The Console Wars: The Kraziness of Ken Kutaragi | Xbox 360, Playstation 3 PS3, Revolution

Thursday, July 07, 2005

The Kraziness of Ken Kutaragi

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The Kraziness of Ken Kutaragi

"The president of Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi, is truly a visionary and a pioneer in the videogame industry. He is often called the "father of the PlayStation," as it was he who was the catalyst for Sony's entrance into the console business. Since then, he has been the driving force behind Sony's gaming ambitions, making the PlayStation 2 the behemoth success it is and revolutionizing the portable gaming market with the PlayStation Portable. These days, he is concentrating on cementing Sony's position in the worldwide gaming market by making the PlayStation 3 extend beyond the minds of the college student and turning the PlayStation into a mass-appealing home entertainment device.

Although much of his notoriety comes from his accomplishments, including his trailblazing work on LCD projectors and digital cameras, lately the venerable leader has been garnering press for his off-the-wall remarks. His image has been slowly turning from a videogame luminary to a boisterous loudmouth. What's happened? Why, suddenly, has everything that Kutaragi says immediately undergoes scrutiny and then ridicule on gaming forums across the ‘net? Let's take a look at the history of Ken Kutaragi's remarks and try to pinpoint where things go wrong.

Ken Kutaragi led the team that was developing the SNES CD-ROM. When Nintendo felt threatened by Sony, they dropped Japanese supergiant as the developer of the hardware in a very humiliating, public fashion at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1992. Embarrassed, Kutaragi pleaded with Sony CEO Norio Ohga to keep the project alive, saying that the final product would blow the SNES out of the water. The rest, as they say, is history." [more]

¶ D.Vader // 7/07/2005 04:57:00 PM // PermaLink