The Forgotten Consoles (Part 2): What Modern Companies Still Haven’t Learned

Recap of Last Week's blog:

🔍 ThinkWORKS Reflection — Part 1

The Forgotten Consoles: When the Future Arrives Too Early

Innovation often feels like progress while you’re building it. It’s only when the world responds that you discover whether you were early, late — or simply unclear.

As you read about the 3DO, CDTV, and CD-i, notice how often ambition outpaced understanding. These weren’t bad ideas — they were incomplete journeys.

Think about your own work for a moment:

• Are you clear who your idea is really for?

• Could someone explain what you do in one sentence — without your help?

• Are you assuming people will “catch up” rather than bringing them with you?

Progress doesn’t fail because ideas are wrong. It fails when clarity is postponed.

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It’s easy to think the lessons of the 3DO, CDTV, and CD-i belong safely in the past.

They don’t.

In fact, the same mistakes appear again and again — in technology companies, platforms, start-ups, and even large organisations convinced they are “building the future”.

So what should modern companies learn from these forgotten consoles?

1. Being Technically Right Is Not the Same as Being Market-Ready

All three systems were technologically impressive for their time. But consumers don’t buy technology — they buy outcomes, experiences, and value.

If your product requires people to work out why they should want it, you’ve already lost momentum.

Innovation without accessibility is just potential energy that never converts into motion.

2. If You Can’t Explain What You Are, the Market Will Decide for You

Each of these platforms suffered from a fundamental identity problem.

• Was it a console?

• A computer?

• An educational device?

• A multimedia hub?

When companies fail to define themselves clearly, customers do it for them — often unkindly.

Clarity isn’t a marketing afterthought. It’s a strategic discipline.

3. Ecosystems Matter More Than Products

None of these platforms built a strong, compelling ecosystem of content and creators quickly enough.

A great platform with weak content fails.A strong ecosystem can forgive imperfect technology.

Modern platform builders — especially in software and AI — would do well to remember this.

4. Price Signals Value (Whether You Like It or Not)

All three systems priced themselves as premium products without delivering a premium experience in the eyes of consumers.

Price doesn’t just reflect cost. It communicates confidence, positioning, and expectation.

Get that wrong, and no amount of innovation will save you.

5. Vision Without a Route Map Is Just a Story

Perhaps the most important lesson of all.

These consoles had vision. What they lacked was a coherent, end-to-end strategy that aligned:

• product design

• pricing

• messaging

• content

• customer experience

Innovation starts the journey. Execution finishes it.

The Modern Echo

Today, we see similar patterns in:

• platform wars

• AI product launches

• “next big thing” technologies

• organisations chasing transformation without clarity

The tools are more powerful. The markets are faster.But the underlying mistakes haven’t changed.

Being early is indistinguishable from being wrong — unless you bring people with you.

Final Thought

The 3DO, CDTV, and CD-i weren’t failures because they lacked imagination.

They failed because imagination wasn’t matched with focus, empathy for users, and disciplined execution.

For modern companies, the lesson is simple — and still widely ignored:

Innovation opens the door.Execution decides who gets to walk through it.

🔍 ThinkWORKS Reflection — Part 2

What Modern Companies Still Haven’t Learned

Being right too early, in isolation, looks exactly like being wrong.

The lesson of these platforms isn’t “don’t innovate” — it’s don’t confuse innovation with inevitability. Markets don’t reward ideas for being clever. They reward them for being usable, understandable, and timely.

Pause and reflect:

• Where might your organisation be mistaking vision for strategy?

• Are you building an ecosystem — or just a product?

• If your customers disappeared tomorrow, would you know why they stayed in the first place?

Execution isn’t the boring part of innovation. It’s the part that turns belief into reality.