Former SIE CEO and “Father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi says no one, not even Sony, believed the PS1 would succeed

As it turns out, Sony wasn’t particularly confident in the performance of the original PlayStation.

As it stands, the original PlayStation is the sixth best-selling console of all time. It’s not as popular as the PS4 or the number one console, the beloved PS2, but it’s still a very impressive feat. Despite sales reaching 102.49 million copies, according to former Sony SIE CEO and “Father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi, Sony actually didn’t have much confidence in the console before it actually launched. , and neither did anyone else. Kutaragi recently appeared at the official Tokyo Game Show 2024 keynote, where he talked about preparations for the console’s launch (thanks, GamesRadar ).

“We want to share our enthusiasm. We want to hear what they expected and what they didn’t expect, so we want to hear their opinions,” Kutaragi shared. “So we visited dozens, if not hundreds, of companies, we visited a lot of game makers, and it’s a great memory… They weren’t interested at all. They just said, ‘Don’t do it. There are multiple companies But none of them would succeed. That’s what they told us.” Today, 30 years later, Kutaragi and the rest of the team were obviously right to press on with the work, but it’s still strange to imagine so many people saying not to.

Kutaragi continued, “Even within Sony, no one believed we would succeed.” At the time, Sony was clearly a technology company, particularly a music-oriented business, and as such it wasn’t exactly anchored by the still-rather-young media philosophy. Selling point, this is not surprising.

Of course, now that Sony is celebrating PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, it’s launching a special bundle that immediately sold out, with scalpers selling their hard-earned prizes on eBay for ridiculous prices. Happy birthday, PlayStation!