Ken Kutaragi has stepped down from his position as director and chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment. Funnyman Kaz Hirai is being promoted from his position as President and Chief Operations Officer to President and CEO. The web will buzz with comments about this presto-change-o, so I just want to take a minute to offer my respects to the legacy of Kutaragi:
"Though sold as a game console, what will in fact enter the home is a Cell-based computer."
"[I]s it not nonsense to compare the charge for dinner at the company cafeteria with dinner at a fine restaurant? It’s a question of what you can do with that game machine. If you can have an amazing experience, we believe price is not a problem"
"PlayStation 3 will be capable running games at 120 fps."
"I believe we made the most beautiful thing in the world [with the PSP, despite its notorious square button problem]. Nobody would criticize a renowned architect’s blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong. It’s the same as that."
"Playstation 3 will be in 4D"
Thanks for the memories, Ken.
In other Sony news, a press release distributed yesterday reveals a minor flood (a couple feet, at least) of new content heading for the PS3’s marketplace. The content is available now, and includes playable demos of Ninja Gaiden Sigma (which is wholly awesome,) and Virtua Tennis, as well as new trailers and videos of upcoming games.
I was fortunate enough not to run into the game-mangling bug present in the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion, but many a gamer has been visited by the specter. Bethesda are hoping to release a patch to resolve the issue on 360 and PC by this Monday, April 30.
If you’re at all interested in the work of amateur game designers, the DigiPen institute has started posting the results of their student projects. More will be made available in the coming weeks. I always enjoy seeing what students and experimenters come up with. Who knows? One of these concepts could soon be acquired by Valve and make its way into the next episodic release for Half-Life. It has happened before.
Speaking of… experimentation, I guess, here’s a thing, courtesy Destructoid.
Have a good weekend. Nightcrawler and I will be spending some quality time together.