within Sony, I think a lot of the leadership at the time didn’t take it seriously. They thought: ‘Oh my god, Sega and Nintendo own this thing [the console industry]. You think Sony’s going to come in sideways and try to divvy that thing up into a three piece pie?’ It was a ‘fool’s errand’, I think some of them might have even called it at the time. But [then-Sony president Norio] Ohga-san was a believer. A lot of people thought we were taking a risk. It was a fight to get the Sony name onto the machine - they didn’t want to be associated with it.
As a gamer back then, folks were super skeptical. Sony Imagesoft didn’t have a great track record mostly known for crappy film to game adaptations like 3 Ninjas Kickback, Bram Stokers Dracula and Cliffhanger.
The part of the interview about how Sony Music was able to get FFVII and their approach to marketing was really interesting also. Definitely a differentiating factor
Fascinating.
As a gamer back then, folks were super skeptical. Sony Imagesoft didn’t have a great track record mostly known for crappy film to game adaptations like 3 Ninjas Kickback, Bram Stokers Dracula and Cliffhanger.
https://youtu.be/J8DILAy40Bk
https://youtu.be/FmePcEtpaDw
“What do they know about games?” would be the same complaint levelled at Microsoft a few years later.
The part of the interview about how Sony Music was able to get FFVII and their approach to marketing was really interesting also. Definitely a differentiating factor