{"id":424858,"date":"2024-11-29T20:35:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T20:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=424858"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Father-of-PlayStation-says-everyone-told-us-we-would-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Father-of-PlayStation-says-everyone-told-us-we-would-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Father of PlayStation says ‘everyone told us we would fail’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The PlayStation has been a colossal consumer hit, but three decades ago, its creator Ken Kutaragi struggled to convince both game-makers and his bosses at Sony that his console would be a winner.<\/p>\n

“Everyone told us we would fail,” Kutaragi told AFP in a rare interview.<\/p>\n

With revolutionary 3D graphics and grown-up titles like “Tomb Raider” and “Metal Gear Solid”, the device first hit shelves on December 3, 1994.<\/p>\n

Before that, Nintendo’s NES console and similar gaming machines were considered “children’s toys”, the 74-year-old Kutaragi said.<\/p>\n

Popular games like “Super Mario Bros” were two-dimensional, and computer-generated imagery\u00a0(CGI) was a rarity even in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

“Most of the executives (at Sony) were fiercely opposed,” fearing for the Japanese giant’s reputation as a producer of high-end electronics, Kutaragi said.<\/p>\n

Japanese game-makers gave a “frosty response” too, as creating 3D games in real time seemed “unthinkable” at the time.<\/p>\n

Films with CGI took one or two years to make in those days, with budgets of tens of millions of dollars, he said.<\/p>\n

But Kutaragi, then a Sony employee, was not deterred.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to make the most of technological progress to create a new form of entertainment,” the engineer said, his eyes gleaming.<\/p>\n

His ambition paid off: the console — now in its fifth generation — became a household name. The PlayStation 2 was the world’s top-selling games console with 160 million units sold.<\/p>\n

– Nintendo\u00a0drama –<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

Sony and fellow Japanese game giant Nintendo are industry rivals, but more than three decades ago they worked together to make a CD-ROM reader compatible with the Super Nintendo console, which could only take game cartridges.<\/p>\n

With Nintendo’s permission, Sony was also developing a machine capable of reading both CDs and cartridges, with the working title “Play Station” — the first time the famous name was used.<\/p>\n

But the pair’s bonhomie ended dramatically.<\/p>\n

Hours after Sony unveiled its new project at a 1991 Las Vegas trade show, Nintendo, spooked by Sony’s rights over the games, announced it would team up with Dutch firm Philips instead.<\/p>\n

The episode was seen as a betrayal and humiliation for Sony, and all of these burgeoning projects failed to materialise.<\/p>\n

“Newspapers said it was bad for us,” Kutaragi said. But “it was inevitable that we and Nintendo would follow our own paths, because our approaches were totally different”.<\/p>\n

For Nintendo, “video games were toys that had nothing to do with technology,” he said.<\/p>\n

And without the snub, the PlayStation as we know it “would never have seen the light of day”.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0AI predictions –<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

When Sony launched its PlayStation and CD games in Japan in 1994, and in Western countries some months later, Nintendo had a stranglehold on console sales.<\/p>\n

So Sony used its experience in the music industry to develop a new distribution model, selling the gadgets at electronics stores instead of toy stores and creating new supply chains adapted to local markets.<\/p>\n

Kutaragi eventually became vice president of Sony but left the conglomerate in 2007 after the launch of the PlayStation 3, which initially struggled commercially.<\/p>\n

Now the future of the console market is less rosy as “cloud gaming” grows in popularity, something that Kutaragi also predicted — along with mobile gaming years in advance.<\/p>\n

“I’d often reflect on the future of technology, over 10 or 20 years, to predict new trends,” although “many people found that hard to understand”, he said.<\/p>\n

The engineer now runs a start-up focused on robotics and artificial intelligence and teaches at a Japanese university.<\/p>\n

“We are entering a world where everything can be calculated” by a computer with the help of AI, Kutaragi said.<\/p>\n

For example, generative AI chatbot ChatGPT “exists because language has become computable”, and similar technology is being used in sectors as diverse as medicine, music and visual art.<\/p>\n

“Imagine if time and space were also computable,” he said.<\/p>\n

“For the moment, this is a possibility limited to the world of video games,” but “imagine that we could move instantly to any place”, Kutaragi said.<\/p>\n

“What was once science fiction could become reality.”<\/p>\n

mac\/kaf\/stu\/dan\/wp\/cwl<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The little grey box sold 102 million units<\/p>\n

-Richard A. Brooks
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi speaks during the Tokyo Game Show preview day in late September<\/p>\n

-Richard A. Brooks
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Sony used its music industry experience to develop a new distribution model for gaming consoles<\/p>\n

-Richard A. Brooks
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi (R) became vice president of Sony before leaving the Sony conglomerate in 2007<\/p>\n

-Richard A. Brooks
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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