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[Lunatic_Gamer]

During an interview with Kyle Bosman on his YouTube channel, former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Shuhei Yoshida was asked about the company’s recognition of the importance of exclusive games back when the original PlayStation launched, and whether he was told that the console needed a certain number of titles in order to make it look special. In response, Yoshida said that the idea definitely came from the management group.

According to Yoshida, the management at Sony was very intent to grow first-party development. He mentioned that the company acquired studios like Psygnosis, maker of the WipEout series, in Europe. Meanwhile, in the US, Sony had a group of people doing sports games, such as 9 89 Studios. In Japan, however, the team was much smaller and mostly involved external development. They supported Yoshida in hiring people and growing the internal studios because they clearly knew that exclusive games are crucial to make the PlayStation platform successful.

The former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive was also asked about the first time he had a good idea as a producer. He recalled that, during the development of Crash Bandicoot, he had raised concern over the game being too difficult for the Japanese market. PlayStation hardware architect Mark Cerny served as the executive producer on the project at the time. Yoshida’s viewpoint led to Cerny making the Japanese version of Crash Bandicoot more accessible.

Shuhei Yoshida: Sony Knew Exclusive Games Were Crucial For Success Of PlayStation 1

Sony knew that exclusive games were crucial for the success of the original PlayStation console, as per former executive Shuhei Yoshida.

twistedvoxel.com

 

[nial]

None of this is news if you actually know about SCE. Probably not the case for the majority of people, though.

 

[awwr999999]

A whole list of factors crucial to the success of PlayStation and PS2 were abandoned with PS3.
Most of the remaining factors were killed off with the PS4's move to x86/AMD and abandoning XMB.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Ofcourse, Sony had basically nothing on the gaming side. They needed software, and fast. I think they made a string of very smart decisions, they courted Namco who was Sega's direct rival in the Arcade. This got them Tekken and Ridge Racer as early killer apps, which went head to head against VF and Daytona. And they looked better on console, not to mention Namco actually used this architecture in the arcade. In Europe they picked up Psygnosis, who were popular there and known for their technical prowess.

Sony was also much more forward thinking with development support than Sega and Nintendo were. In my opinion, those 2 were easy targets. They still operated in a bubble from the late 80's not to mention their self developing, publishing and strict rules scared away third parties. I guess Sony looked at them as to what not to do.

What Sony did very well in the long run, and for example MS didn't, is to slowly build a software empire and identity of their own. They acquired studios, and kept a lot of different IP running. But unlike Nintendo their presence isn't everywhere, the Playstation has been traditionally lucrative for third parties.

 

[Gamerguy84]

I remember seeing the PS1 on shelves and it surprised me.

I bought many Sony electronics like alarm clock, cordless phone, and stereo receivers but wondered about this. I went and picked it up after seeing warhawk..

Anyway of course to sell it you needed something you.couldnt get elsewhere.