Father of Sony Playstation Steps Down

Raver32 wrote with a link to a CNN article about the end of Ken Kutaragi's time at Sony. His departure was announced back in April, and now leaves Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) headed by Kazuo Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment's (SCE) former president and COO. "Though no longer a board member, Kutaragi will hold an advisory post at the gaming unit, according to SCE official Sayoka Henmi. The departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marks the end of an era at Sony Corp. that saw the company long dominate the video game industry with its flagship PlayStation consoles. But it also highlights troubles at Sony amid a series of blunders over the rollout of its PlayStation 3 and intense competition from Nintendo Co.'s popular Wii console and Microsoft's Xbox 360."

Comments

Honesty.

[Pojut]

While I have consistently prefered other consoles over the Playstation platforms, I cannot deny the impact that Sony has had on the gaming culture as a whole (both positive and negative). There is a good possibility that gaming would not be as prevelant and pronounced in our culture had it not been for the PS1/PS2.

Mr. Kutaragi, I rarely agree with your opinions on the business of video games, as well as your opinions on what gamers "want". However, you are still an icon in the industry and I respect you as such. Godspeed to you, sir.

Re:occasional failure.

[aichpvee]

Seems to me that PS3 is doing pretty well. It's outselling 360 in Japan and selling about even here in the States. All that at a price tag that's basically twice as high. Of course 360 is selling about as well as the original xbox. So while it isn't exactly something to brag about, I wouldn't count Sony out yet. They've definitely got a good shot at being the dominant "HD" console this generation, and who knows how it'll be doing against Wii 3 or 4 years from now. Though I wouldn't put it past Sony to blow the chance that they have now since it won't be there forever and microsoft still has the chance to turn their fortunes around, too.

I guess I was just being redundant and agreeing with you. I'm not sure how much Bluray is going to matter for the "console wars" but it definitely has a better chance of giving Sony a boost than microsoft with their HD-DVD drive, especially in light of Disney (they sell a ton, regardless of quality) backing it exclusively and Blockbuster recently dropping HD-DVD at most of their stores.

Sony is actually in a very similar situation to Nintendo right now. It's totally their game to lose. The only difference is that it's a slightly different game given that the market today for HD consoles seems significantly smaller than for Wii. That and they aren't selling a billion consoles a day.