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Game preparation exercise! One! Two!
Three! Four! Five!
Six! Wow!
I was still quite new, perhaps not even a month had passed since my hiring
when the atmosphere felt very different than usual as I arrived at work one day.
I thought that something must have happened that would change everything
bring about the end of an era.
I asked what had happened, and was told that we had been informed that
Nintendo had decided to go it alone
Even when the joint project
with Nintendo was canceled
Kutaragi-san said that we at Sony
should make the system ourselves.
Something that Kutaragi-san said then
something that influences me even now
is that we may not have the greatest chance at success
but it's not like failing here would cost us our lives or anything
so we should just go for it.
I joined the PlayStation team in December 1992
It had been decided that we would build
a device producing superior 3D graphics.
Sony brought in engineers and researchers.
My main mission there, of course
was to make games for this new PlayStation console
as I was there working on the software team.
The entire PlayStation team was really quite small
including the hardware team, the software team, everyone
with various people taking care of various tasks.
PlayStation came from the word "work station"
a computer with a large screen
and multiple programs installed
so the user can do a variety of work.
These aren't specialist devices.
Similarly, the PlayStation would
be able to play a variety of games.
We wanted to do not just games
but also work with music and communications.
The name of the device became PlayStation. Given these requests
I went along with them, meeting all these developers and other employees
and my role there was to take notes for everyone.
That was before everything.
When the PlayStation had just got its start as a business
these meetings were very important for Sony.
I think that my name is probably on each set of notes there.
That was another one of my jobs then.
Sony gave us this demonstration of a dinosaur. It was a T-rex head.
And they told us how it would move around in real-time CG.
Of course, we were making games at the time, but we were also film fans,
and the CG in Jurassic Park had made a huge impact.
To see the same kind of visual depictions from Jurassic Park,
actually moving around in Sony's Tyrannosaurus demo,
on this platform called PlayStation.
That left a very lasting impression on us.
How many colours you could use
was always a question then.
Moving into an era
where you could use all these colours
as well as polygons and textures
really was like a dream to me.
If felt that if I could do all that
then I could make the 3D Metal Gear
that I had wanted to
since the days of the MSX but was unable to.
Though changing the coloring was a scary idea.
When I saw the PlayStation presentation
I saw that I would be able
to make the game that I really wanted
with a full set of colours and polygons.
That idea was really shocking to me.
I mean in a positive sense of the word.
When I heard that Sony,
a company known for audio and electronics equipment,
was making a game console,
I was both excited and anxious to see what they would come up with.
Then when I saw this machine
with its CD-ROM drive,
and the 3D polygon visuals,
it was a completely different approach to what had come before
and revolutionized the industry.
I think if Sony had not entered the console market at that time
then it would be totally different today.
When I saw what they came up with,
with the CD-ROMs and the polygons,
it felt like a brand new approach to games.
Yes, I remember at the time,
being asked to demo a sample
to various development companies.
This was met with some shock and awe.
Reactions such as, 'wow, they can really do this...'
I was aware at the time that other companies
had studied the demo really closely.
I think that it was a massive success, as a sample.
We learned what we can do with hard work.
We needed to make better games, and so did Namco.
I think that this was a great development.
The initial SDK was certainly quite large
around this size, and it was heavy too.
Sony sent it to the game companies in March of 1993.
A number of game companies said
that they wouldn't be able
to make games for the PlayStation
if Sony didn't have the SDK out
by the final day of March.
And so it wound up
that the final day of March was our due date.
I remember us completing and delivering it.
The machines were hand-made
and we couldn't send them
via a home delivery service
due to their weight, size
and large power source.
This meant that we delivered them ourselves
taking taxis and bullet trains to do so.
3 or 4 of those were around 30 kg
but we brought them to the game companies.
There were actually some people
that flew all the way to the US with them.
Capcom had only very recently started using 3D graphics
so we began our work by first thinking
about how we could go about using them.
Our benchmark was that T-Rex demo that Sony came out with.
We took quite a number of approaches
from working as hard as we could to replicate what they had put out
to thinking that it would actually be a bad move
to approach Resident Evil like they did T-Rex.
We really were starting from zero there.
It just wouldn't display
so the idea of going full 3D
just wasn't going to get much traction.
With things going like this
it started feeling like it could get canceled.
When Alone in the Dark came out
it had a large quantity
of pre-rendered graphics displayed.
The only object was the character itself.
From the player perspective
the game had a three-dimensional atmosphere
and all of this demonstrated
that it was now possible
to create a more complete game
including visually.
From there, we steadily moved onto animation methods.
By deciding to use camerawork to show a 3D space in 2D,
Mikami-san established the blueprint for what would become Resident Evil.
Essentially, the idea was
that there would be zombies
that were located in places
that the camera didn't reach.
The player couldn't see them
but they could hear them.
There was a certain scariness
in zombies being out of sight.
This type of fear was sort of
the main concept for the game.
I imagined the player
growing very jumpy about everything
and being on the edge of their seat.
Where they would be able to sense
that there was a zombie
just around the corner.
The camera marks...
Well, I did set the cameras,
but I didn't have any experience shooting with a real camera.
I started learning from step one,
imagining how a player going through a corridor would feel,
which camera angles would frighten them.
That's how I went about it.
If we get down to the technical details,
a single room could only have 8 cameras...
You really remember this well!
Due to reasons of memory capacity.
This doubled to 16 for Resident Evil 2.
There were just 8 for the first game.
You only had so many cuts
and you had to make the game playable,
without leaving any blind spots in the room where the character can't be seen.
Gameplay and cut scenes were separate.
Cut scenes were like movie scenes
with the characters and backgrounds
being entirely rendered separately.
I didn't want to do it like this.
I wanted to make cut scenes
that used the game models as they were
to use those models and the camera
to tell a story to the player.
That is what I wanted to do.
There was also the player being able
to control the camera as they played.
There could be rear or side view
3 cameras above that the player
could use to control the display
and give them a sense of control.
They could change things themselves
which made for richer gameplay
that was more film-like.
These are two ideas
that I had wanted to work on
when we made Metal Gear Solid.
It could be said that these have
turned into a sort of standard for us.
Even though some film-like techniques
or cuts had been used in games up until then
the lack of camera meant each frame
had to be created individually.
These images couldn't be manipulated.
That's how it was then.
Where 3D polygons are used
the player can also move the camera.
This was the first time that we were
able to work with cameras like this
rather than just set angles.
This made me extremely happy
as I love movies and knew
about these techniques and ideas
and we could now use these processes
to accomplish previously impossible things
Of course, in the beginning,
most people were used to playing 2D games.
The tempo of these games was very different.
With the shift to 3D,
what were 2D images, now had depth.
Consequently, the camera became pivotal
and it was down to the player to gauge distances.
It was very difficult for a player
to work out timings and when to brake
until they got used to it.
With earlier games,
it was easy for players to follow the extension of a straight line,
so we made adjustments with the 3D games to keep them interesting.
For example, when taking a corner,
centripetal force acting on the car
pulls it out around the curve,
SO we wrote a program to intentionally
pull the car back in and control its movements.
When it came to deciding what kind of game
we ultimately wanted to make FINAL FANTASY VII into,
we felt that it needed a large volume
of high-end movie cut scenes.
Not the real-time 3D graphics in the game, but pre-rendered movies,
and CD-ROM media
would be needed for that.
We had decided what we most wanted to do with the game,
and concluded that
we would need to use CD-ROM to make that a reality.
Our tests and discussions led to that result.
And that resulted in FINAL FANTASY VI
coming out on the PlayStation.
The PlayStation was the first console
that could use pulse-code modulation.
That's where sound is recorded and a sample loop created
with that loop being played afterwards as the sound.
To record the car sounds in Gran Turismo, we'd rent each one
and then record the engine in phrases, starting with the idling sounds
We took these recordings and made sample loops for each engine
making a tone quality specific to each engine.
I remember now that when we played back
the cars sounds we had recorded
We started noticing things.
Like how the pitches would drop in pitch the farther away they were.
Or rise in pitch the closer they were... the blur effect.
Gran Turismo was probably the first game to put these in a game, certainly.
In the SNES era, the game screens were 2D,
and there were no voices of course,
and no cinematic movie scenes.
So you had to have music with strong melodies.
Tunes that would still stand up,
even if you listened to them repeated over and over.
I think our music composer,
Mr. Uematsu was also suitably aware of this when he composed the score.
Mr. Uematsu said this at the time.
When the CG animation became more 3D with the PlayStation,
and the cinematic movie scenes became more dramatic,
the visuals had a much greater impact.
And paradoxically, if you used the same melodies,
the same logic for making music as in the SNES era,
then the music and the visuals would jar, and clash with each other terribly.
This would stop the scene from coming together and lose its effectiveness.
So when we showed strong visuals, we would make the music more reserved,
or for moments where the characters' emotions were high,
we would ramp up the music.
I remember feeling how that balancing between
soft and hard had changed from the SNES era.
So in the field of music too,
the way games used music had become closer to film or video,
the way background music is added in films.
I think the way games were made probably changed to have an awareness of that.
Of Namco's polygon games at that time,
our game became the model for many other companies.
I've heard that said often.
I don't think this was because the design was interesting.
Rather, it was the paradigm shift in polygon technology,
from a 2D to a 3D world.
It was this intense evolution of polygon technology
which brought about our success.
With CD-ROMs you can manufacture
a certain number in a week
so in order to ship large quantities
you needed to begin the process ahead of time
and build up your stored copies.
Game companies want to spend
as much time as they can on development
so they like to wait until the final week
before beginning production.
There could also be bugs in the game
so both Sony and the publishing company
need to test for that.
Sony has several dozen people do this.
But this was Sony's first game console
so they had no idea how to test for these things.
We created the system for this
hired the personnel
and carried it out
all in the final three months before release.
There were a lot of things that we had to do
during those final three months
that were new for us at Sony.
The maximum number of units
for a Sony product
such as the Walkman
on the day of release
was 5,000 or 6,000 units.
If you wanted to put out 20,000 units
you would be told that it was too many
The idea was to begin production slowly.
Sony couldn't move slowly with a game console.
Companies were getting ready to release games.
Hardware has no value without its software
so if a company is aiming to publish
100,000 copies of a title
then at a minimum
you need 100,000 consoles ready.
Given this, we needed to produce the PlayStation
In mass quantity, right from the beginning.
This was completely different
than Sony's usual approach at the time.
Also, we needed to have the consoles
delivered to stores all on the same day
in order to stimulate game sales.
All games gather here.
Full of games, PlayStation. Out now.
Three, two, one, go!
Before the PlayStation was released as a home console,
work was already underway on Namco's System 11 arcade board.
This board incorporated some of the PlayStation architecture,
such as the CPU, which was developed by Mr. Kutaragi's team.
What Namco was most surprised by
was the cost, how cheap it was.
To be able to make something with that capability
for that price, was pretty surprising.
What Mr. Kutaragi was trying to do at that time,
by making a low cost polygon chip
available to the global market,
marked a paradigm shift in the polygon era.
Although Namco had a board
with better polygon technology and capabilities,
this was an interesting business model for us,
and we continued to work with Mr. Kutaragi.
The process of moving from loo to Shadow of the Colossus
wasn't entirely smooth.
Personally, I was happy with Ico
and players were happy with it too
Take lighting as an example
a lot of video imagery at that time
was not preoccupied with shadow and contrast
there was a lot of pre-rendered and CG video around
and games with loud and flashy graphics
I was interested in more subtle approaches
to shades and tones that were closer to reality
I think that's what differentiated us at that time
but it wasn't a great commercial success
so I came up with Shadow of the Colossus
But whether it's the story, the backdrop, the movement
it's all about making the player believe the characters are real
that they exist for real in that world
for me, that's what it's all about it
The most effective way of bringing characters to life
is through the story of that world
I always incorporate a story in my games
but I don't necessarily create games to tell stories
The significance of PlayStation
For me personally
I feel I was able to become a games designer and developer
because of PlayStation
I think that VR will be a major shift.
In the games up until the present
all of the video, screens, etc.
Have been put into a square layout
that is there to hold information.
We've had film as a medium
for over 100 years now and this is the first time
that we've broken through this frame.
Being able to now create art, film, and games
that don't fit into this frame,
and the question
of how to go about expressing this...
I think that the next 2 to 3 years
will major for this medium
in terms of how creators and artists
will use it, and what they will create.
I think that Sony put together
a fantastic team for the PlayStation.
They had members from both Sony and Sony Music
two entirely different teams.
And there were people like me
coming from outside of Sony.
All three types of members
put their heads together for the PlayStation.
This incredible product
would never have been created
if Sony hadn't decided on making the PlayStation
A lot of people from different fields
were able to come together
and work on gaming hardware.
The biggest thing I took away from it
was being able to participate in this.
When I first joined the PlayStation team I was in my early 20s
and one thing that everyone was talking about then
was the desire to make playing video games a cooler activity.
Everyone was saying that.
This was one of the goals in making the PlayStation.
Perhaps then, it's fair to say
that their goals have come true now.
Video games are definitely a normal part of our lifestyle now.
The fact that adults can play them without feeling self-conscious
is a pretty major effect that the PlayStation
has had on us, wouldn't you say?
I personally feel that this is so.