Iwata - Kutaragi

[Mr Khan]

HappySqurriel said:

In many ways I believe that Kutaragi was a man who was in the right place at the right time, became remarkably successful, and was given an (undeserved) reputation as being a visionary ... He (unfortuately) believed the hype surrounding himself and allowed it to go to his head.

In contrast, Iwata took control of a company at a time when most people thought it was doomed because it was facing new competition in its most profitable segment (handhelds) and few people thought it could compete directly with Sony and Microsoft in the home console market. He brought the company to success by breaking from conventional wisdom and producing products that were drastically different than what people expected. Iwata is also a very modest man and is not going to fall into the same trap of hubris that other people have.

 

I agree with the first half of what you said. The PlayStation brand's success really has been about a stroke of luck giving them an early advantage, followed by their ability to cultivate that early advantage into long-term success. The PlayStation 1 was ideally positioned between the launches of the Saturn and the N64, and they took advantage of the mistakes of both (the Saturn being too hard to develop for, and the N64 being too costly to publish for) and ran it for a touchdown. With the PlayStation 2, they were again ideally positioned between the Dreamcast and the GC/Xbox in terms of launch window, and combined that with all the goodwill carrying over from the PS1, and really scored

 

Not saying it's a bad platform, or that they are inept, just that the stars really seemed to align for them in two straight generations.