https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...oing-so-well-we-dont-forget-why-were-here-now
Shu Yoshida reflects on 25 years at PlayStation, and the difficulty of hardware transitions.
Full article here
Edit: Guys, can we please keep this about hardware transitions and not yuk up the thread with drive-by comments about crossplay?
I respect Shu Yoshida a great deal, so lets keep this positive.
Shu Yoshida reflects on 25 years at PlayStation, and the difficulty of hardware transitions.
This week at Develop in Brighton, he took to the stage with the dashingly handsome Edge editor Nathan Brown to talk through his 25 years at the company, and some of the difficulties faced in the various hardware transitions PlayStation has seen over the years.
Yoshida started his tenure at PlayStation in February 1993, working as part of the small team led by Ken Kutaragi that was behind the original hardware. "[At the time there was a] Silicon Graphics workstation, which was around $100k - and Ken said he's making a machine of that power that'll be available for less than $500," Yoshida recounted onstage. At first Yoshida didn't believe that was possible, but when someone told him Kutaragi wasn't full of hot air he decided to sign up to the project.
Those early years saw Yoshida and those around him sign some deals that would be pivotal in the success of the PlayStation - and in sowing the seeds for future generations - as Square was convinced to move away from Nintendo and bring Final Fantasy 7 to Sony, with Enix soon following suit with the Dragon Quest series.
And amidst that rabble of games there was a new adventure game from Fumito Ueda and Team Ico, which found itself suffering from technical difficulties on the original PlayStation. "I moved development from PS1 to PS2," Yoshida recalled of the project that would become Ico. "Sounds familiar, right?"
"Ken [Kutaragi] was such a brilliant engineer - the team that worked for Ken was so motivated, he was a great motivator. Maybe he was using video games as a stepping stone to realise his vision and dreams - he wanted to become the next Intel or something.
He always approached developing game systems, up to PS3 - they work on a system just by themselves. And we weren't given access until it was done. He had trust with the developers - whatever he made, the top developers would be able to work on them and understand them. He didn't see the need to involve game developers in the design of the system - that's how the PS3 was made. And you know how successful it was."
Yoshida headed back to Japan, helping the studios work more closely together as Mark Cerny worked on the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 projects - and in the latter example, the shift towards working with developers and soothing development has helped make it a success, its sales ontrack to eclipse the PlayStation 3 this year.
It marks the continuation of a cycle that's familiar from other hardware manufacturers, with Nintendo stumbling after the success of the Wii with the Wii U, and Microsoft also fumbling the follow-up to the Xbox 360 with the troubled launch of the Xbox One. So what can Sony take onboard as it prepares for another hardware transition in the not-too-distant future?
Full article here
Edit: Guys, can we please keep this about hardware transitions and not yuk up the thread with drive-by comments about crossplay?
I respect Shu Yoshida a great deal, so lets keep this positive.
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