The good old days
At D.I.C.E. Summit 2014 this morning, PS4 system architect Mark Cerny fondly recalled the good old days in his talk with Raw Thrills’ Eugene Jarvis and Zynga’s Mark Turmell.
When asked to talk about the greatest innovations to gaming, Cerny picked the switch to optical media. He called the move from cartridges to discs a huge accomplishment, crediting former Sony CEO Ken Kutaragi for saving the day and helping the industry grow.
Cerny recalled that, for cartridge games, for every 40 dollars spent, they could spend about one dollar on the software itself, and the rest would be cartridge cost. When the switch to DVD came, Cerny said they were spending about 10 dollars now instead of 40. He said money was coming from the choice to go with cheaper optical media.
Jarvis shot back: “Dude, you’re so 90s.”
Cerny said he missed an even easier, earlier time. Recalling the early 1980s, he said that in these “simpler times” you had two competitors in your genre maximum, making your game’s success rate one-in-three.
“I do miss having that innate success rate,” Cerny said.