Hollywood director Michael Bay was the talk of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and it had nothing to do with movies.
Bay, best-known to the many for his work directing “Transformers,” experienced teleprompter failure during the beginning of his talk. Although he gamely tried to wing it, Bay eventually gave up, awkwardly exiting the stage.
Thanks to our digitally connected, social media driven environment, word of Bay’s mishap spread instantly. But it was hardly the first spectacular flameout in CES history. The world-renowned event has a long and fascinating history, replete with spectacular successes, abject failures and bizarre onstage antics.
CES Early Years
While CES is one of the largest and most high-profile trade shows in the world, its beginnings were decidedly more humble. The first Consumer Electronics Show kicked off in New York City in 1967, and began as an offshoot of the Chicago Music Show. With slightly more than 15,000 in attendance, CES 1967 was a little more than one-tenth the size of today’s technology trade show behemoth.
Famous Products Introduced at CES
One of CES’ claims to fame is the laundry list of ultra-successful products announced or displayed for the first time at the show. Perhaps the most famous of these items is the VCR, which was introduced by electronics giant Philips at CES in 1970. The first VCRs bore only marginal resemblance to later models in appearance and price. Though bulky, big and slow, consumers were happy to spend thousands of dollars on a single device. Such was the price of viewing movies at home — an unbelievable novelty for the era.
Along with the VCR, the first halting step toward home video gaming occurred at CES, with the introduction of Atari’s Pong gaming system in 1975. While incredibly primitive by today’s standards, Pong was a phenomenon in its day. A decade later, CES would help launch a quantum leap forward in home gaming with the appearance of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Ushering in the era of eight-bit home gaming, the NES sold in the tens of millions and revitalized the industry after the so-called “video game crash of ’84,” which represented the dying gasp of Atari’s dominance.
Other cornerstone technologies introduced at CES include the compact disc and the camcorder, the DVD, TiVo, the Microsoft Xbox, HDTV, Blu Ray and satellite radio. That’s merely a small representation of the enormous list of products with CES lineage.
Greatest CES misses
Not every product — or even most products — at CES turn out to be winners, let alone technology classics. The Palm Pre smartphone was the apple of the tech world’s eye at CES 2009, but failed to catch on with the public. At CES 2012, ultra-books were the toast of the tech media. Now they’re just toast, from a market share perspective. The history of CES is full of products that generated a tsunami of hype, before drowning in unmet expectations. Technology entrepreneur Jason Hope says this year’s event is no different. “The history of CES is full of amazing, world-changing products. But it’s also full of hype and unfulfilled promise. Some of the tech crowd’s prized products have ultimately failed to meet commercial expectations, so it’s best to temper expectations.”
Onstage antics
Michael Bay can rest easy — unusual spectacles are nothing new onstage at CES. At last year’s event, Microsoft sent a gospel choir onstage to sing various tweets, while TV host Ryan Seacrest looked on in befuddlement. Other spectacles of past years include an extended Bill Gates comedy routine, and a failed Microsoft presentation by Gates that included an appearance by the dreaded “blue screen of death.”
The history of CES is a fascinating story of legendary product roll outs and legendary product flameouts. Next year’s event promises to add one more colorful chapter.
Best of CES 2014: Top 10 Products from Las Vegas you can see on video below
About Author:
Amy Taylor is a technology and business writer. Amy began her career as a small business owner in Phoenix, Arizona. She has taken that knowledge and experience and brought that to her unique writing capabilities. She really enjoys new business related issues that are tied directly to technology.
