Steve Jobs on Game Consoles: A Presentation Aside
What Jobs talks about
Jobs opens by checking the size of the game console market, but the clicker malfunctions and he jokes through the interruption. The moment turns into a light, off-the-cuff aside about backstage scrambling.
He then recalls a high school device he and Steve Wozniak made called a TV jammer, telling the story with the same playful timing he uses on stage. The anecdote shows his instinct for using humor to keep momentum when things go sideways.
After the joke, he returns to the market discussion and cites game console sales worldwide in 2006. Even in a brief fragment, the recording captures his knack for turning technical glitches into engaging live presentation theater.
Jobs speaks throughout.
In his words
“My clicker isn't working.”
“Let's take a look at this market and how big it is.”
“You know, when I was in high school, Steve Wozniak and I, mostly, made this little device called TV jammer.”
“For the rest of the Star Trek episode.”
“Actually, it was smaller than that.”
Key points
- He starts by asking how big the game console market is.
- The presentation clicker stops working, and he jokes about the backstage scramble.
- He tells a story about a high school TV jammer he and Wozniak made.
- He uses humor to keep the audience engaged during the interruption.
- He brings the discussion back to game console sales worldwide.
Full transcript
Let's take a look at this market and how big it is. My clicker isn't working. Oh, there it is. Maybe it is. So how big is this market? Let's take a look. No? All right. Clicker is not working. All right. There's scrambling backstage. You know, when I was in high school, Steve Wozniak and I, mostly, made this little device called TV jammer.
And it was this little oscillating device that used to strip TV. A lot of what happened is, a toddler would go into, like, a dorm room, first year of school, and a bunch of kids would be watching Star Trek. He'd strip TV, and somebody would go pick it up, and just as they had the foot off the thing, they'd turn it back on, and they'd put their foot back on the ground, and he'd strip the TV again. And within five minutes, he'd have somebody like this. For the rest of the Star Trek episode. Okay, so maybe it's working now. Maybe they're going to have to come back. So, game consoles. 26 million game consoles were sold in 2006 worldwide. Actually, it was smaller than that.
Transcribed from the audio with OpenAI Whisper. Timestamps link to the video above. Errors are possible.