Bernie Stolar, founder of Sony Computer Entertainment America and SEGA America, has died at the age of 75. It will have been at the origin of great moments in the life of these two iconic video game companies.
Bernie (real name Bernard) Stolar passed away a few hours ago at the age of 75. An illustrious member of the video game scene responsible for some very nice things within the two Japanese companies.
Bernie Stolar, a legend, is dead
It was Dean Takahashi, journalist for VentureBeat, who relayed the sad news after being in contact with relatives of Bernie Stolar.
After his time at Atari as a supervisor on the Lynx handheld console, he was poached by Sony and was a founding member of Sony Computer Entertainment America. The American branch of PlayStation in other words. A very remarkable passage since it is to him that we owe legendary franchises. Crash Bandicoot, Ridge Racer, Spyro the Dragon or even Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey, it is also thanks to him. 3D titles that were intended to dismantle the power of the PS1, a major goal for Stolar. So much so that he had established a policy not to develop RPGs, the latter being, at the time, in 2D.
His arrival at SEGA America
Why did he end up leaving Sony Computer Entertainment America? Due to a wave of layoffs. He was afraid of being next in line and preferred to accept an offer from SEGA America.
I loved working for Sony. I absolutely loved it. But when the opportunity arose to go to SEGA to help them relaunch and offer a new machine, I was very interested. I wouldn’t have left Sony if I hadn’t lived in fear of getting fired like everyone else. That’s what happened next, I got worried. Everyone was getting fired. I felt like the last one left. After Tom Kalinske left, I was offered the presidency of SEGA of America.
When I got there, I immediately said ” We have to kill the Saturn. We have to stop the Saturn and start designing a new machine “. That’s what I did. I cleaned up and brought in a new team of people. There were about 300 employees and I reduced the company to 90 employees to begin the restructuring.
This console is the Dreamcast. Bernie Stolar was (again) noticed with the announcement of the Dreamcast at a price of 199 dollars.