“The Father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi sits down with Katsuhiro Harada in the latest installment 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 publicity and accepting change. We have summarized some of the highlights below.
The discussion begins with Kutaragi recalling the original PlayStation hardware launch. Kutaragi wanted to put together a pre-launch event for various companies and developers. However, none of the higher endowments of the companies were interested. Each company declined the invitation because they did not want their developers to be stripped. The reason for this was that game developers in the past did not get public credit on games because companies did not want their developers to get positions from competitors. This practice is still in the pockets of the industry today, and freelance translators are often denied credit. Kutaragi believed that the method was not right, and he wanted to change it.
Ken Kutaragi on rumors
Kutaragi also addressed rumors about him at Harada’s Bar. The host brought up the incident in which Kutaragi threw an ashtray into a flurry of anger during a business meeting. He said it was untrue, but stories like this even ended up on Wikipedia. One rumor that could have been true, however, was the PlayStation 2. In the development of the hardware, many divisions of Sony joined after the success of the PS1. According to Kutaragi, these departments do not fully understand the PS2’s concept, and consider the PlayStation a toy. When he went through UI choices, Kutaragi angrily declared that ‘PlayStation is not a toy’. He also talks about his experiences with the management of the top management who are not interested in releasing video games. Kutaragi said the voices have no imagination and only look to the past, not to the future.
Getting Over With Nintendo
In addition, Kutaragi even collaborated with Nintendo on the Super Famicom that led to the creation of PlayStation. He said he enjoyed working with Nintendo’s Masayuki Uemura and his team, saying they all get along. Kutaragi claims that the media and outside perspectives have always mistaken them for fighting. However, according to Kutaragi, the companies did not fight at all, and he never considered Nintendo a competitor. This era in the game is finally becoming free publicity for Sony, Nintendo and Sega. Kutaragi said the media only makes conflict to make things sound interesting. However, he also knew that the industry would grow thanks to how the media reported on it.
Kutaragi ended the gas appearance by talking about the future of the industry. He mentioned that he had predicted the concept of cloud games in the mid-2000s, and he stressed the importance of accepting change. Furthermore, he was critical of people waiting for consensus and not accepting change, specifically stating that this is the current situation in Japan. You can watch the full discussion between the two in the 35-minute video on YouTube.
Harada is a very outspoken developer in the gambling industry. His claim to fame is long-term Tekken series by Bandai Namco. He recently spoke in another Bandai Namco talk show about the problems of COVID-19 during development.
Harada runs its own YouTube chat show, Harada’s Bar, weekly episodes release.