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Ken Kutaragi, known as the creator of the first PlayStation, stated on September 29 that contemporary video games have stagnated in content despite featuring increasingly better graphics and massive budgets. Speaking at the inauguration of a new video game study center at a Japanese university, the former Sony leader noted to students and industry professionals that video games generate more revenue than cinema and music, reaching approximately 186 billion dollars solely in software sales.
Despite these impressive market figures, Kutaragi believes the market has not reached its limit and significant room for innovation remains. However, his main critique targets how games are conceptualized today. He explained that content creation methods have barely changed since the era when he led the launch of the original PlayStation, meaning current games have grown in scale and visual quality while their core player offerings have stopped in time.
To counter this stagnation, Kutaragi advised new industry talent to develop cutting-edge technology to lead the market rather than merely following existing trends. He urged them to recapture the desire to change the world that drove the original PlayStation team and to maintain human curiosity as an essential tool for new ideas, warning that losing curiosity and ambition signals the end.
