Entering games with the PlayStation (1994)

A design philosophy that turned a rupture into a bet

The heart of this decision was to recast the misfortune of a break with Nintendo into a design philosophy of Sony’s own. The CD-ROM Sony chose was not merely a change of medium. Cheaper than a cartridge, larger in capacity and easy to copy, the optical disc lowered the burden on the outside studios that supplied software and became a vessel that drew in a wide range of titles. To gather people by the richness of software rather than compete on the power of the hardware — for a Sony that had watched Betamax lose to VHS on the number of titles, this was the reverse of its own lesson.

Still, the obsession of Ken Kutaragi, the man at the centre of the rupture, would not by itself have started the business. What overrode the internal caution that saw games as an extension of toys, and allowed a solo entry, was president Norio Ohga, who already held film and music inside the company. Good software cannot be mass-produced like a factory’s output — Ohga’s words mark the distance from the consumer-electronics habit of earning by mass-producing hardware. Which to place at the centre of earnings, hardware or software: to that theme Sony had pursued since the CBS and Columbia deals, the PlayStation gave a new answer in games, and it remains today the group’s largest business.