, 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.520 go back listen to those first. It's an amazing story. 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:56.280 So is when something happens to Atari that redefines everything, 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.960 and some people consider this yet another death of the company. 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.760 That's when Warner, which had purchased Attari from Nolan Bushnell, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:10.320 the founder of Atari. Warner splits Atari into two entities 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.799 one of it one of them is a home computing division, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:19.360 which is called the Atari Corporation, and the other is 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.440 the arcade division, which is called Atari Games. And it 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.320 sells off the home computing division. So Atari Corporation gets 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.760 sold to a man named Jack Tramiel. Yeah, he was 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:36.080 the original founder of Commodore uh in the famous Commodore 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.760 sixty four computer, which was great for its time. Oh yeah, fantastic. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.600 There's a full tech Stuff episode about Commodore published on 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.040 Ferbruary first, two thousand twelve. It's good, it was. It 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:48.880 was fun to talk about that too, to talk about 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:53.960 the development of the Commodore system. So Tramiel was another 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.360 another pioneer in personal computing and home electronics, and he 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.320 saw some promise in that home computing division of Atari, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.920 something that after the video game Crash of three a 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.440 lot of people thought had no value whatsoever. Yeah, he 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:14.200 renamed it, uh, I think he renamed it the Atari Corporation. Yeah. Yeah, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.040 he decided to call it that because obviously, you know, 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.480 now you have two separate entities that both have the 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.880 Atari name in them, Yeah, which is always confusing in 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:23.560 the marketplace, and it's going to be confusing in this 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.440 episode because we're gonna be talking about the fate of 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.920 both of them, right, So we're gonna follow both the 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.800 fate of the Atari Corporation and the fate of Atari Games. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.640 So Atari Games At in nineteen eighty four was still 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.000 with Warner, not for long. Not for long in fact, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.720 would be when that changes. So some big stuff happens 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.480 in home video games. That's when the Fama com also 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.920 known as Nintendo Entertainment System is released in the United States, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:55.280 which was a body blow like Tyson's punch out right there. Um. Yeah, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:04:01.760 So that was something that convinced people maybe home video 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:03.960 games aren't as dead as we thought they were. Because 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.480 the video game crash, we pretty much thought that's it. 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.320 Personal computers are going to take over. There won't be 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.960 any home consoles dedicated video games anymore. Because that idea 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.560 played itself out with Apples on the scene at this point, Yeah, 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.240 making a stink. Yeah. In fact, by they're selling the 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:24.320 Macintosh because that came out four so they Yeah. But 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:28.599 the brilliant thing Nintendo did was they learned from Attari's mistakes. 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:30.640 They said, all right, well we are going to license 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.600 games like they have to be certified by US. You 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.599 can't develop for Nintendo independently without submitting the game for 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.560 US for certification. That way we still have some control 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.600 over what and Warners wanted. But they didn't get out 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.880 ahead of it in time like Nintendo did. No Activision 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.080 pretty much doomed Atari because Activisions set that that precedent 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.360 that a third party developer can can create uh cartridges 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.320 for another platform that they don't own. Once that insident 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.880 was set and that policy wasn't in place, it was 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.640 it was game on, literally for everybody who wanted to 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.400 develop for Atari. Yeah, and pardon my ignorance because I'm 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.839 not a current gamer. I'm still stuck in the eighties. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.800 Activision still around, right, uh huh, Well it's part of 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.360 something bigger, but ya, but they survived everything and did 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.359 well for them. Well, I mean I could do a 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.680 full episode on what happened to Activision too. It's kind 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.960 of like it's kind of like a tari you know how, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:35.920 Atari technically still exists today, so at any rate. Um uh. 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.200 Also in five, that's when Warner Communications sells the arcade 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.760 division of Atari Games to a competitor, Namco. Yes, so 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.320 that's the company that that developed pac Man. Yeah. Namco 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.800 only owned it for about a year, and then some 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:56.719 employees bought Atari Games from Namco and then uh made 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.680 a few more pretty good arcade games, paper Boy, it 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.640 was a big one. Gauntlet, Yeah, Gauntlet was a big one. 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:08.320 Wizard needs food, good games, so they pumped a little 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.760 more lifeblood into the car Atari Games division. Yeah, they 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.560 also started to develop home games. But here's the thing. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:21.080 When Warner split it up between Atari Corporation in Atari Games, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:27.360 Atari Corporation had the sole right to sell home games 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.400 under the Atari brand, Yeah, which they had already proved 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.080 the struggle post without a really great, solid follow up 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.000 that didn't didn't jump over. Yeah. And then you've got 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.400 Atari Games that was making these these arcade games, and 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.679 they wanted to make home video games, but they couldn't 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.680 do it under the Atari brand because that belonged to 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:52.760 Atari Corporation. So they created a new brand called Tension 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.400 t E N G E N, which also comes from 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.080 a h an aspect of the old board game Go. 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.800 Intension the game, the board game, the Japanese board game Go, 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.560 or It's great, Yeah, it's um. In fact, there's a 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.840 great story that uh going way back to the first 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.880 episode we talked about the the founders of Atari, they 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:18.840 used to play Go in their office, which was an 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:20.880 office that was originally meant for one person, but two 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.240 people had to share it, so they would play games 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.440 of Go in between actually getting any work done, although 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:33.160 according to uh Ted, Mr Nolan never really actually did 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.160 any work as far as he could tell, but then 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.679 remember he had a lot of sour grapes for legitimate reasons. 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.920 So if you notice what's going on now is Atari 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:49.160 Um the corporation is getting really fractured. Um their home 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:53.800 computer business with the hundred, we're doing okay, but they 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:58.240 were behind the curve, so to speak, and they were 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:02.800 playing catch up. They were announcing a new computer system, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.160 the Atar E S T. They did that at the 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.920 Winter c E S. I did an episode about c 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.400 E S once where I explained this. But once upon 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.920 a time there were two big c S events. One 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.400 happened in the winter and one happened in the summer, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.120 and now there's only the winter version. But so this 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.640 this was back when there were still two and at 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:25.840 Winter c E S they announced a R S T. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.560 The ST stands for sixteen slash thirty two, which refers 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.040 to the microprocessor and its internal and external bus connections. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:39.119 But anyway, it had five kilobytes of RAM yeah, smoking fast. Yeah, 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.960 and uh it could be expanded up to four megabytes. 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.800 So there's that had a graphical user interface, so jewey, 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.240 uh or gooey if you prefer. Once the whole Jeff 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.880 gift thing came out, Yeah, it messes everything up. I 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.000 always say gooey because jewey does not sound like it's 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.880 appropriate to me at any rate. It We'll go with gooey. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:05.280 I think that's the more than more than overwhelming choice. 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.800 It also had a floppy disk drive, and it would 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.000 be the cartridge drive. Yes, so I had both. Yeah, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.520 And it would be produced up until the early nineteen nineties. Yeah, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.440 and it was the cheapest sixteen bit computer. Um. And 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:20.280 like like you said, if it was around to the 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.400 nineteen nineties, it did okay. Yeah. In fact, in Europe 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.320 it did pretty well. Here in the United States did okay, 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.600 and in Europe it did it did better. Um. And 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.440 then we've got uh, the Atari Corporation releasing the Atari 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.760 hundred Pro system in six soft dred had come out, 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.400 and then the seventy eight hundred comes out. It had 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.480 digital joysticks rather than the older analog type, and the 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.920 seventy hundred had a weird little story and that it 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:51.720 was manufactured and then shelves in a warehouse basically for um, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.240 I'm not really sure how long. Two years. Yeah, two years. 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.760 They basically were just going to sit on it, and 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.480 then finally they said, well, the decision was really is arbitrary, 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.000 is like, let's just sell these things. Yeah. Yeah, they 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.800 released like a couple of early models uh in that 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.040 two year period, but they, like you were saying, they 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.880 didn't sell it like it. People talk about it being 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.920 uh uh re debuted or reintroduced, but it never was 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.880 fully introduced in the first place. But one cool thing 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:27.000 about it was it was backwards compatible with almost all games. Uh. Yeah, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:28.960 so that's kind of neat, you know, it's better than 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:34.200 the fifty UM and yeah, it ended up uh not 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.599 really competing very well against the Nintendo Entertainment System. It 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:44.000 would only be produced until or supported until that's when 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.440 Atari announced that they would no longer UM produce games 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:55.559 or consoles. There was also JR companion model to basically 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.520 the the public. At this point, uh, Nintendo Fever had 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.640 struck and Sega started to come out with their systems, 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:06.199 and Atari was just kind of sadly lost in the 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.280 shuffle there as far as the home systems go. Yeah, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.559 if you're if your mascot wasn't a little Italian plumber, 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.240 yeah you were out of luck. We'll be back with 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:27.360 more about Attari after this quick break. So Attari would 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.240 release the Atari x E video Game System a k a. 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.560 The Atari x E g S, which was based off 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.600 the eight bit computers Attari had previously created. Um so 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.400 think of like the fifty two hundred was kind of 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.000 the video game console of the four eight hundred bit 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.280 or four eight hundred Atari computers. This one was the 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.480 next general it was based off the next generation of 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.600 those same home computers. Yeah, those confusion in the marketplace, 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.240 and I think confusion within Atari. I don't think they 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.400 even knew what kind of company they were at this point. No, 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.000 I don't think so. In this one actually had one 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.600 game hard coded into it. So the Atari you could 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.559 play other games, like you could get the disks for 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.000 other games and play them, but it had one game 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.400 that was hard coded into it, and that was Missile Command. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.240 So it's not a bad choice. But yeah, it was 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.840 again one of those things where you might feel that 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.080 Atari didn't have a clear vision for what its place was. 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.000 Things just in kind of money and in they would 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.320 release the five twenty st E and the ten forty 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.320 STE models of its home computer, which had an increased 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.360 color palette and a graphics processor, right, a dedicated co 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.840 processor for the graphics which is something that's common now, 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.040 but at the time was pretty new. Yeah. So, I 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:47.600 mean they were, they were doing some of the right 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.160 things on the home computer front, but there was just 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.079 so much more competition now. You had you had Apple, 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.120 you had the IBM compatibles, and you had IBM Plus. 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.720 The Amigo was still out there. Um you can't forget 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.120 about the Amiga. No. I had a friend who was 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.920 a die hard Amiga fan, and I gotta admit the Amiga. 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:07.880 The thing that I loved about the Amiga was that 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.720 well before anyone else, it was doing amazing sound and graphics, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.640 like years before anyone else had managed to do that 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.320 in an affordable way. And uh so, I remember my 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.120 friend had several games for the Amiga that I found 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.640 to be like light years beyond anything I could play 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.760 on my Apple two E or my two eighties six 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.400 at home. Um So, but the the CPU on these 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:40.000 devices had a blistering speed of eight Mega hurts. We're 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.439 talking about the multiple Giga hurts now, and it's a 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:44.200 little a little slow on that and in fact, my 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:49.480 phone is way faster than that. Um But that's also 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.560 when Atari Corporation acquired the right to manufacture and sell 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.720 a handheld gaming console that had been developed by a 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.520 different company. Yeah, yeah, yeah, The Links was really cool. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.760 It had been developed by a company called Epics e 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.600 p y X, but Epics had entered financial difficulty and 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.160 it owed a lot of money to various companies. The 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.079 largest that it owed money too was Atari. Actually, the 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.120 largest amount it owed was to Atari. Yeah, and so 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.600 they had this kind of settlement to say, like, well, 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:18.920 how are we going to make good on this because 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.040 Epics is on the verge of just disappearing, and as 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.440 part of the deal, essentially they signed over this this 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.640 handheld gaming system they had been developing, and that became 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.600 the Atari Links. And the Links was great. I remember 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.000 I had a couple of friends it had it. It 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.320 um It was released around the same time as the 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.640 Game Boy, but it had full color graphics. It looked better, 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:43.640 it sounded better. You could link them together, you could 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.320 link them together. It was it was sort of large. Um. 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:51.640 It was had a horizontal UM I guess body UM. 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.880 So it was big, which wasn't great. It was a 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.680 little ungainly. The battery life would only last four to 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.000 five hours, so that was kind of frustrating because this 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.440 is this is not era of rechargeable batteries. For most people, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.240 you were popping out old ones and replacing them with 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.040 new ones, so that could get really frustrating. But the 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.760 one thing Links did not have was a game called Tetris. Yeah, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.760 and that is what basically was the death blow to 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.040 the Links. Tetris was just such a huge deal. It 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.280 was the killer app. Yeah, it was the killer app 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.640 and it's what made game Boy what it was. And 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.280 I got the game Boy. Yeah, and then and then 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.040 like you would think that, well, maybe if they can 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.520 stick it out, then the Links will have a chance 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:37.240 because the Nintendo game Boy, once everyone's got that, they'll 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.720 see that the Lynx has got uh better stats, and 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.880 maybe I'll go with that. But then in Sega came 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.160 out with the game Gear, and Sega was already doing 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.200 really good business too, and that just that just meant 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.480 that the Links had no place in that competition. I 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.680 feel bad for a Tary at this point because they're 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.800 coming up with superior products in certain case, it still 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.600 can't get market. It's either bad timing or it's a 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.960 combination of bad timing and a lack of a compelling 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.800 library to these games. It really shows how you need 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.400 to have strong launch titles to move a console. Yeah, 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.360 there's a lot more to it than just like this 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.840 has the best graphics. In fact, you know, going into 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.680 personal account here, I don't own a current generation game. 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.640 I love gaming. I consider myself to be a gamer. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.840 I'm not a hardcore gamer, and certainly I'm sure any 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:32.920 of my listeners listening could beat me at any game 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.280 of their choice. So I don't want to I don't 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.560 want to put that out there, but but I will 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.720 say that I love gaming, but I haven't purchased an 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.280 Xbox One or a PS four because we're finally at 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.600 a point now where it's different. But for the longest time, 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.840 the libraries weren't compelling enough for me to make that investment, right, 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.320 So I would think, yes, it's clearly superior to the 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.920 system I have now, but the games aren't games that 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.480 I want to play yet. I want to wait until 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.120 they're enough games that I want to play to justify 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.119 that expense, and now we're at that point. I just 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.520 haven't Well, for one thing, I'm not allowed to have 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.040 a present for another year and a half. I have 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.640 a two year, two year period where I can't get presence, 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:15.600 or at least my wife won't buy me presence for 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.800 a good reason, and it's not a bad one. It's 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.280 that I made a substantial donation to a nonprofit and 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.440 in return, the agreement was two years no presence. You're 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.119 a good man. Here's my deal with gaming now is 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:33.639 I uh played Nintendo and stuff through the through the 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.440 sixty in college, was way into it, and then sort 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.720 of dropped out for a long time until my stepfather, 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.480 I'm sorry, my father in law gave me his PS 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.480 three a couple of years ago because he just didn't 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.719 want it. And since then, I buy like I just 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.040 look up once a year and buy like the two 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:57.800 best reviewed games of the year, and I'll play those 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:00.240 for about a month and then that's it. We don't 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.800 have the time to doe to gaming three years old. 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.400 You know, I fix up my house. I know I've 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:10.640 got a house, I got a puppy, I got four animals. Yeah, 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.320 we've gotten to a point. We're obviously getting a little 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.560 off topic, but it's true, like we we just have 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.199 reached a point in our lives where no, you just 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.359 can't game like that anymore. About about the last of us, Oh, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.000 fantastic game. Fantastic game. But see, I still have that 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.960 gamer in me because I was addicted to this game. Um. 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:33.320 And then I bought one of the bio BioShock BioShock, 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.720 but the steampunk one, right, so BioShock Infinite, Yeah, that one, 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:39.680 and I played that one through and that was really great. 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.760 The music in that game is amazing. Yeah, and that's 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.600 the extent of my gaming. Now I hear two years, 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.760 I'll buy the best two games. Although after the last 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:49.600 of us, I don't. I mean, I don't see how 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.720 you can get any better. It was a very emotionally 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:57.240 impactful game. I mean right at my amories. Uh so, yeah, 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:01.040 back to the get back to the Tari. No, I 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.320 love doing this. I would just totally continue on that 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.720 conversation otherwise. But no, there's only one thing I have 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.359 to mention, which is that Atari Corporation released the Atari 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.760 t T zero three zero or zero thirty. It's a 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.840 workstations thirty two Mega Hurts process or workstation. So they 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.120 were still staying in the home computer business at that point. 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.360 It's yeah, they're they're trying to hang in there. And 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.840 I don't have any notes for ninety one, but into Yeah. 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.040 In ninety two, Atari Corporation would release the Falcon, which 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.320 would be the last of its computer systems. The Falcon 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.560 was the last time they tried to do a home computer, 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.879 and then they made the decision to switch back to 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:44.720 trying to do video game consoles again. So that's why 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.040 we see the release of the Atari jag jagua if 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.240 you want to go with the British pronunciation jack one again. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.040 Atari is doing the right thing there ahead of the curve. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.440 It's the first sixty four bit system. Yeah, so it's 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.080 so it is graphically and as far as the processor goes, 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.359 more powerful than any of the competitors on the market 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.280 at that Yeah, and had had a couple of success 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.640 successful titles. I think the Alien versus Predator that's one 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.679 that's considered to be one of the best titles for 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.680 that system. Tempest two thousand that was the other one 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:21.320 was really good. Um, but the controller on it was terrible. Yeah. 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.240 It was huge and it was unwieldy, um, and didn't 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.440 have a lot of software support. Right to the titles 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.920 that we just mentioned are pretty much I was like, well, 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.640 beyond that, I can't really justify buying this. It says 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.040 there were sixty seven games ever released, and that's it. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.439 I don't think more than ten of them registered on 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.359 the radar. You read over the them and you're just like, well, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.199 I never heard of this there. That's gonna be one 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.320 of the reasons why this Jaguar never took off. Yeah, well, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.760 in the sixty four was just awesome and they had 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.679 good games, and then you had the PlayStation coming on. 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.879 Like when Sony starts really throwing down then it really 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.840 this was at last like a star in just reaching 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:05.440 for that rope at the end of the rope, trying 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.159 to grab ahold of it and Nintendo and Sonny was 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.720 just pulling the rope higher. So we haven't talked about 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.040 Atari Games for a little bit. That's the that's the 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.360 branch that did the arcade versions not and also produced 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.280 some home video under home video games under tension, uh, 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:25.359 Time Warner Communications. Just in case you didn't know, Warner 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:28.639 and Time merged in nine. Just a little bit of 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.240 a merger. Yeah, Time Warner Communications purchased controlling interest in 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.080 Atari Games, so Atari Games would get consolidated with other 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:40.640 properties in nine and become known as Time Warner Interactive. 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.480 So Atari Games was part of Time Warner Interactive. But 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.040 this means that part of Atari is back with Warner. 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.040 Remember Warner was the one that so off. So yeah, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.880 Warner had sold it off to Namco, then employees bought 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.040 it back from Namco, and then Time Warner Communications buys it. 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.880 And it's just this is why it gets really hard 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:05.800 to talk about the end of Atari. Um And another 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:12.200 confusing thing, uh JT Storage, which was a hard disc manufacturer. Yeah, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.760 JTS merges with Atari Corporation. So this is the home 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:19.480 computer one, not the Atari games one. So JTS merges 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.360 with Atari Corporation. But JTS was in a tough spot 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:29.119 because it was already had a cash flow problem and 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.320 so it was looking for a way to avoid going 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.760 into bankruptcy and thought that by acquiring Atari, which had 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.200 lots of cash, but not a whole lot of market 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.040 share because most of the cash from Atari was actually 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:47.320 coming from lawsuits like they were going after other companies. Yeah, 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:49.640 so they weren't making money off their products as much 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:54.080 as they were off some of the lawsuits. So JTS 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:57.399 comes in, acquires Atari, then fires almost all of the 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:03.280 former Atari employees and inquidates the remaining Atari inventory as 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:08.240 a means of helping stave off this impending disaster, which 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:12.760 it did not do. Two years after that, Hasbro Interactive 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:18.399 um buys JTS for five million bucks. Yeah, essentially it 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:22.120 bought the Atari Corporation from JTS for five million. JTS 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.399 actually went bankrupt that year. It essentially bought the Atari 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:27.920