Robert Smith

One key thing they're missing...

a game that people want to play.

Yeah, minor thing.

It's 1972, and one day Bushnell hears about a thing happening at a hotel in, I think, Sunnyvale, somewhere in Silicon Valley.

Magnavox, the TV company, they're working on their own video game.

This is actually going to be one not to put in a bar, but to play at home, right?

Their idea is they're going to have this machine that'll help them sell more televisions.

Yeah.

And so they have a prototype of this machine...

And, you know, there's like a special preview for insiders.

And so Bushnell's like, I got to see this thing.

And so he drives over there and he does not say, I'm a competitor.

No, he doesn't.

He says, oh, yeah, I work at the Magnavox store, whatever, over down El Camino or whatever it is.

Easier to get away with a lie, I guess, in 1972, right?

They're not going to look him up on the Internet.

And he gets to go in and see what this product is.

And it kind of sucks.

So he's relieved, right?

To him, it's clearly made by somebody who doesn't understand games.