“The Father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi sat down with Katsuhiro Harada in the last episode of his weekly talk show, Harada’s Bar. The two men shared stories about the past, present and future of the video game industry. Among the topics were personal rumors, working with Nintendo, the importance of free advertising and accepting changes. We summarize some of the highlights below.
The discussion started with Kutaragi recalling the launch of the original PlayStation hardware. Kutaragi wanted to organize a pre-launch event for several companies and developers. However, none of the heads of the companies were interested. All companies declined the invitation because they did not want their developers to be stolen. The reason is that in the past, game developers did not receive public credit for games because companies did not want their developers to receive offers from positions with competitors. This practice still occurs today in some sectors of the industry, with freelance translators often being denied credit. Kutaragi believed that the method was not right and wanted to change it.
Ken Kutaragi in rumors
Kutaragi also addressed rumors about him at Bar Harada. The host mentioned the Kutaragi incident throwing an ashtray in a tantrum during a business meeting. He said this was not true, but stories like these ended up on Wikipedia. A rumor that may have been true, however, involved the PlayStation 2. When developing the hardware, many Sony departments came together after the success of the PS1. According to Kutaragi, these departments did not fully understand the concept of the PS2 and saw the PlayStation as a toy. Passing through the user interface options, Kutaragi angrily declared that “the PlayStation is not a toy”. He also recounted his experiences of struggling with top management who were not interested in the launch of video games by Sony. Kutaragi said that those voices had no imagination and just looked at the past, not the future.
Getting along with Nintendo
In addition, Kutaragi even discussed working with Nintendo on the Super Famicom before the PlayStation was created. He said he loved working with Nintendo’s Masayuki Uemura and his team, saying that everyone got along. Kutaragi said the media and external perspectives had always dismissed them as a struggle. However, according to Kutaragi, the companies were not fighting, and he never considered Nintendo a competitor. This era of games ended up becoming free advertising for Sony, Nintendo and Sega. Kutaragi said the media was just creating conflicts to make things look interesting. However, he also knew that the industry would grow thanks to the way the media reported.
Kutaragi ended his participation as a guest talking about the future of the industry. He mentioned that he envisioned the concept of cloud games in the mid-2000s and emphasized the importance of accepting change. In addition, he criticized people who wait for consensus and do not accept changes, specifically stating that this is the current state in Japan. You can check the full discussion between the two in the 35-minute video on YouTube.
Harada is a very outspoken developer in the games industry. His claim to fame is the long Tekken Bandai Namco series. He recently spoke about COVID-19’s difficulties during development on another Bandai Namco talk show.
Harada runs his own YouTube talk show, Harada’s Bar, releasing weekly episodes.