is the former Chairman and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment (SCEI), the video game division of Sony Corporation. He is known as "The Father of the PlayStation", and its successors and spinoffs, including the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and the PlayStation 3.
Kutaragi was closely watched by financial analysts who trace
profiles of the losses and profits of the Sony Corporation. This
has been attributed to the
PlayStation
franchise's high profit returns for Sony; it has been the key
source of
profit for the
company.
Ken Kutaragi is currently CEO of
Cellius. He
also founded a new internet company.
Early years
Ken
Kutaragi was born in Tokyo
, Japan
. His
parents, although not wealthy by Japanese standards, still managed
to own their own business - they ran a small printing plant in the
city. As Kutaragi grew into childhood, they actively encouraged the
young boy to explore his mechanical abilities in the plant, and he
worked after school there. Aside from his duties in his parents'
factory, Kutaragi was a studious, high-level student; he was often
described as a "straight A++".
Kutaragi always had the desire to "tinker", often taking apart toys
as a child to see how they worked. This curiosity carried from
childhood, leading him as a teenager to learn the intricacies of
electronics.
Eventually, in fact, his love of electronics
led to him enrolling in Denki Tsushin University
, where he acquired an Electronics
degree.
Immediately after graduation, Kutaragi began working for
Sony in their digital research labs. Although at the
time it was considered a radical decision, Kutaragi felt that Sony
was on the "fast track". He quickly gained a reputation as an
excellent problem solver and a forward thinking engineer, earning
that reputation by working on many successful projects - including
early
liquid crystal displays
(LCDs) and
digital cameras.
Role in the gaming industry
In the late 1980s, he was watching his daughter play a
Famicom and realized the
potential that existed within video games. At that particular time,
Sony's executives had very little interest in video games. Thus,
when Nintendo expressed the need for a wave-table
sound chip for its upcoming new
16-bit system, Kutaragi immediately accepted. Working
in secret, he designed and built the chip, the
SPC700. When they found out, Sony's executives were
furious. Only with Sony
CEO
Norio Ohga's help was Kutaragi able to
push the project to completion and keep his job.
Even while working with Nintendo, within Sony, gaming was still
regarded as a fad and something looked down upon. Despite this
hostile atmosphere to video games, Kutaragi managed to persuade
Sony to fund his research into the
Super NES CD (the device
that would eventually become the
PlayStation). Despite being considered a risky
gamble by other Sony executives, Kutaragi once again had the
support of Sony CEO
Norio Ohga. The
success of the PlayStation led to him heading up the development of
more consoles like the
PlayStation 2,
and the latest console in the series, the
PlayStation 3.
The commercial success of the PlayStation franchise makes
Sony Computer Entertainment the
most profitable business division of
Sony.
Despite being an upstart in the console market against veterans
Nintendo and
Sega, the
first PlayStation displaced them both to become the most popular
console of that era. The PlayStation 2 extended Sony's lead in the
following
generation, at one point holding a 65%
market share with 100 million units shipped.
Ken was recognized by many financial and technological publications
for this success, most notably when he was named one of the 100
most influential people of 2004 in
TIME magazine and the
"Gutenberg of Video Games".
Since 1997, Kutaragi had been favoured to become the next Sony
president. He enjoyed a close relationship with Sony CEO
Norio Ohga, who had backed Kutaragi on the Sound
Chip and PlayStation projects. Ohga's successor
Nobuyuki Idei promoted Kutaragi to Deputy
Executive President,
Sony-Global
Chief operating officer, and
Vice-
Chairman in 2003. However on November
30, 2006, Kutaragi was replaced as President of Sony Computer
Entertainment by Kaz Hirai, the President of SCE America. Kutaragi
was promoted to chairman of SCEI, and retained his position as
chief executive officer of the group.On April 26, 2007 It was
announced that Kutaragi would retire and instead take up the role
of Honorary Chairman.
Assessment by industry analysts
Many analysts attributed his retirement to his speech at the
Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo, wherein he criticized Sony's
policy of using proprietary technologies.
Kutaragi implicitly
criticized the company's use of DRM technologies in reference to
Sony's failure to offer a compelling strategy to answer the rise of
Apple
Inc.
's iPod. This was seen as
a break within Japanese corporate culture since employees rarely
criticized their companies.
Although Kutaragi's leadership of consumer electronics was not
successful, analysts also suspect that outgoing Sony CEO
Nobuyuki Idei had set up Kutaragi to fail,
given that both men had a cool working relationship. Idei assigned
Kutaragi the tedious task of turning around the consumer division
which had already been falling behind competitors such as
Samsung in the
LCD market. Kutaragi's rival for the
top position,
Howard Stringer, was
given the less difficult assignment of the content business and his
success at
Sony BMG
resulted in his promotion.
Sony Computer
Entertainment, which Kutaragi has been heading since its
inception, had a weaker year in 2004 after several years of solid
growth. During that same year, Sony’s game sales fell to $7.5
billion from $8.2 billion, and its operating income slid to $650
million from $1 billion, losing $25 million in Q4 of 2004. This can
be attributed partially to the over-saturation of the video game
market and price wars which caused the PS2 to lose the top sales
position for a time.
Seventh generation game consoles
Kutaragi has labelled the
Xbox 360 as
"
just an Xbox 1.5" and stated that it was "
only going
after PlayStation 2". However, SCE Executive
Tetsuhiko Yasuda does not consider
Microsoft to be a competitor, and has said that
they might consider working on games together.
On September 8 2006 Kutaragi admitted that the shortage of
PlayStation 3 consoles to North America and Japan as well as the
postponing of the consoles debut in Europe put Sony's strength in
hardware in decline.
2006/2007 SCEI management shuffle
On
November 30,
2006, Kutaragi was replaced as President of Sony
Computer Entertainment by
Kaz Hirai, the
President of SCE America. In addition to other management changes,
Kutaragi was promoted to chairman of SCEI, and retained his
position as chief executive officer of the group.
On
April 26,
2007 It
was announced that Kutaragi would retire and instead take up the
role of Honorary Chairman. Taking over his position will be current
SCEI president and CEO Kaz Hirai, who had been promoted to
president and CEO.
See also
References
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
