Bernie Stolar, founder of Sony Computer Entertainment America and SEGA America, has died at the age of 75. It will have been the origin of great moments in the life of these two legendary video game companies.
Bernie (real name Bernard) Stolar passed away a few hours ago at the age of 75. An illustrious member of the video game scene who is responsible for some very nice things within the two Japanese companies.
Bernie Stolar, a legend, is dead
This is Dean Takahashi, journalist for VentureBeatwho broke the sad news after contacting relatives of Bernie Stolar.
After his time at Atari as a supervisor on the Lynx handheld console, he was poached from Sony and was a founding member of Sony Computer Entertainment America. In other words, the American branch of PlayStation. A very remarkable passage as we owe him legendary franchises. Crash Bandicoot, Ridge Racer, Spyro the Dragon or even Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey also have him to thank. 3D titles that should drain the PS1’s performance, a big goal for Stolar. So much so that he had established a policy not to develop RPGs, the latter being in 2D at the time.
His arrival at SEGA America
Why did he leave Sony Computer Entertainment America? Because of a wave of layoffs. Afraid of being next in line, he accepted an offer from SEGA America.
I loved working for Sony. I absolutely loved it. But when the opportunity arose to go to SEGA to help them relaunch and offer a new machine, I was very interested. I wouldn’t have left Sony if I wasn’t afraid of being fired like everyone else. This happened next, I was worried. Everyone got fired. I felt like the last one left. After Tom Kalinske left, I was offered the presidency of SEGA of America.
When I got there I immediately said ” We must kill Saturn. We need to stop Saturn and start designing a new machine “. That’s what I did. I cleaned up and brought in a new team of people. There were about 300 employees and I reduced the company to 90 employees to start restructuring.
That console is the Dreamcast. Bernie Stolar caught the eye (again) by announcing the $199 Dreamcast.
