Sony Games
Kutaragi, Japan's gaming Godzilla, helps Sony squash the competition
Sony is one of the largest consumer electronics companies with a long history in almost every consumer electronics market. They applied their considerable experience in consumer electronics in collaboration with then- incumbent gaming giant Nintendo. Sony was to help develop the SNES PlayStation, an add-on CD Rom drive for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Sony had already been working with Nintendo, creating the sound chip for the SNES. Sony and Nintendo decided to part ways on the project over a license dispute, and Sony was dropped.
However, a Sony researcher named Ken Kutaragi had a strong vision for how the future of gaming could look if only they'd abandon the plug-in cartridge in favor of the optical storage medium. Sony's Computer Entertainment division was born by the wit and hard work of Ken Kutaragi, who developed the first PlayStation. A true visionary in the world of electronic games, as president of Sony Computer Entertainment he made his division the most profitable in the company. No small feat inside a corporation with considerable clout in almost every conceivable aspect of consumer electronics, including media and entertainment.
PlayStation was finally released to Japan in December of 1994 and then almost a full year later to North America, selling over 100, 000 units in its first weekend of sale. The torrential popularity of the PlayStation was not good news for competition Sega Saturn. Sega had just released the most technically sophisticated gaming platform ever, even technically superior to PlayStation itself. Sega's Saturn failed to garner wide support of third party developers because it was difficult to program for, PlayStation on the other hand was the very opposite. An open approach to third- party developers where Sony takes developer input seriously and takes their advice on Sony architecture has been a unique cornerstone for the success of the Sony PlayStation.
Today, Sony's biggest competition is no longer the old timer's in the gaming market, Sega and Nintendo. Today it faces a new challenger, Microsoft. A company with equal resources to Sony, Microsoft is no small player in any market it dares play. But as a newcomer Microsoft, like Sony itself once upon a time, has its own vision of how gaming can look. Microsoft is creating a competing gaming platform that will veer slightly to the home entertainment and media functionality, while providing the finest console gaming support yet seen at the time of its release.
But when the Sony releases its PlayStation3 its Cell CPU will outdo even the Xbox 360 in processing power. When PS3 is released sometime in the first half of 2006 it will be the most advanced games system of its generation. It is unlikely that anything will come along to top it for many years. Besides just giving gamers the most advanced processing and graphics power, it will also integrate some of the most advanced technologies to date. PS3 will support double density Blu-Ray optical storage instead of a DVD Rom drive, a double density disc Blu-Ray disc will store 50Gigs of data. PS3 will feature two HDMI outputs for uncompressed high definition video and high resolution audio in Sony's own SACD format. Not to mention wireless peripherals compliments of Bluetooth technology.
Only time will tell what happens next in this struggle for market share in the video gaming community. The battle between Sony and Microsoft leaves gamers divided but the freedom of choice from this fierce competition is good for all regardless of what side you stand.