Tokyo, 1990s. A dad watches his daughter play Nintendo and has an epiphany: those crackling sounds could be so much better. That man's name is ken kutaragi and his obsession with audio quality would change the world of gaming forever, creating the history of the PlayStation.
He doesn't know it yet, but that chip he's secretly designing will take him straight to Nintendo, in a battle that will end with the most sensational betrayal in the history of gaming. And from the ashes of that affront will be born the console that will transform Sony from a manufacturer of walkman in the empress of video games.
The engineer who felt the future in pixels
It's 1988 when the magic really begins. Ken Kutaragi, a Sony engineer with a passion for electronics, watches his daughter having fun with the Famicom Nintendo. But what strikes Ken are not the games: it is the poor audio coming out of that little gray box. “I can do better,” he thinks. And so, secretly from his superiors (who consider video games little more than worthless toys), he begins to work on an audio chip that will change everything: theSPC-700.
Sony at the time produced Walkmans and televisions, not video game consoles. When executives discovered Kutaragi's secret project, they almost threw him out. But the president Norio ohga has a different vision: understands the potential of that young engineer and allows him to continue. It is the beginning of the history of the PlayStation: a history that no one could have imagined.
The Great Betrayal of CES 1991
Nintendo agrees to use Kutaragi’s chip for the Super Nintendo. A partnership is born that should lead to the creation of the “Nintendo PlayStation”: a hybrid console capable of reading both cartridges and CD-ROMs. But behind the scenes a Shakespearean tragedy worthy of the best soap operas is unfolding.
Il 28 May 1991, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Sony proudly announces its collaboration with Nintendo. The next day, in what has been called “the greatest betrayal in the history of the industry”, Nintendo takes the stage and reveals that it has signed a deal with Philips, abandoning Sony like a girlfriend on the phone.
The humiliation is public, burning. Kutaragi and Ohga cannot stomach the affront. It is as if the Beatles had fired Paul McCartney during the performance at theEd Sullivan Show. Only this time, Paul decides to form an even bigger band.
Revenge is served cold (but with 3D graphics)
When everyone closes their doors to you, build your own building and make it the place where the world will want to come in.
ken kutaragi
Ohga, furious at the betrayal, tells Kutaragi the words that will change history: "Just do it!". It's not Nike, you read that right: it's Sony. And Ken doesn't need to be told twice.
Thus was born the PlayStation, initially called PS-X in memory of the Nintendo affront. As highlighted in this analysis of the evolution of gaming, the Sony console arrives at the perfect time: the world is ready for the transition from pixels to polygons, from cartridges to CD-ROMs.
Why PlayStation Makes History: When Toys Become Art
Il 3 December 1994 The PlayStation debuts in Japan. It's not just a console; it's a declaration of cultural war. Where Nintendo and Sega target children, Sony targets teenagers and adults. It's the democratization of gaming: the video game equivalent of rock 'n' roll.
The games that accompany the launch are not simple pastimes: they are experiences. Ridge racer turns racing into pure adrenaline, Tekken elevates fighting games to violent ballet. And then comes Metal Gear Solid, which transforms video games into interactive cinema. And I fall in love too, as I think many of you do.
The empire that was born from an insult
The history of PlayStation is proof that sometimes the best comebacks come from the darkest moments. Ken Kutaragi, called “the Gutenberg of video games” by Time Magazine, transformed a betrayal into an empire of over 500 million consoles sold.
PlayStation changed the very language of entertainment. It brought video games into homes around the world, transforming them from a geek niche to a mass phenomenon. It anticipated Netflix with its CD-ROMs, it preached digital entertainment when the world still bought cassettes.
But most of all, PlayStation proved a universal truth: when someone slams the door in your face, you don't knock any harder. You build a better house and wait for them to come knocking. Ken Kutaragi did it, and the whole world came to play.
