Ken Kutaragi reveals the Nintendo PlayStation

Thoughts, SW Ever wonder what the game industry would’ve been like if Nintendo didn’t reject Sony? Do you think it would’ve been better or worse? I think ultimately, it was good it didn‘t happen. Sony opened up the market in ways I don’t think Nintendo would’ve done.

The guy who paid 300k for what he thought was the only one in existence can't be pleased.

That's awesome! I want him to sign my PS1 too. How do I get in touch? Do I just have to become a drone pilot in Japan?

He fondled it? It's derelict.

Poor Ken. Still holding on to what could have been like a heartbroken ex. 😅

That's exactly what I was thinking. Like, move on buddy! 🤣

Can’t wait to play Mario on it! XD

That is fucking cool. Hell, if I had that kinda money to drop i'd do the same... Display that shit in a hermetically sealed box.

After Nintendo betrayed Sony... Instead of punishing Nintendo, Sony ended up punishing Sega.

In other words, it would've been better if Nintendo didn't betray Sega... Because then that means Sega would've survived.

Interesting thinking how the landscape of gaming would be if the Nintendo playstation was a thing. Could have been epic .

I remember the Nintendo Playstation being shown in Nintendo power or EGM when I was a kid. I wanted it so bad... Thought it was next level cool. That said, it was the very height of my childhood video game experience and snes was so damn good at the time I didn't need it. Just thought it was gonna be the next cool thing.

@Jag85: Nintendo punished themselves by being difficult to work with and alienating developers. Sega punished themselves by releasing expensive hardware that they didn't support well with the 32X, and then soon after, releasing more expensive hardware with the Saturn that was more difficult for developers to work with, resulting in poor ports compared to the competition.

Sony released a competent console with good software support at a good price, off the shelf parts that developers understood and had full access to unlike the N64 which kept developers from programming directly to the hardware (secret microcode). Games on the PS were also $40 which was a drop in price from previous generations.

3DO, Jaguar, Philips CD-i, and Amiga CD32 were all expensive and s***.

It's easy to see why things ended up the way they did.

Ill take the bait

It's probably the rarest console on earth AND a huge piece of Video Game History. You would be stupid not to keep it.

Only other consoles I can think of that would be as rare would be Sega Pluto, and Neptune prototypes.

A console so rare that even Indiana Jones wouldn't touch it without latex gloves. It's like if the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant had a baby, except instead of granting eternal life it just makes eBay bidders online go bankrupt.

For there to be a punishment, there needs to be a punisher. In this case, Sony was the punisher. They were able to capitalize on the mistakes that Sega and Nintendo made to punish them and come out on top. But if Sony did not act as the punisher, then there would be nothing to punish.

Like you said, the 3DO, Jaguar, CD-i and CD32 never stood a chance against Sega and Nintendo. If there was no PlayStation console, then Sega and Nintendo would've more than likely remained the top dogs into the next generation.

In other words, Nintendo betraying Sony was the butterfly effect that set off a chain reaction of events that led to the rise of PlayStation, the downfall of Sega, and the decline of Nintendo. Inadvertently, it also led to the rise of Xbox, as it filled the void left by Sega.

@Jag85: They were definitely the beneficiaries of the fallout of karma biting Nintendo and Sega. There were a lot of pieces in place to make something like this happen to Sega and Nintendo even without Sony being there.

In fact I wonder what would have happened if Sony didn't make the PlayStation. I wonder if FF7 would have gone to Saturn and that console might have been more successful, but SEGA as a company might have turned out a lot worse if they were rewarded for putting the consumer in the middle of their internal war of Sega of Japan vs Sega US.

Even the making of the Dreamcast was almost like a "Nintendo PlayStation" scenario. They were talking to two different companies, trying to get both 3dfx and PowerVR making competing hardware designs and then picking one over the other at a very late stage.

@girlusocrazy: Corporations can and do get away with all kinds of dodgy business practices if there is no competitor. Nintendo especially were known for dodgy business practices in the NES era, especially in Japan and North America where they dominated, until Sega punished them in the SNES era. If it wasn't for Sega, Nintendo would've likely continued those dodgy NES era business practices into the SNES era.

Hironobu Sakaguchi mentioned in an early Final Fantasy VII interview that he was considering the Saturn, since it used CD-ROM, before going with the PS1. If there was no PS1, then there's a good chance the Saturn could've ended up with FFVII as a killer app. While there was internal friction between SOA and SOJ, that friction was exacerbated by the PS1, with SOA and SOJ blaming each other for their collective failure to combat the PS1.

Speaking of 3dfx, that company could've been saved by Sega if they had picked 3dfx for the Dreamcast. In contrast, Sega's choice to pick PowerVR for the Dreamcast ended up paving the way for PowerVR to become a leading mobile GPU manufacturer for Apple and Samsung mobile devices.

@Jag85: It would have been weird if 3dfx was saved. It would be good to have another GPU manufacturer still around now, but they made some weird decisions.

They stuck with 16-bit color rendering and pushing higher resolutions, instead of pushing better graphical fidelity. When that didn't hit well, they tried innovating with the T-buffer which was a good idea, but proprietary, so if developers used it then it wouldn't be available on other cards (similar to Nvidia tech now).

That might have worked out, some of it was promising, but by then they were too slow to put products to market after their initial well received tech. They were making chips for other OEMs to make products at first, but then they wanted to switch to making their own products and not working with OEMs anymore. They bought STB so they could integrate 2D into their 3D card and no longer be an add-on. It was slow for them to switch to making a full product line, and it also pissed off OEMs who would end up working with nVidia.

The TNT2 already made a big impression, with the GeForce 256 cards coming next with a full graphics pipeline onboard, offloading triangle setup and T&L from the CPU and adding bump mapping (back when the highest end GPU was $349).

I don't know if it really would have saved 3dfx to be included in the Dreamcast. 3dfx hardware was still being used in arcade machines and maybe they could have survived making specialized hardware, but they just made a lot of big expensive decisions that slowed them down.

PowerVR had more strengths for embedded products because they were focusing on efficiency like with tile based deferred rendering, doing things like hidden surface removal to reduce the workload in smart ways. Other GPU makers were focusing more on the desktop and making more complex and more power hungry GPUs. This gave PowerVR a good niche.

Sega were still using PowerVR chips in their NAOMI line of arcade systems years after the Dreamcast was discontinued. If Sega had supported 3dfx instead, it's possible they could've used 3dfx chips in those NAOMI arcade systems instead. That's one way 3dfx could've survived. But like you said, the PC market had been cornered by Nvidia and AMD with superior desktop hardware, so there's not much 3dfx could do to survive in the PC market.

Ultimately, PowerVR's efficiency is why Sega chose it for the Dreamcast. Unlike the Saturn's complexity, Sega's goal with the Dreamcast was efficiency, delivering high-end graphics (for the time) at an affordable price. PowerVR's focus on efficiency made it more ideal for the Dreamcast. And that's why they chose PowerVR over 3dfx.

@Jag85: I don't know if SEGA would have been enough to keep 3dfx afloat. 3dfx was still being used by Konami, Taito, and Midway, for games like San Fransisco Rush, Hydro Thunder, Gauntlet Dark Legacy, NFL Blitz, Mace the Dark Age, Road Burners, Psychic Force, NBA Showtime, Boxing Mania, Jurassic Park 3, Silent Scope, Police 24/7, Code One Dispatch, GTI Club 2, Xtrial Racing...

I don't think a few more games would have helped them and arcades were kind of dying off anyway though.

In the end 3dfx was in the American design for the Dreamcast and PowerVR was in the Japanese design, and Sega of Japan was determined to pull the rug out from Sega of America at every step.

Not really. The Playstation 1 stomped the N64 and the PS2 stomped the GameCube. Sony is the reason Nintendo moved to gimmicks and stopped trying to compete in raw power.

exactly what I was thinking bro lol

While arcades were dying off in the West at the time, arcades were still thriving in Asia. The arcade scene in Asia became Sega's main source of revenue during the 2000s. If Sega had used 3dfx, it's possible they could've survived in the Asian arcade market up until they had enough funds to make a comeback in the PC market.

The SOJ vs. SOA beef was mostly quashed by the time the Dreamcast was in development. I highly doubt that had much to do with Sega's decision to choose PowerVR. The main reasons come down to the PowerVR chip being more power-efficient and cost-effective for a $199 console. The 3dfx Voodoo chip was designed for desktop PC and wasn't power-efficient or cost-effective enough for a $199 console.

While Nintendo were punished to a certain extent, it was Sega that bore the brunt of it. Nintendo at least did decently enough to survive until the Wii came along. In contrast, Sega were forced to pull the plug on console hardware.

Sega screwed Sega.

@Jag85: It would never have been considered in the first place those were going to be issues. Tom Kalinkse had initiatives that could have saved the Saturn but they didn't make practical and pragmatic decisions there. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the same thing with the Dreamcast.

I mean I guess you could argue that. I think the biggest issue is at the time there was only enough room for two successful console manufacturers in the industry.and the PS2 pretty much killed the Dreamcast.

Even when MS came in most companies would have left the industry after the performance of the original Xbox but they had so much money to burn they didn't care. Sega on the other hand needed a hit and after the first year the Dreamcast sales fell off a cliff. I do remember though the Dreamcast probably had the best first year launch lineup in history... it really was an amazing console for the short time it was out.

Tom Kalinske is biased and only giving his side of the story at SOA. If you read SOJ's side of the story, you get a whole different perspective. The website Mega Drive Shock gives some great insight into SOJ's side of the story:

A Second Atari Shock? The Decline of the 16-Bit Console Era

Irimajiri Speaks Out About the Saturn, the 32X, and SOA’s Financial Troubles

Former Sega president Shoichiro Irimajiri explains how the internal feud between SOJ and SOA began:

On Sega of America’s Financial Troubles and Tom Kalinske’s Resignation

A huge problem came to light at Sega of America. In the American market, it was typically large retailers such as Toys “R” Us and Wal-Mart that stocked game hardware and software. Those kinds of retailers would buy a huge quantity of stock at first. However, if they didn’t sell the stock within a certain period, they’d send it all back. We’d have to buy it all back.

SOA’s posted profits in 1993, for example, were all washed away because it had to take extraordinary losses on returned stock later on. Those extraordinary losses came to $100 million or $200 million at a time. Furthermore, retailers in America held a lot of power, and they required manufacturers to have a certain amount of inventory on hand to replenish stocks when items sold out. For example, retailers required SOA to have at least 500,000 Genesis hardware units on hand to replenish sold stock, or they wouldn’t do business with us.

SOA had an excess of inventory that would all be sold at once, bringing in a huge amount of revenue. Then, all that inventory would come back from retailers later on and SOA would take a huge loss. With the Genesis, all of those losses started to appear in 1994, 1995, and 1996. If you added up all the losses, the number would be astronomical.

When we looked at the numbers carefully, even though SOA had a reputation for earning so much money, it turned out they weren’t earning much at all. We decided we had to change things, and that necessitated reducing the size of the company.

We told Tom Kalinske that we’d give him one year to restructure the company like so. This was a quite a strong request.

After one year, in 1996, the restructuring hadn’t progressed at all. We decided we had no choice, and I was ordered to go to SOA and take over as president. Tom Kalinske was asked to step down. I initiated the restructuring and worked to make the company healthy.

In late 1993, Sega were shocked that export revenues started declining, despite Sega dominating overseas markets at the time. The main reason for the decline was because of SOA having stock issues, which led to SOJ losing trust in Kalinske's management of SOA. And those stock issues were ultimately caused by Wal-Mart and Toys 'R Us bullying SOA around with unreasonable stock demands. This sparked internal strife between SOJ and SOA, which lasted up until Kalinske's resignation in 1996.

@Jag85: Not sure what that has to do with thr hardware design, but yes those are other problems they had.

@girlusocrazy: The point is that you can't take Tom Kalinske's claims at face value. He's telling half-truths and not the whole story. While his marketing tactics were undoubtedly instrumental in making the Sega Genesis a tremendous success in North America, he also wasn't very good at managing stocks and finances. That's why SOJ stopped listening to him. After his resignation in 1996, the internal strife between SOJ and SOA came to an end.

In terms of hardware design, the Saturn was a poorly designed piece of hardware, and SOJ are largely to blame for that. But Sega learnt their lessons from those mistakes. The Dreamcast was a brilliant piece of engineering with great hardware design. Not only did it deliver next-gen visuals and audio at an affordable price (costing just $199 in North America), but the hardware design was also scaled up for Sega's successful NAOMI line of arcade systems (which cost thousands). Sega made the right decisions with the Dreamcast hardware, but it was too late by that point.

@Jag85: That's not a great argument... "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." Give the guy some credit. When they did what he wanted, the console thrived. When they did what SOJ wanted, well we saw what happened. I'm definitely not calling the Dreamcast a terrible design though (except maybe the copy protection), but I do think the Saturn needed to be better.

Are you sure you're not getting "stock" and "stocks" mixed up because first you were talking about one and now you're talking about the other.

@girlusocrazy: You're still missing the point...

SOA’s posted profits in 1993, for example, were all washed away because it had to take extraordinary losses on returned stock later on. Those extraordinary losses came to $100 million or $200 million at a time.

SOA posted a financial loss in late 1993. This was right at the height of their success, with the Genesis being the market leader in North America. Yet all that success wasn't translating into profit. The whole point of a business is to make profit, which Kalinske was failing to generate. SOJ gave him a year to turn it around into profit, yet he failed to turn a profit again in 1994. That's why SOJ stopped listening to him.

FYI, I'm from the UK. We use "stock" and "stocks" interchangeably here. Where are you from? Do "stock" and "stocks" mean two different things in your country?

@Jag85: Ok.

Yeah "stock" means inventory, "stocks" means equity. The article you quoted before was talking about inventory, and then you were talking about managing equity.

@girlusocrazy: Like I said, "stock" and "stocks" are used interchangeably in British English. They mean the same thing in the UK. I didn't know they were two different words in American English (or whatever variant of English you speak). Either way, I was talking about inventory.

@Jag85: Ok

You're gonna let all this slide @last_lap?

@girlusocrazy: Let what slide?

@last_lap: Ah you hung up your Sega hat.

@girlusocrazy: You're giving me no context, why call upon me and not tell me what you're talking about?

@last_lap: Good point, sorry for wasting your time

It would be worse Nintendo is to family friendly

Wow, looks like a VCR