Not All Great Technology Changes the World

In 1986, I was a 19-year-old college student who spent way too much time in the student center arcade at the University of Alabama. One of my favorite games was Super Mario Brothers, and I probably fed enough quarters into it to pay my tuition for a semester.

So imagine how thrilled I was when I learned that Nintendo was introducing a home gaming system that would let me play something remarkably close to the arcade version on my own television.

It would be a few years before this poor college student could afford one, but millions of other people weren’t about to wait. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) became a cultural phenomenon, helping accelerate the transition of video games from something you played at an arcade into something you enjoyed in your own home.

Nearly four decades later, Apple introduced something arguably even more revolutionary: the Vision Pro. Its combination of virtual and augmented reality promised an entirely new way to interact with digital information. Technologically, it was extraordinary.

Commercially, it was anything but.

Because unlike Nintendo, Apple had a problem. People weren’t exactly lining up to buy one.

Why did a relatively simple gaming console capture the imagination of an entire generation while one of the most sophisticated consumer technologies ever developed struggled to find an audience?

As it turns out, the answer may have less to do with the technology itself than with how people perceive its value.

Years later, while studying how new technologies are adopted, I came across something that helped explain why Nintendo had been so successful.

Communication scholar Everett Rogers spent much of his career studying why some innovations catch on while others struggle. In his book Diffusion of Innovations, he identified five characteristics that influence whether people embrace something new: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability.

That sounds like a mouthful, but the underlying questions are surprisingly simple. Is it better than what I already have? Does it fit into my life? Is it easy to use? Can I try it before spending money on it? And can I see other people enjoying it?

Rogers actually used the NES as a case study, which immediately caught my attention.

Nintendo had a pretty good answer to every one of those questions.

The company wasn’t introducing home video games. Atari, ColecoVision and others had already done that. But anyone who had played those systems knew there was a considerable difference between the games you played at home and the ones you played at an arcade.

The NES helped close that gap. The graphics were better, the gameplay was more sophisticated, and the experience was much closer to what people had come to expect from arcade games.

And it was remarkably simple. Connect it to your television, insert a cartridge, turn it on and start playing. You didn’t need a computer, special training or an instruction manual the size of a telephone book.

Nintendo also made sure people could experience the difference for themselves. Demonstration units appeared in toy stores, department stores, even video rental stores, allowing potential customers to try the games before buying the system. I remember renting an NES several times before I could ever afford to buy it.

Because once you played one, the appeal was pretty obvious.

And perhaps most importantly, Nintendo wasn’t asking consumers to change their behavior. People already loved video games. Nintendo simply gave them a better way to enjoy something they were already doing.

Now consider the Apple Vision Pro.

When Apple introduced the headset in 2024, it was unlike almost anything consumers had experienced. Its combination of virtual and augmented reality allowed users to interact with digital content in three-dimensional space, blending virtual objects with their physical surroundings.

It was, and remains, an impressive piece of technology.

But here’s the problem: What exactly were most people supposed to do with it?

Nintendo had offered consumers a better way to enjoy something they already loved. Apple was asking consumers to embrace an entirely different way of interacting with technology, without necessarily giving them a compelling reason to do so.

And there was another rather significant obstacle: the price.

The Vision Pro launched at $3,499. When I first heard that, my immediate thought was that a lot of families would have to choose between buying one and paying for something considerably more practical, like their children’s braces.

I’m guessing the orthodontist would win that argument. And broke college students could forget about it.

But the price was only part of the problem. Think back to Rogers’ five characteristics. The Vision Pro offered some remarkable technological advantages, but those advantages weren’t necessarily obvious to the average consumer. It wasn’t particularly compatible with the way most people used their computers, phones and televisions. And while Apple offered in-store demonstrations, relatively few people had opportunities to experience the technology in their everyday lives.

Then there’s the social aspect. Playing Nintendo was something you could enjoy with your friends or family, often gathered around the same television. The Vision Pro, by contrast, is largely an individual experience, with the user wearing a headset that physically separates them from the people around them.

That’s not necessarily a flaw in the technology. But it does make the benefits harder to demonstrate, especially to someone who has never worn one.

Apple has continued refining the Vision Pro, including introducing an upgraded model in 2025. Yet the central challenge remains: convincing consumers that spatial computing offers enough practical value to justify the expense and the changes it requires in how they use technology.

It’s a difficult proposition, no matter how impressive the engineering might be.

The contrast between Nintendo and Apple illustrates something Rogers understood decades ago: innovation alone doesn’t guarantee widespread adoption. But his five characteristics aren’t the entire explanation, either. Consumer behavior is complicated, and researchers have spent decades developing theories to explain why people embrace some innovations and reject others.

But sometimes I think we make the question more complicated than it needs to be.

People generally don’t buy technology simply because it’s innovative. They buy it because they believe it will make their lives better, easier, more productive or more enjoyable. And the more expensive or unfamiliar the technology, the more convincing that argument needs to be.

That doesn’t mean the Vision Pro is destined to fail. Plenty of technologies that eventually became indispensable struggled to find an audience in their early years. A perfect example is cell phones. When first introduced to the mass market in the 1980s, they were considered a luxury. Now they are indispensable. Spatial computing may well become part of our everyday lives, and Apple’s work could help make that happen.

But being first, being innovative or even being technologically superior doesn’t guarantee success. Sometimes the most important innovation isn’t creating something entirely new. It’s finding a way to make something people already value more accessible, useful or enjoyable.

That’s where Nintendo got it right.

The NES wasn’t the first home video game system, and it certainly wasn’t the last. But it arrived at a time when people wanted a better gaming experience at home, and Nintendo delivered exactly that.

I eventually bought one, of course. Over the years, I bought other gaming systems, both for myself and later for my son. But I never sold my original NES.

It’s still in a box in my attic, along with the original controllers and games, waiting for me to pull it out, hook it up to the television and play a few games.

And I’m still saving quarters.