| While you obviously couldn't have predicted
how large the videogame industry would turn
out, what was your vision when you came up
with the idea? |
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I made a simple calculation in 1966: There
were 40 million TV sets in the US alone
at the time; if I could come up with a device
that attached and sold through to 5 or 10
percent of these sets/households, I would
have a business....it's as simple as that.
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| When you pitched the idea while working
at Loral, it got shot down. What was it that
made you go back to your TV game idea later?
|
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If coming up with novel ideas is in your
genes, then you certainly can expect latent
ideas that didn't "make it" the first time
to bubble up again at any time...and they
just do. Besides, I was in the process of
setting up a small clandestine skunk works
within the big division I ran at Sanders
Associates at the time. Its purpose was
largely to give me a chance to do some R&D
engineering. Running a large division is
basically a chaplain's and an arbitrator's
job and I did not want to lose my technical
skills. Being a TV engineer by degree (1949)
what could have been more natural for me
than thinking about TV technology?
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| While you were in the videogame industry
some time, you did not stay in it. You instead
went on to invent many other things. Have
you ever wished that you stayed in the industry?
|
|
I continued to support licensees (Magnavox,
Coleco, etc.) technically during the period
from 1972 to 1978 but switched over to Interactive
Video for training and education because
I had a large number of novel ideas about
the future convergence of motion video (first
with both video and data on tape, then ditto
on disc) . Many patents came out of that
work and I put Sanders into the weapons
simulation business via that route. On the
one hand, tons of money from licenses and
court judgments were coming in which resulted
at least in part from my substantial participation
in various lawsuits against infringers;
on the other hand I was bringing new weapons
simulation contracts into the company so
all in all my name was up on there in neon
signs. The result was that I had total freedom
to do what I wanted...and building next
generation video game hardware was not it.
Instead I turned to becoming an electronic
toy and game designer resulting in the creation
of another set of winners, starting with
Simon in 1979.
Speculating on whether I wish I had stayed
with the video game industry in the eighties
and beyond is in any case a little silly
because I was already past normal retirment
age then. Instead I have been having a ball
doing my own thing for the past 25 years.
How many 83-year-olds do you know who work
in their labs designing and physically building
stuff every day of the week? I have had
spurts of activity during which I came up
with novel controller schemes for video
games - in fact, I still am workin the territory
- but I haven't found a licensee yet.
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| Have any videogame companies ever contact
you to help come up with new innovations?
|
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Yes. Various companies have sent representativers
up here to look at some of my novel controller
schemes (which are very different from anything
you can imagine) but as I said, no one has
been throwing any money at me so far...still
working ther erritory, though, with a new
partner.
|
| The light gun has been available since
early on. Do you find it strange that it really
hasn't become a common peripheral like a standard
controller? |
|
In part the relative death of "real" lightgun
games is because the boneheads out there
haven't made good use of the devices (which
is among the things I have worked on and
demonstrated repeatedly and have been trying
to license). But unfortunately inventing
is easy, building demo hardware and software
is easy if you know how, but licensing the
darn stuff is the hard part.
|
| What are your thoughts on portable systems
like Nintendo's latest DualScreen? |
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From what my grandsons tell me, they like
the idea but that is as close I have come
to knowing anything about the subject. Basically
the dual screen is just a practical, low-cost
way to provide a large display that can
be used to present a multiplicity of graphics
and text simultaneously. Two small LCD's
are much cheaper to produce than one equal
to the combined size of two smaller ones.
I'll bet that was the thought process at
Nintendo wshen they decided on the dual
display scheme.
|
| What do you think about game prices?
Most new games cost $49.99 now and many predict
a slight increase in game prices for the next-generation
of systems |
|
Prices are a function of all costs and
markups. The latter will remain as high
as possible as long as suppliers can still
reach sales goals. That equation is not
going to change. Movie tickets are ridiculously
expensive now and still people flock to
the theaters. Until we get into the next
recession, that probably won't change.
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| What do you think about online gaming? What
was your reaction when you first found out
about people being able to play against others
that are nowhere near them? |
|
In February of 1969 I had both the exec
VP and the President of TelePrompter up
in NH for a demo of how to play interactive
games over the cable. So there is no doubt
in my mind that I was there first. The whole
subject is one I have lived with for decades.
The cable business in the sixties was small
and cash poor and after three months of
working together, our Teleprompter deal
fell through. For the next decaded and more
I was throroughly involved in much of the
work that Warner Brothers and others were
doing on interactive cable (which included
gaming over the cable right from the start).
We all were just 30 years "too soon". A
lot of things, mainly the technology had
to catch up with our ideas first.
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A big thanks to Ralph Baer for answering
some questions.
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