Bringing a $10,000 cutting edge device in the 80's down to $23.00 in a matter of months is actually the most impressive thing here, also the call that 'This is stupid as hell nobody is gonna use this for two hours' is spot on and very wise, overall it's no shock the $23 dollar device didn't work as well as the tailored $10k one which I bet would've been very useful and actually work worth a shit...
Apparently, that person who was playin' 1942 at the beginning was the *one* person in existence, who managed to get the *one* Power Glove, that worked the way it was supposed to.
After several months of original research, I present to you the complete history of the Power Glove. This video was tough, as I had to learn not only about the glove, but the technology behind it. Hopefully I explained everything in a way everyone will understand. If you enjoyed the video and learned something, please share! Thanks everyone!
+Gaming Historian This was really well done (as usual) love that you also managed to get Jirard and Clint on this also. It's rather fascinating to see all the steps that led up to the creation of the device.
The idiocy of Mattel's management is shocking. This video is a revelation to me. Thier engineers performed a miracle getting the price of the glove down, and some of the original game concepts they came up with look great. If Mattel had not tried to rush this thing out the door in five months it could have been a huge success. Why were they in such a rush!
The1stFishBone Because the video game industry was dominated by toy makers at the time who were looking to maximize profits, not create breakthroughs of technological achievement. Remember, at the time, video games were seen as a diversion for kids; now it's a multi-billion-dollar industry aimed at people of all ages and video games are often judged as works of art like films or music instead of just a little kid's fad.
That's not really an argument. Obviously, the power glove would have been much more profitable if the management had allowed their engineers time to polish the product and make more software.
Most consumer corporations are run by people obsessed with maximizing the current year's profits at minimal cost. They don't give a damn about next year. A rushed product this Christmas is seen as better than a polished product next Christmas. The reason for this attitude is because CEOs are juggled around so rapidly, they know if they don't squeeze out something impressive this Christmas, they won't be around for the launch of their product in development next christmas. Shareholders want profit now, now, now, or you're fired. So quality suffers.
my cousin got the power glove for christmas one year so i grew up playing around with one during the late 80's early 90's. he must have either lost or threw away the booklet that came with it because we would always hook it up and could never figure out how to use it properly. for us it was more of a toy to wear when you were pretending you were a robot or something lol.
You had to use codes, that were in the book to play the games, the reason for the keypad on the glove. The glove never worked as demonstrated, but the es oad had turbo so I would just use It as a turbopad.
Bro!! I felt the same way about the U-Force. I don't remember why I chose asking for that over the Power Glove, but trust me when I say I spent way more time pretending it was a futuristic laptop than I did playing video games with it lol.
I used the hell out of my Power Glove. When I broke my controller I had to use the one built into the glove for about 2 months until I could make the money to get a new one.
I saw this, and I thought to myself, "I am not going to watch a half hour video about the power glove..." then I started watching and saw the documentary format and I was hooked. Good job.
+Niklas Klasen The thing is, though, that it really wasn't a crappy gimmick. The Power Glove was a solid idea. The problem was the thing that always seems to be the problem in these stories. "We want to get this out in time for Christmas so lets rush it through development and then get it on the shelf." If they had really taken the time to develop the Power Glove and made the motion controls consistent and precise and reliable and then developed a few good games that really took advantage of the motion controls and then included one of those games with the Power Glove and sold it as a boxed set (like they do with most hardware) the following Christmas, it probably would have been really successful. Instead they got it on the shelf as quick as possible with no games to go with it, and by the time quality games were being developed it already had a bad reputation.
@@KootenaiKing But I am. Nice to meet you ;). Patents are essential if you want anyone to invest money to make a product, especially a hardware product that requires NRE (non-recurring engineering costs), molds, chips and paying programmers and designers.
+Duros asfdgasf Yeah, I remember when they just talked about the signing of the declaration of independence, without the testimony of ancient alien theorists.
William Lobach Totally agree. Helps bridge a lot of 80s & 90s memories I have of video game culture. Also extremely informative and to me entertaining.
People who bought the power glove thought they were cool. Well guess what? They're not cool. Look at me, you think I'm cool? I have a fucking glove on my hand, I'm trying to play a fucking game with it, I look like an idiot with a fist full of shit! -AVGN
This is incredible, man. I can definitely tell why this episode took so long, and the quality of it all seems like it would be on par with a program that would come from a big TV network. This really could pass as a broadcasted 30 minute documentary special about the Power Glove.
I don't care what anyone says I absolutely loved that movie growing up. I think I still have the mini Nintendo power issue that you got if you went opening weekend!
In retrospective, the power glove wasn't bad, it's the management of how the idea was to be realized that was. They were too enthusiastic and thought the power glove would sell only because it looked cool, but didn't put enough effort in creating content for it. Amazing video btw!
I have been wondering when someone will resurrect this device for use with current VR technology. Oculus/Vive combined with the data glove really is a match made in heaven. Much more comprehensive than the current controls in use with these devices.
I have a proposal for you guys, in about 5 -10 years when the technology is more advanced I might have enough tech to do so, I will be doing experiments until then
I think it could have been a more fondly remembered novelty if it had waited for a few games designed specifically for it before being released. That glove ball one works quite well.
The guy who invented the damn thing even said so. It failed because Mattel built the thing, and then never used it for anything. They should've given it a 3-year development time instead of 5-months. This would've given it potentially new technology to work with but also would've let them actually make a line of games for it.
That's the thing. 3rd party deleopers making a device that isn't compatible with NES games the way an NES controller is. Mattel with the Power Glove. Broderbund with the U-Force. Of course Rob the Robot didn't work with anything either. These devices are remembered as gimmicks.
The games they were making exclusively for the glove looked interesting. If they had waited until 2 or 3 games were completed it may have been a different story. But I guess publishers never change.
Well you gotta remember back then development for a lot of games only took a few months so waiting years was a lot for them. But yes those games actually looked genuinely good & interesting even today, so they shouldve waited
@@Runthis313 And oh the money they missed out on by not waiting, or alternatively, making a game (like Wii Sports, just an example) to come with the glove and show off the glove in various minigames, opposed to what it did have. Yes, time IS money, but lacking foresight while doing a cash grab will waste time, money, reputation, future of product, demand of the product, etc. I think the real issue with Johnny Triple A is that they never *learn* , not really.
I got one for Christmas when it came out. The marketing for this made it seem like the coolest thing for a kid my age. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment. It sucked so bad! Even with Punch Out it sucked. I still thought it looked cool so I cut the cord off of it and walked around with it on lol
Haha me too. My sister and i really wanted the power pad that year. But it was sold out so my mom got us the glove. We were still so excited to have it but as you said that quickly turned to disappointment.
+Bensaw11 That's right, and the 2 things that did not play in his favor was a poor library of games and the lack of projects to take advantage of the hardware in the near future. Same thing happened with the Power Pad, it was waaaay ahead of its time but Nintendo lack the vision to keep taking advantage of it end up in the creation of DDR by another company and everybody knows the rest of the story. (I hope Norm decide to research about the Power Pad)
+Bensaw11 I completely agree. Very good idea, just not well implemented and ahead of its time. I actually purchased one for super cheap for using on a PC; which worked well for its intended purposes.. With the newfound growth of VR, expect to see the concept make a comeback.
It seems like the takeaway here is just the reinforcement of the truism that corporate greed more often than not will ruin potential. Some of those Powerglove specific game ideas look like they would have been a blast. If Mattel had just waited until these games came to fruition and not tried to sell it as a backwards compatible device for games it was never intended for, instead of rushing out the glove for the holiday season because MOAR PROFITS NOW, there's no telling what it could have become and might have had a bigger immediate impact on gaming history.
So you're saying that guns, snipers, grenades, bombs, knives, machetes, saws, and anything physically treathening that can be touched by hand are baby toys?
Nintendo arguing that the Power Glove was a bad idea because it was gimmicky is incredibly hilarious in hindsight considering their recent track record with the Wii and Wii U. Then again, it was Nintendo of America and not Japan. Who knows how Miyamoto or Yokoi might have thought had the idea been pitched to them. Also, parts of the reason why the Power Glove failed is exactly the same as some Atari's awful business policies that led to the Video Game Crash: not giving programmers enough time to come up with something adequate all to meet the holiday season. Certainly showing shades of Mattel's eventually fall from relevance.
+ShadyKnight9 I was thinking the same thing about how funny the idea of Nintendo turning down a gimmick is today. Then again, Nintendo did pull some gimmicks in the past. The short-lived R.O.B. looked cool on paper but in reality it was very slow, unresponsive, and limited. Only two games work with it and both of them are pretty washed-out and bland. Then there was the Virtual Boy 10 years later. Really the N64-GameCube eras were when Nintendo was probably the least gimmicky.
***** R.O.B. was intentional, because Nintendo's plan when they released the NES in the west was to advertise as a toy, as advertising it straight up as a video game console would only bring back memories of Atari and the Crash, and would not have sold nearly as well as it did, and a little toy robot being bundled with the NES was the best solution. Once Nintendo secured its position, they dropped all pretense that the NES wasn't a video game console and just kind of ditched R.O.B. altogther. If it weren't for R.O.B, the industry might not have recovered the way we know it.
+shinburner Yes, but I think he meant to say that the Wii showed Nintendo that trying to haphazardly implement motion controls into every game was a big strike against the console, especially in its later years. It had a very slow death honestly. Honestly, I'm a big Nintendo fan but when people say that the Wii was innovative in the "game-changing" way, I completely disagree. If that were really true, we'd still be seeing Nintendo push that design philosophy. But alas, they shoved it under the rug for another "hot concept," dual screen gaming on a home console. While I actually think the Wii U's set up is much more practical and convenient in comparison, it's still obvious that this new "innovation" was another one of Nintendo's "flavor of the generation" stunts. Worse, it wasn't even a new concept for Nintendo themselves, as it was basically a console size DS set-up. What I want from Nintendo are truly lasting creations, not just some fancy *gimmick* that wears thin after the initial shock. Stuff like the directional pad and analog stick are the true game-changers in gaming and Nintendo's history. Alright, I'm done ranting now. I can't wait to see what the NX is all about, because overall this past year has been pretty unremarkable for Nintendo.
It seems to be common issue with new concepts that fail. 1. because it rushed to market or to meet some financial deadline. 2. cheap parts are used, often significantly reducing the products intended performance 3. NO SERIOUS TESTING of the device to see if it works, and if there was testing then the companies knowingly deployed a inferior product. I'm looking at Occulus and what Facebook are doing with the Rift. 1. releasing a semi virtual device without the motion controllers and second camera 2. room scaling is significantly less the what the HTC Vive has to offer 3. this aggressive push to limit virtual reality content by having it exclusive to a less then stellar platform, when a medium such as Virtual Reality at this critical point does not need. Oculus/Facebook will most likely be the ones to kill Virtual Reality for another 20 years.
At least Valve tried/is trying to keep it alive and push it further. After the Vive they were already focused on how to improve the thing. And Steam is bigger than Oculus platform (or it's new Facebook games platform) will ever be. So if anyone is going to make it work and keep VR alive, it's Valve. Vive is also miles better than Oculus and can be used sitting down too. (VR headset with a controller is a weird feeling tho, so mostly good for racing games) And there are lot of good VR games that use room scaling near perfectly.
***** Everything you pointed out (except refund, i agree with that one) is actually amazing. Curating is still there, if you go through Steam itself. They just gave another option for indies to go through: Greenlight. Greenlight itself is a really good thing and one that not many would dare to do. (for obvious reasons: people) They provided an amazing platform (Greenlight) which is community curated. The idea was that only those games go through that YOU wanted to play. By itself providing a platform for developers to promote, host, update and a lot more for COMPLETELY FREE is pretty amazing. (it is actually free, but they take a set % off of sales, however if your game is free, then that % is 0) Shit games flooding steam? Blame the people who wanted it to happen.
Room scale VR really isn't that good. I own VIVE/Oculus and never use those dreadful controllers for either kit. Don't compare Oculus to the Power Glove lol! Sure Oculus fucked up aspects other than room scale, but by all means the PowerGlove was a DOA product. It did not even slightly work. It was a broken pile of crap; at least Oculus is a functioning product. I do agree that by their fuckups, Oculus may well be the biggest drag on VR, ironically so as they were the first.
i know this post is old but damn, that's the first time i see someone defend Greenlight. 'Steam let's the community curate Greenlight'? more like they just don't give a rats ass about cleaning it up, after all, why pay one of their emplyees to do it when you can get the public to do it for free? and paid mods, what. a. fucking. joke. i had to go over that little piece of information a few times the first time i heard it. like explaining it to a mentally challenged person, that's how i had to go over it with myself because i just couldn't believe my brain when it received that news.
In 1989 dollars. That means it's real cost was $52 in 2017 making it a $150 peripheral by today's standards. Meanwhile oculus touch controllers are $100 and have 30 less buttons.
Dang, I wonder what vocal synths Zimmerman worked on. Interesting to know that the power glove's connection to electronic music had existed since its inception, since it's been used as a performance device by artists like Kraftwerk and Paul Demarinis (the latter of whom was and still is a professor at Stanford).
Good question! This is the only demo I could find of the Vocalizer 1000 that we created. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I9iVQqWzQDk.html Interesting that you mentioned Kraftwerk, one of my favorite bands that inspired me. Here's a project I did in honor of them....I call it "Project Autobahn". I converted the electronic data from all the car sensors into sound ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dj-LJQyGjls.html
@@teazer999999 oh nice!! man, ever since we lost Florian i've been deep diving into Kraftwerk "again" (as if they haven't been my favorite band since i was 8 years old). That "Vocalizer 1000" thing reminds me of this old (and sadly discontinued) iOS app I used to have, though I could only turn my voice into about 5 or 6 instruments with it. I think it might have been called VoiceBand?
@@imlxh7126 I was using Ableton Live, but not Max. I wrote custom Python code to read in the car sensor's data (provided as a csv file), quantize it to MIDI events (0-127 data), assigning each sensor to a MIDI channel, then outputting the processed sensor data as a MIDI file. Then I imported the MIDI file into Ableton and assigned them to percussion and pitched instruments.
The perks of the job. Being able to buy a Power Glove and write it off as a "business expense" for making this video. While getting to own and use probably the coolest thing ever created for the video game industry (at the time of course). The power glove came and went so fast that it's really a mythical piece of equipment that is mostly remembered for how cool they made it look in the movie.
The problem was the glove was 30 years ahead of it's time, it's not meant for controlling 2d characters on a flat television screen. It's only going to be of use in a fully immersive 3D generated virtual world. Fast forward to today and virtual reality is finally becoming mainstream. If this was sold as an add on for the HTC vive people would buy it and software houses would make games for it. This product was never gimmicky it just should never have been released for the NES. Nintendo had the ingredients for virtual reality they just never brought all of the pieces together at the right time.
Oh dear, that's a horrendous shame! Thanks for enlightening me on one of the more iconic pieces of gaming technology. What I really wanted to know, though, was what happened to all the designers and companies that were responsible for the product. I really hope that the failure of the device was attributed to their idea, as opposed to the execution of it. Hopefully they went on to bigger things.
If you watched to the end he says that it made 88 million in profit, it was a garbage gimmick but it still exceeded expectations as far as a profit goes.
AquaDonkey69 480p Yeah, I saw that, but I wonder what happened to the people behind the glove and their company... I guess a quick google search would suffice, but I would have loved to have seen it in the video like some of the others that he did.
I vaguely remember this thing, I was too young for my parents to whip out the bucks for this but it certainly looked futuristic and cool. The only thing I had besides the controller was the zapper gun for duck hunt and that was pretty fun to use.
When I was a kid I had a friend who owned a Power Glove but never used it. One day she mentioned she had it but never used it so I asked her why because it seemed so cool. She told me it didn't work. I didn't believe her so she brought it to my house and we tried for like two hours but I was amazed how bad it was. It was so disappointing.
avgn is a comedian. Just like Mattel was interested in extracting most profits out of the Power Glove, he was mostly interested in finding more excuses to throw more obscenities at it.
+invaderhim23 It was basically rushed. The pitch was all they looked at and like the game designer said none of them stopped to look at the bigger picture that this device needed it's own games.
+invaderhim23 As someone that got one for Christmas back in '89 I can honestly say it's not as bad as some people make it out to be. Watching some of the "reviewers" online that usually just are playing things up for laughs, they skip as few key steps in setting up the Power Glove. Even in this video Norm didn't attach the tube to the sensors like he was supposed to. That's what causes them to fall constantly, as they aren't properly supported. When you attach the tube they stay put just fine.
If this was actually a show on cable TV, I would watch it over many many many other things. You'd probably even win against Full House or Family Matters. That's saying a lot.
Legend has it... if you were born after 2000, you wouldn't be able to handle it's power. The younger you are, the more likely you are to die from it's power. I was born in 2001, so it won't do much to me.
The data glove is possibly one of the most interesting things ive ever seen, it is something i personally believe should be included with modern vr devices as controllers simply feel wrong
The light bending idea is actually still very viable, now we have better CPUs and programs and could make this same product work in practice as it was intended.
“Someday children may jump into wonderland with Alice, or put Humpty Dumpty back together again” Or wave there hand around to make a 2d ship move side to side
It's amazing how a failed piece of tech had so much support and talent behind it. What's equally impressive is that it's underlying tech would later be improved upon to create some the most successful technologies we have today.
It was interesting tech, but honestly I think the tech in the NES, hell the SNES was too primitive to run the kind of games that would have really taken advantage of something like this.
i am in love with the way you have put your content. from the transition and the music that fits with the timing and emotions. You are great at this and love you for it
That Punch out clip was why I bought it in the first place. Before the Game Genie came along, I thought this was a way one could simply one shot all the boxers in Punch Out. D'oh!!!
I had a Power Glove when they came out and absolutely LOVED IT! I was disappointed tgat it went away and still don’t know why more games were made with it in mind. The only other unique awesome Nintendo controller I ever had was for the SNES, it was a light gun that looked akin to a rocket launcher mixed with a rifle, that too was awesome yet short lived and under utilized.
Dude, you make great videos. I have never seen one that was remotely bad in any way. Great quality and super informative . thanks for all the hard work you put in for us!!!
I remember this thing. By the time that movie came out, every one of my friends laughed at the idea that the powerglove would make you better at any game. I think most were pretty sure the glove wouldn't even be good at the games designed to use it. Nobody wanted one, and the one spoiled kid who had one only used the controller on the wrist.
