BIG IN JAPAN
Ken Kutaragi
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| Courtesy of Sony Computer Entertainment |
Have you got a
PlayStation 2 yet? Want one? Over one million PS2 consoles were sold within three days of
its release in March, so with an item this hot, youfre probably waiting for the fever to
die down.
In Japan, it' tempting to think that developments like this are the work of committees of
faceless men in identical gray suits. However, much of the success of the PlayStation is
thanks to the dedication of one person Ken Kutaragi, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.
His checkered career consists of ahead-of-his-time insights, and a willingness to take
risks that sometimes brought him into conflict with the more conservative elements of the
Japanese business world.
Kutaragi was born in Tokyo in 1950, and entered Sony straight after graduation from Denki
Tsushin University in 1975. Those were the days when joining a famous company could mean a
safe ride for life - but Kutaragi could never be satisfied with that, as his restless
curiosity and skill at trouble - shooting led him to be requested for increasingly
advanced technical projects.
During the 1980s, he gained an excellent reputation at Sony's engineering labs for his
diligence and his lateral-thinking approach to problems. After Nintendo had just released
their first eight-bit game console, Kutaragi bought one on a whim, dismantled and
reverse-engineered it at home, and studied how its defects could be improved. In 1988
Kutaragi was given permission to approach Nintendo with a deal, to share knowledge and
profits, to use Sony's programming and engineering staff on Nintendo's next-generation
console.
A successful collaboration between former rivals seemed too good to be true, and in the
end it was. After initial breakthroughs, Nintendo announced in 1991 they were pulling out
of the deal and entering into partnership with Philips. A discouraged Kutaragi realized
the only way his research could be used was if Sony produced their own game console and,
at length, that's what he persuaded the company heads to agree to.
Ironically, the Nintendo-Philips console never got off the drawing board. For a while, it
seemed Sony's project would meet the same fate, because nobody really believed that
Kutaragi's goal of high-quality graphics and sound was achievable. Eventually, after
agreement was struck between Kutaragi's team and semiconductor chip developers LSI Logic,
the Sony PlayStation was out of the realm of fantasy and had become a viable business
project.
Since being released in 1994, the PlayStation has sold 70 million units worldwide, with
2600 titles available in Japan for use in it. Kutaragi started work on PlayStation 2 in
1996, was named Chairman of the American off-shoot in 1997, and became President and CEO
of Sony Computer Entertainment in 1999.
Despite a couple of well-publicized glitches, Japan's consumption of the PS2 is frenzied
and interest from abroad is insatiable. It all proves that for today's corporate players,
games are a deadly serious business, and people are already talking about what Kutaragi's
technical skills will bring to PlayStation 3. James Walker
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