He might have been crazy, but we gotta thank him for the PS1 and PS2..PS3?? Maybe? lol. We'll see by the end of next year where PS3 stands, as of right meow..PS3 is lacking the games.

That picture is as awesome as it is scary.

Indeed, we should be glad he decided to get into the game bussiness. He really did set new standards.

Good to hear this. He was a significant player in the gaming industry esp. over the past ten years or so. A nice follow up read would be this article by 1up. I highly recommend some of you take a look at it before some say negative things about him. Yes he has his faults, but overall, he was a visionary who influenced gaming as it is today.

Kutraragi did a great service to us gamers, and played effective role that shaped video games today...It is sad that with all achievements he made, his career ended with crazy faults =(

Yea the PS1 was a breaktrough, but this guy almost killed the PS3...

And they say the wii makes you look like a fool. But no, really he does deserve it but for only the ps and ps2. The ps3, he acts as if he lost all hope. I am just stating an opinion, no flames needed.

say what you want, kuturagi is the man

*kutaragi

Funny thing is his ideology never wained, they just gave him too much funding and technology. Now with his ideas in full fruition does he fail. Sometimes people's best work comes under restriction; perhaps if he were under more scrutiny the PS3 wouldn't be such a commercial failure.

Hey, let's use this opportunity to turn this into another PS3 bashing thread. It's already too far into a "Woe is the PS3, the previous generations ruled." thread.

Congrats Kutaragi.

You guys bash away, I think the PS3 is awesome.

And yeah, Kutaragi may have been bat shit crazy, but damn if I don't love the consoles he's produced over the years.

I love the guy's passion, and his love affair with technology is certainly unquestionable. He definitely made the right call in putting 3D technology in the PS1, when Sega was creating the 2D monstronsity that was the Saturn.

Also, the guy had huge balls for taking on Nintendo head-to-head after Sony was screwed over by them.

I'm sure that the videogame industry would have gotten along fine without him, but Sony literally owes him billions and billions of dollars.

Well played, Kutaragi. Well played!

Great man, industry would look a lot different without him.

Man, so far the comments here (as compared to the same topic on joystiq) are much more civilized. I'm quitting that blog for good. Thank you Kotaku! Thank you for having some integrity even though you're 'just a blog'.

I'd love to see him take the stage and give the finger to Sony. Ooh, I'd like to see that!

He did an amazing job w/ the PS1 and PS2. The PS3 might not be as mainstream as its previous installments but I love mine. It's an awesome system with awesome games coming out and I love the Blu Ray Player.

Glad to see him getting this award.

@boopadoo:

:|

Uh, why would he do that? He still holds an "emeritus" position with the company. I'm sure he's also getting royalties and what not in addition to a substantial retirement plan.

@mpmaley:

"It's an awesome system with awesome games coming out..."

Honestly, that "the PS3 has no games" schtick just won't cut it anymore. I played Uncharted all this weekend and there's tons of games (1st-party and multiplats) out there that I want, but can't afford to buy yet.

Thanks, Ken, for the PS3.

@Warren DeMontague: Uh, my videogame history might be bad but I think it was Sony who screwed over Nintendo, when they were going to make it so that they could build a system that played Nintendo;'s games AND theirs when Nintendo just wanted a disc drive. Correct me if Im wrong though, I never really payed attention to that whole thing.

@NitrousO:

No, Nintendo definitely screwed over Sony. They made a deal behind Sony's back with a different company (Phillips?) to produce their proposed SNES CD attachment. Sony only found this out at the same time the press did and well into the work on the CD attachment Nintendo had previously requested from them. Instead of scraping their project altogether it became what we now know as the PlayStation 1. And now, as Paul Harvey would say, you know the rest of the story...

@NitrousO: OK - consider yourself corrected :)

Nintendo scrapped the CDROM drive add-on for the SNES that Sony were developing for them - Sony got pissed and the end result was the PSX.

Minor trivia: I worked on a SNES CD game that got canned because of this (Wayne's World by Argonaut Software if you really wanna know *shudder*)

@Aegis: @Aegis: Ah I see, probably good Nintendo got knocked off their pedastel for a while then. The more you know! *plays the music and has the little star fly by*

There's a fine line between genius and insanity...

...I think Kutaragi tripped over to the insanity side. Nonetheless, he did a lot for this industry.

I do think it's a shame that the SNES CD project got derailed though.

The SNES was already such an impressive system, the CD attachment probably would've kept it viable for at least another two to three years.

At least the DS is providing a glimpse of what that might have been like...

@LobselVith:
I'm sorry, they gave him a golden parachute. Whatever title they give him from now on, he can only snarl and gnash behind a glass door while Kaz and Sir Stringer point and laugh while they tear his baby apart.

I want to see him give the finger! Two even!

@NitrousO: I agree - Nintendo had become complacent and stupidly arrogant.

Really, I think the only bad thing that came of the Playstation was the demise of Sega's hardware division - Sega were their own worst enemy but the Dreamcast was everything a game console should've been (at the time anyway) unfortunately, the unjustified hype surrounding the (then unreleased) PS2 meant that it never sold in the numbers it deserved - I look back and see the blood, sweat and tears poured into visonary games such as Shenmue and weep every time a publisher announces another FPS...

@NitrousO:
Nintendo requested Sony's help in developing a CD add-on device for the SNES that would give the system a technological boost over the competition (Sega CD, TurboDuo). Sony wanted a fair share of licensing revenues since the hardware was developed solely by them. Nintendo wasn't about to let ANY company share in those profits and at CES 1992, to Sony's surprise, Nintendo announced a partnership with Philips for the CD-ROM future of Nintendo. In retaliation Sony used the knowledge gained by the millions of dollars they had already spent in research for the Nintendo-Playstation and finished development on their own stand-alone console.
We all know where it went from there.

I love Mario, but:

FUCK NINTENDO.

@myxylplyx: Well, that was the old Nintendo - I had pretty similar feelings when the PSX came out but now Sony's become the arrogant beast that Nintendo once was (get two jobs?? FFS!) It's time Sony learnt some of the hard lessons Nintendo has had to learn on its rise, fall and rise again...

Arrogant maybe, but I don't think Sony's dealings with the PlayStation barnd over the last decade or so warrant the same fate that Nintendo suffered. Nintendo was downright underhanded and brutal in the 80s and early 90s. To my knowledge, Sony simply hasn't earned the type of karmic backlash that Nintendo had been steadily compunding for years when it hit.

Consequently, I don't think Sony will fall as far as Nintendo did, they simply haven't alienated as many important people on their way to the top.

@Aegis:
Sorry to argue but do you know why 3rd party developers still refuse to flock to the Wii? Because Nintendo still holds on to that old licensing ideal that gives them way more money than the competition asks for. Nintendo loves those up-front profits, just look at how slowly the technology in their hardware progresses. Now, with a Pizza-Hut marketing genius they have been able to convince the world that the Wii offers something "truly innovative". Man, the world IS full of dumbasses.

He earned it, no doubt. I'm still not putting down the PS3 in the 'win' column for him, but between the PS1 and PS2, he still earned it.

It's fairly obvious that most people who dismiss Kutaragi as an arrogant hack are either a) too young to remember anything prior to teh 360, or b) amnesiac.

Yes, he did make quite a few stupid statements, but is he the only player in the industry who has? He had the golden touch for a while, and, as often happens, he somewhat lost it (only somewhat, 'cause I wouldn't write Kutaragi off just yet, and I still love my PS3 - I'm one of those fools who believe that the PS3 isn't a one-trick pony or one-hit wonder, but more like a slow-burning -- oh, enough with the metaphors...).

Take Nolan Bushnell: through Atari, his contribution to videogames was immense. Still, he lost his golden touch pretty darn fast. Today, Bushnell just isn't relevant anymore, and his recent statements about the current market are a little sad.

Don't forget, young'uns: Kutaragi helmed the ship that largely contributed to turning videogames into more than an embarrassing, nerdy, immature pasttime. The PS1 was created and promoted not just as a videogames consoles, but as part of a lifestyle that even adults could enjoy.
When it came out, I had stopped playing videogames entirely. I'd just lost interest. The PS1 is what brought me back. You don't forget your first contact with, say, Resident Evil... goddamn freakin' dog crashing through that window...

Sure, if Kutaragi (and friends) hadn't been there, someone else might have done it. Thing is, he was there.

@myxylplyx: Heh! I'm not saying that Nintendo aren't still sharks - of course they are - that's why they're printing money right now but lets not kid ourselves - NONE of these hardware developers got into game consoles 'cause they love us - they saw opportunities to be exploited - they love money, marketshare and shareholders.

As far as the Wii goes - I can see the innovation - sure, we'd all have loved the Wii to have motion controls AND 1080p HD graphics to rival the PS3/360 and a combi Blu Ray/HD DVD drive but then it would have been more expensive than the PS3 and would've been third place right now - it took real balls to do what Nintendo have done with the Wii - it could've totally tanked - they played the market just right this time though and even with those restrictive deals you mentioned, publishers are flocking to the Wii purely because of its installed user base and momentum. Will they get screwed again? Only time will tell I guess...

@Aegis:

"Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was struck, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.

Sony also planned to develop another, Nintendo compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super Nintendo cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CD discs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.

In 1989, the SNES-CD was to be announced at the June Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi was furious; deeming the contract totally unacceptable, he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment."

wikipedia

Apparently it goes:
Kutaragi makes sound chip for Nintendo
Nintendo and Sony are friends
Nintendo wants a CD add-on
Since they're friends, Nintendo enlists Sony
Sony tries to screw over Nintendo
Nintendo realises this, and in turn srews over Sony
Sony gets pissed
Sony uses what they have developed up to that point to make the PlayStation.

@shiwasu: Yeah - that sounds more like the version of events I heard (a long time ago) - can't feel too sorry for Nintendo though - that's what your legal dept. is for right? :^D

A subsequent broken deal with Philips also resulted in the short-lived 'CDi' console/VCD player and Philips being allowed to release a few exclusive Zelda and Mario 'games' on their ill-fated format:

[en.wikipedia.org]

@Aegis: I wouldn't say it tooks balls exactly. It's not like Nintendo had much of a choice: after the GameCube's poor performance, they just didn't have the money to compete with MS and Sony on a technological level.
They had to find something to set themselves apart, or they would have been thrashed.

Nintendo's achievement was finding a new angle that didn't depend so much on incredibly heavy R&D costs (which they couldn't have shouldered anyway).
Many others would, in fact, have tanked. Sega did.

regardless of what one thinks of the ps3, kutaragi-san is an engineering deity; a true visionary.

I don't know why, but that picture puts me in mind of Ming the Merciless.

I never even watched Flash Gordon.

I disagree with the statement "If it wasn't for Ken and his concept of the original PlayStation, there wouldn't be the billion dollar industry there is today."

It might not be worth AS MUCH, since sony would never of been around marketing its consoles to club kids, snowboarders and what-have-you. But Sega and Nintendo would have ticked along just fine without them.

Ultimately by growing the industry I think they have done more harm than good. Now budgets are far larger than they were and games development is a lot harder and more time consuming than it should have to be.

@DarrenIndeed: "Ultimately by growing the industry I think they have done more harm than good."

- so, expanding the market is bad? last i checked the industry is healthier now than ever. but ok...

@DarrenIndeed: "Now budgets are far larger than they were and games development is a lot harder and more time consuming than it should have to be."

- it's called progress. console transitions are inherently expensive (to varying degrees). what compounds the issue in this particular instance has more to do with thread-level parallelism (specifically asymmetric processing). as much as some would like to ignore the trend, the fact remains that the industry will continue to focus its efforts away from single-core architectures (be it intel, amd, nvidia or ibm). agree with it or not, developers will have to adapt in order to remain competitive.

to push the fabric you need to take risks etc. whether it will pay off for sony has yet to be determined. but whoever emerges king of the roost, i think it's safe to say that neither of the three players will emulate the success of PS2. we'll just have to wait and see.

Most of the thanks for how well the PS1 and PS2 did should go to others, including their PR and advertisement firm.

I give respect where its due. He deserves it because he was behind three grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat systems and deserves the credit.

@ LOBSELVITH

I in no way meant to say there weren't awesome games already out. I'd have another 4-5 games to my collection if I wasn't a poor college student :(

I'm glad he's getting recognition for what he's done, he certainly deserves it. It's sad to see him treated like Gunpei Yokoi - one bad system and he's basically neutralized from any further decision making.

Hey... that could be a new term - Yokoi'ed - When you make a runaway success, then a flop, and basically get punted for it. "They gave him the ol' Gunpei..."

Could someone please explain the whole "It's Riiiiidge Raaaaaaacer!" thing to me? I wasn't really much of an event/keynote follower when that all went down.

@Mukatsuku:

I thank Kutaragi for the Playstation. PS1 was the best fun I had in my high school years. Sad but true.