Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…A big reason why the best N64 games were first-party and there weren't a lot of third-party games. Right, but the way that that came about is crazy. It was actually Tom Kalinske, the CEO of Sega America, who wanted to do the partnership with SGI. He saw the potential in the cutting edge chips. After the potential Sony partnership that we referenced earlier fell apart between Sega and Sony, he came back to Sega of Japan with a pitch saying, I just met with Jim Clark, I really think we should do something with SGI, I think our next generation console should be powered by SGI. Sega of Japan got back to Kalinske and said, no. When Kalinske pressed them and said, why, it's a no brainer, they said, the chip is too big. Kalinske was like, what, this doesn't make any sense. And they were like, that's our decision. He had to have this really hard phone call with Jim Clark saying, I'm sorry, man, I actually don't have a deal for you here. Japan is against it. Jim Clark goes, what am I supposed to do now? Kalinske, in this incredible moment of frustration, where he seems half a foot out the door, looks in the phonebook, looks up Howard Lincoln's phone number, and says, you should call Nintendo of America, which I can't believe that actually happened. I know. It's so crazy. Again, understanding what we know now from the Sega story, it's not just that Sega of Japan was being really dumb and arrogant here.…

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