Bernie Stolar, an executive at Sony and Sega of America, who played a key role in the development and marketing of video game consoles in the 1990s, including the original PlayStation and Sega’s Dreamcast, died in Los Angeles on June 22. rice field. He was 75 years old.
Jordan Freeman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer Zoom platformA video game company chaired by Mr. Stoller confirmed his death, but he said it was the result of a long illness.
The 1990s were an era of fierce competition and rapid technological advancement in the video game industry. Stolar is at the heart of an ever-changing scene, breaking the hearts of others who are obsessed with a particular system or game type, but making a bold decision to win praise from some. did.
From 1993 to 1996, he was Executive Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment America when Sony was developing the original PlayStation for sale in the United States in September 1995. At that time, Nintendo and Sega dominated the market, but the PlayStation was an equation.
For one, the PlayStation was $ 299, $ 100 below the competing Sega Saturn. And Strah spurred a complex role-playing game. We thought this would appeal to a relatively small and nerdy customer group in favor of action-heavy titles like Mortal Kombat 3.
The PlayStation was a hit, but Stolar was a short-term resident of Sony. In 1996 he moved to Sega as President of Sega of America. He immediately killed Sega Saturn, but fans of the system were greatly disappointed.
“I had a headache to save Saturn, but it was overkill, too expensive, and difficult to develop,” Stolar told the 2018 blog The Dreamcast Junkyard. With the new console they needed it quickly. The only option was to grow up or go home. “
His idea of growing was the Dreamcast console, which was to provide 128-bit processing when the competition was still 64.
“Dreamcast is Sega’s bridge to global market leadership in the 21st century,” he told Otawa Citizen in 1998, a year before Dreamcast was released in the United States.
But Mr. Strah was not part of that future at Sega. It turned out not as expected anyway. Shortly before Dreamcast went on sale, he was banished in one of the lasting shake-ups that regularly make a noise in the video game industry. Still, Dreamcast was in the spotlight, at least while it was hot.
“Its power as a game console is unmatched, except for high-end personal computers, which cost more than 10 times,” Peter H. Lewis wrote in a review of the New York Times that month. The current market leader, Sony PlayStation, looks grainy and jerky. Dreamcast is the closest thing to an arcade-quality gaming experience you can experience at home. “
Dean TakahashiThe lead writer of the website GamesBeat has interviewed Stolar several times over the years.
“Burney Strah’s personality and keen wit have uniquely refreshed him in the increasingly commercialized world of video games,” Takahashi said in an email.
Takahashi said Strah didn’t chop up the words because he tried to overturn the status quo of game hardware. “The results were often cheerful,” he added, “and it made me happy to be a reporter at the time.”
Stolar was born on October 9, 1946. Forbes Obituary.. Information about his early life and his survivors was not immediately available.
He started video games in 1980 when he helped Brian Semler start Pacific Novelty Manufacturing, which developed the coin-operated arcade game. Among its biggest hits was a game called Shark Attack. In this game, the player is a shark trying to dodge a scuba diver trying to kill a shark.
A few years later, Mr. Strah and Mr. Zemler sold the company to Atari.
“We sold the company in stock, so we thought we were geniuses,” Stolar told GamesBeat in 2015.
In the early 1990s, after Atari’s resurrection, Mr. Strah spent a few years there as an executive there. He joined Sony in 1993 and Sega in 1996.
The Sega Dreamcast was initially strong. However, the introduction of PlayStation 2 in 2000 became unattractive, and Sega’s hope of returning to the top of the mountain of video games diminished. Mr. Strah left Sega in 1999 and joined Mattel in 2000. He has led the Interactive Division for almost three years. He joined the Zoom Platform in 2014, collaborating with several other start-ups over the next decade. The platform sells “old games to play on the new system,” according to Twitter accounts.
Freeman said Strah was eager to help him.
“I met Bernie when I was 16 and he had no reason to agree to meet me, but he took advantage of that opportunity,” Freeman said in an email. .. “He gave everyone an opportunity. He was a mentor’s paragon for everyone who knew him.”
