[Kolzig]

TOKYO, JAPAN, April 26, 2007 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) and Sony Corporation (Sony) have jointly announced today that Ken Kutaragi, Representative Director, Chairman and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., will retire from his executive position at SCEI effective June 19, 2007, when SCEI’s annual shareholders’ meeting will take place. Mr. Kutaragi will pass on the torch to the next generation, stepping back from his executive management responsibility of the company to serve as Honorary Chairman of SCEI.

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/070426e.pdf

[Intrepid Homoludens]

You reap what you sow, Ken. And in this case you definitely fucked up in how you sowed. Good luck to you and hope you learned from all this.

[eXo]

Sony floors me with their outright denial that anything has gone wrong, but head guyrs are retiring.

Sounds a lot like a certain administration....

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by eXo

Sony floors me with their outright denial that anything has gone wrong, but head guyrs are retiring.

Sounds a lot like a certain administration....

...and Enron (I just watched a documentary about that the other night on PBS).

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Kaz Hirai will probably be the next one up and out of the volcano.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

A poster over at Kotaku stated that Kutaragi was too far ahead of his time. I call bullshit on that. The truth is that, in this case, Kutaragi was stupidly unrealistic for his time.

[TangentBlack]

Ditto. This guy had his head in the stratosphere, sniffing some thin air.

[akane_t]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

A poster over at Kotaku stated that Kutaragi was too far ahead of his time. I call bullshit on that. The truth is that, in this case, Kutaragi was stupidly unrealistic for his time.

Kutaragi's known as the Father of Playstation for a good reason. When almost everyone both in and out of Sony was convinced that Sony's incapable of developing and marketing a gaming console and generating profit from it, he wasn't and did everything he could to get Sony involved in console gaming. His effort resulted in Playstation and the later Playstation 2. In the hey day, SCEI was the most profitable division within Sony, which is saying a lot considering how successful Sony has been for such a long time.

He did a lot for both Sony and gamers. It was Nintendo and its Famicom that introduced gaming to the mainstream public but it was Playstation that made a gaming console a fixture in most living rooms and Kutaragi was a big part of that. I get it that some of you think he grossly mishandled the development and marketing of Playstation 3 but it's unfair to call him stupidly unrealistic.

In case you didn't know, he started out as an engineer, not a some business exec with an MBA degree. While working for Sony, he designed and built SPC700, a sound chip used in Nintendo's SNES. SPC700 is designed so well it rivals today's wavetable sound cards after all these years. If you look at what he's been able to accomplish in his career, I'm not sure how anyone can say that he has his head up in the cloud.

[eXo]

doesn't change the fact he lost touch with reality

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by akane_t

Kutaragi's known as the Father of Playstation for a good reason. When almost everyone both in and out of Sony was convinced that Sony's incapable of developing and marketing a gaming console and generating profit from it, he wasn't and did everything he could to get Sony involved in console gaming. His effort resulted in Playstation and the later Playstation 2. In the hey day, SCEI was the most profitable division within Sony, which is saying a lot considering how successful Sony has been for such a long time.

He did a lot for both Sony and gamers. It was Nintendo and its Famicom that introduced gaming to the mainstream public but it was Playstation that made a gaming console a fixture in most living rooms and Kutaragi was a big part of that. I get it that some of you think he grossly mishandled the development and marketing of Playstation 3 but it's unfair to call him stupidly unrealistic.

In case you didn't know, he started out as an engineer, not a some business exec with an MBA degree. While working for Sony, he designed and built SPC700, a sound chip used in Nintendo's SNES. SPC700 is designed so well it rivals today's wavetable sound cards after all these years. If you look at what he's been able to accomplish in his career, I'm not sure how anyone can say that he has his head up in the cloud.

Thanks for the history lesson, but I already know a good deal about him. And like eXo stated, that doesn't change the fact that he beat himself with the stupid moron stick and ended up up costing Sony millions and millions and seriously fecking things up. If it makes you feel better, people of similar or higher stature have caused far more damage than he.

[stuboy]

Krazy Ken is moving to a new executive position in a small startup called Cell 3 in the East Wing of Bedlam Asylum, right next to Jack Thompson.

[XXJ]

Exclusive: Outgoing Sony exec Kutaragi already planning PS4
http://www.eetimes.com/rss/showArtic...leID=199202196

Mr Kutaragi is planning to
make a new world in Network...umm...

[eXo]

Maybe he can go back and perfect is "emotion engine" (LOOKS JUST LIKE TOY STORY!.. uh huh) and then add the life like AI promised by the CELL ARCHITECTURE. If he could just invent the SKIN engine and MOBILITY GENERATOR he could create a living breathing robot designed to play games, run blu-rays, and is even backwards compatible with toaster ovens.

Of course, the product will be so amazing 9ie: expensive) that people will say to themselves, "I will work extra hours just to own one of these!"

[TangentBlack]

Hahaha!

[Christian IV]

Changes come and go, and Kutaragi may have miscaculated and made errors as we all do, and consequences fall as they do, But, I would like to see kinder posting about him and anyone here and anywhere. IMHO

[Intrepid Homoludens]

And I were to tell you, Christian, that I am one of the shareholders of Sony?

[eXo]

Originally Posted by Christian IV

Changes come and go, and Kutaragi may have miscaculated and made errors as we all do, and consequences fall as they do, But, I would like to see kinder posting about him and anyone here and anywhere. IMHO

And I like cheese, but I see no cheese in this post.

[Dark Veil]

Originally Posted by eXo

And I like cheese, but I see no cheese in this post.

Now at least there is cheese in this thread. happy now?

[vanfanel]

Lost touch with reality is kinda over-stating here. Back in the days when ps2 started Sony lost touch with reality when a seemingly bad format –DVD was introduced. Back in the days everyone pointed fingers at sony for being too expensive. Well you know the story.

What we have at hand is a system that is still in infancy. There is a strong hardware with next generation multi-media support. It can really go both ways and generally media wasn’t kind. To put all blame on Ken is easy, and coincidentally he retires- which is unheard of right? But Sony as a company isn’t stupid. If they are investing so much money into the system surely they realize short term problems but must surely have some kind of long term goal.

To say ken lost touch with reality, implies that we all know how things should be done. I believe reality is shaped by dreamers and dreamers often dream ahead. akane_t thanks for your reflection of Ken. You guys are making Ken sound like insane dreamer who “fcked things up”. What are people pissed about? PS3 is expensive. Yep it is. Anything else? Too early to tell. Most of media outlets agree that Blue Ray is winning. It does not matter now but in 5 years, who knows? Technology changes at amazing rate. Back in the days nobody expected ps2 to succeed with its fancy DVD drive. I am not saying that DVD won thanks to Ps2, but it did become mainstream format.

If you guys blame Ken, well tell me, what was supposed to be different? Sony had a tradition of innovation –technological innovation. Ps with cd, ps2 dvd, ps3 BD. Sony believes into eye candy graphics, just like Microsoft. You guys aren’t bashing Microsoft because it is 100 dollars cheaper (a whole lot, eh?). ken was faced with obvious competition from XBOX which set as its mandate to improve everything upon they built-i.e graphics, performance and greater library of games and had to compete with methods he knew. Here is another thing, Ken was never a god of Sony. He alone did not have dictatorial powers. Projects need to be approved by shareholders and receive overall consensus. You guys make Ken an absolute monarch of Sony. His actions were actually quite predicable. BEAT XBOX. HOW? Same ammunition was loaded. Ken fired.

After a not so successful launch (Okay when 360 was launched with 6 games nobody cared. For first 4 months there were no games. Slowly things start going and one year later 360 looks in good shape) Ken happens to be retiring and naturally media and popular opinion will point finger at him and blame him for all disasters of ps3. From posts of most of people here, it seems you all knew what sony should have done and Ken was really out of touch? Was he? Can anybody prove it anyway?

I think Ps and PS2 were great consoles. Face it people you play it….. Ps3 is 6 months long and well it has just as many games as 360 had. IT is none of your business how much money Sony is losing over console. Be nice and enjoy your systems. Ken is a visionary. He comes up with concept, people debate, concept becomes a project. While I don’t think it is fair to call one person a father of project Ken did contribute to the future of gaming. His visions may not be same as yours (AKA Nintendo) but I believe that visionaries like him drive progress and progress is very much needed in this world (just look at adventure games). While progress costs money and it is very dangerous, so far in the long run it was worth it.

I kinda sidetracked there but I think people are being wayyy out of touch when they say things like “ken fcked things up” (are people allowed to swear here anyway). Like you know any better.

[SoccerDude28]

I think Ken had his ups and downs while working for Sony, and he did some smart things, and probably some not so smart, but the fact that the PS3 isn't doing as great as its predecessors is not solely his fault. First of all, the Playstation 2 did not have as much competition as the PS3 did. Yes there was Sega and Nintendo, but they are nothing compared to the marketting power and the resources of Microsoft.

I don't think that the price of the PS3 is solely Ken's fault either. Let's face it, the PS3 is $600 because of the blu-ray drive. Was it Ken's decision to include a blu-ray or was it the choice of Sony as a company to kill 2 birds in one, and use the PS3 as both a gaming console and pushing the blu-ray format? Did Ken have a say? I am not so sure he did.

But he definitely chose the cell which is a more controversial decision, and might hurt Sony's third party support a little due to the complexity of the PS3's hardware. He also needed to work on his PR skills, because he always seemed to come out as an arrogant, snobbish, corporate git instead of a more pleasant guy, and he definitely needed to go after the third party support more aggressively.