• Steve Jobs faked full signal strength and swapped devices during the first iPhone demo due to fragile prototypes and bug-riddled software.
• Engineers got drunk during the presentation to calm their nerves.
• Despite the challenges, Jobs successfully completed the 90-minute demonstration without any noticeable issues.
Used to be?
Even as early as a few years ago, game demos at E3 were extremely controlled environments to avoid the journalist player crashing the game.
I’ve been at Gamescom once where we considered backup consoles and HDMI switches in the cable aisle to ensure we could rapidly switch onto a running game when the first instance crashed. Stability improved enough that it wasn’t required in the end but yeah, software for trade shows was always hot as hell.