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A Brief History of Sony
by Steven Kent for Gamers Today
Contrary to the popular misstatement, Sony was not new to games when it released the PlayStation. It actually has a rather undistinguished history in gaming.
On the positive side, Sony manufactured the stereo chip that made the 16-bit Super NES sound so much better than the Sega Genesis. On the negative side, several notable bombs such as ESPN Football and the full-motion video game Johnny Mnemonic were published under its Sony Imagesoft. The only exceptional game published under that label, prior to the launch of PlayStation, was Mickey Mania, a truly wonderful adventure game which traced the evolution of Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willy to the his present form through a succession of two-dimensional adventure levels. Then Sony went through the stormy launch of the PlayStation.
The first leader of Sony Computer Entertainment of America was Steve Race, a former Atari executive who went on to help found Worlds of Wonder-the company that created Laser Tag and Teddy Ruxpin. Race was a great choice for Sony. By reputation, he had done a good job running Atari's European operation and Worlds of Wonder helped launch the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States.
One rumor circulating around the video game industry as Sony prepared to launch PlayStation was that Race did not get along with his bosses in Japan. Few people were surprised when he was ousted only a month before the American launch; but then the person who replaced him was ousted, then the person who replaced the person who replaced Race was ousted, too. Finally, Sony settled on Kaz Hirai.
Hirai proved to be an excellent selection. Intelligent and well-composed, Hirai speaks flawless English with no Japanese accent. His charismatic style of leadership has reportedly made him a favorite with Sony employees and his direct style has made him popular with the press. In the meantime, PlayStation sales never faltered throughout the company's turmoil. Sega and Sony had both planned to launch 32-bit consoles in September, 1995. Sega said it would launch Saturn on "Sega Saturn Saturday, September Second" for $399; Sony planned to launch PlayStation on September 9 for $299.
In an effort to get a jump on Sony, Sega shipped Saturns to several key retailers and released it in May. The four-month lead made no difference. Sony sold more PlayStations in its first weekend than Sega sold Saturns throughout the months of June, July, and August. The momentum just kept flowing in Sony's direction. Sega, a company that was normally associated with sports, did not produce a football game for Saturn in 1995, and Electronic Arts decided not to release PlayStation or Saturn versions of its popular John Madden Football that year.
Sony, on the other hand, released a solid football title called NFL GameDay and became the only "next generation" system to have a football game. By default, PlayStation became the platform for sports. This was where history did not repeat itself. NFL GameDay was created by the same team that created the awful ESPN Sports games. Given more time and funding, the team proved that they could create excellent sports titles. Now known as 989 Studios instead of Sony Imagesoft, this once shunned game publisher is now one of the most respected names in sports games. By the time Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in 1996, Sony had established itself as the market leader.
Sony reached the million-consoles-sold mark long before Sega even approached it, and had begun legislating pricing changes to its competitors. Sega dropped the price of the Saturn from $399 to $299 to try and keep up with PlayStation. At the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony surprised everybody by dropping its price to $199. Sega tried to resist following suit for a day, then announced it too had dropped its price. Nintendo, which had planned to launch the Nintendo 64 for $250, also had to dance to Sony's tune.
Having sold more than twice as many PlayStations as Nintendo has sold N64s, Sony currently dominates the video game market. Further, Sony has a revolutionary new console under development which has the potential to change the computer industry entirely.
Simply known as "the next generation PlayStation," this new architecture utilizes floating-point technology and an ultra-wide bus bandwidth to create the "Emotion Engine," a super-powered graphics rendering processor. First unveiled last March, the new console is set for release in the United States in Fall, 2000.
