Bernie Stolar, Former President of Sega of America and SCEA Co-Founder, Dies at 75
Bernie Stolar, a former president of Sega of America and one of the founding members of Sony Computer Entertainment America, died at the age of 75.
As reported by VentureBeat, Stoller’s death was confirmed by his friends, including Jay Randy Gordon.
“I miss Bernie. I’m always grateful for pulling me into Adscape Media. The next time I play golf, I’ll have a toast at the clubhouse. Remember the expression in New York. Don’t joke. not.”
Image Credits: Bernie Stolar and Venture Beat
At SCEA, Stolar was the first Executive Vice President and was responsible for helping to secure the original PlayStation launch lineup. In particular, Strah helped sign franchises such as Crash Bandicoot, Ridge Racer, Oddworld Inhabitants, Spyro The Dragon, and Battle Arena Toshinden.
He looked like a big Sony player, but he was always afraid to be fired, so he chose to quit his job and move to Sega.
“I loved working at Sony,” Stolar told VentureBeat in 2015. But if I hadn’t lived for fear of being fired with everyone else, I wouldn’t have left Sony. “
This move took place in 1994 after he felt he was the “last man” and was offered to become the new president of the Sega of America. It didn’t take long for him to influence Sega, and one of his first moves was to shift the focus of the company from Saturn.
“When I got to Sega, I immediately said,” I have to kill Saturn. I have to stop Saturn and start building new technologies. ” That’s what I did. I invited a new team to clean the house. With around 300 employees, we reduced the company to 90 and started rebuilding, “said Stolar.
He was also one of the people responsible for the development and launch of Dreamcast, leading the acquisition of Visual Concepts and helping create 2K Sports. After “discussion with Japan”, he stayed at the company until 1999 and joined Mattel.
He was successful at Mattel by selling Barbie’s video games and stayed there until 2005. He then became an advisor and director of Adscape Media, and later sold the company to Google for $ 23 million.
Years before Google Stadia, Stolar tried to get Google into the gaming business. But former CEO Eric Schmidt wasn’t interested in going that route.
“I wasn’t interested in Google games at the time. I went to Eric Schmidt, CEO, and said,” Why don’t you advertise in all these games and offer them for free? ” Said. online? ‘He said, “We are not in the gaming industry.” “We are not in the game business. We are not developing games. We receive games from publishers and stream them over our online network.” He didn’t do that. At that time I thought I should leave the company. I started helping them preach, but I knew I had no future. “
Following Google, Stolar explored the world of startups and ran companies such as GetFugu, Zoom Platform, Jordan Freeman Group, and Cognitoys.
At the end of the 2015 Venture Beat interview, Stolar joked, “He could be the CEO’s grandfather who was advising.” When asked how long he would continue to work, he said he had no plans to brake.
“I say this. I told two people, Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch. Both are in their 80s. Both are billions. Sure, you don’t have to. It’s a job, isn’t it? And they both told me, “When you retire, you die.” His father died three months later when he sold a liquor store and quit his job. I will not stop. “
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Adam Bankhurst is an IGN news writer. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst from Cramps.
