PlayStation Legend, Dreamcast Co-Creator Bernie Stolar Has Died Aged 75
Bernie Stolar, one of the geniuses behind Dreamcast and the original PlayStation, has passed away. He was 75 years of age.
Friends of the game industry icon revealed the sad news that Stolar had died over the weekend. However, the cause of his death remains a mystery.
Stolar was the president and chief operating office at SEGA of America where he managed the Dreamcast’s development. He was previously executive vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment. He was also instrumental in the launch of many beloved PlayStation franchises such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro Ridge Racer.
Stolar spoke to GamesBeatback 2015 and said that he enjoyed working at Sony but couldn’t refuse the opportunity to join SEGA to help create new hardware.
He explained that he loved working at Sony. I loved it. When the chance presented itself to help SEGA rebuild the company and develop new hardware, I was keen to do it. I was immediately convinced that Saturn must be destroyed when I arrived at SEGA. We must stop Saturn and build the new technology. That’s exactly what I did.
Stolar was ultimately responsible for the Dreamcast’s launch in 1998. The Dreamcast would sell over nine million units. After overseeing the acquisition of Visual Concepts he founded 2K Sports. This company continues to produce NBA 2K as well as other major sports games.
Stolar moved to Adscape Media in 2015, which was later purchased by Google. Stolar stated to GamesBeat that there was no interested in games at Google at that time. “I went to Eric Schmidt, the Chief Executive Officer of Google, and asked him why not put advertising in all these games, and give them away free online? He replied that he wasn’t in the game industry. We’re not developing games. We are taking games from publishers and streaming them through our online network. He won’t. This was when I realized I had to leave the company. I was able to help them with evangelism, but it was clear that there was no way for me.”
