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Ralph Baer passed away this weekend at the age of 92. After spending all his life as a self-described “tinkerer,” Baer claimed more than 150 patents on various gizmos and doodads including the beloved handheld game Simon. But Baer will probably best be known as the man who invented the home video game console. Game Informer’s Matt Helgeson sat down for an interview with Baer in 2009 and the publication re-ran an expanded version of the conversation today as part of a celebration of the developer’s life.
It is an interesting look inside the mind of a man who contributed so much to the game industry:
Game Informer: What’s your opinion of what games have evolved into?
Baer: It’s utterly amazing. It’s simply the result of the semiconductor industry going sky-high over the last 20 years. I have an early Apple computer; it had 32K of memory. You can go to the store and for $50 buy 10 gigabytes of memory on a semiconductor stick that plugs into a USB. It’s like going from bows-and-arrows to the space age in 20 years.
The full article is available at Game Informer.
