The former president of Sega of America, who oversaw the release of Dreamcast in 1999, has passed away. Bernie Stolar, 75, was also the founder of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which launched the PlayStation and several first-party games for it in 1995.
Stolar’s work at SCEA (now Sony Interactive Entertainment) has helped establish many franchises that continue today, including Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, and Ridge Racer. In the case of Sega, Stolar acquired Visual Concepts and announced the 2K Sports label (both later sold to Take-Two Interactive) in the NFL 2K and NBA 2K series.
Both were the basis of the 1999 Dreamcast release. Stolar is said to have focused its focus on the new console, from Sega Saturn, which rapidly lost market share in the United States, to the new PlayStation. Dreamcast was discontinued shortly in 2001 after losing to the PlayStation 2 in all other international markets, despite its strong performance in the United States and its fan base that still respects it.
Stolar joined the Sega of America (SOA) in 1997 and then took over from SOA president Tom Kalinske, who oversaw the rise of Sega Genesis and the company’s direct success with Nintendo in the early 1990s. Stolar was hired as a hardware consultant by Hayao Nakayama of Sega, who had frequent clashes before Karinsuke resigned. But when Nakayama was banished to Sega’s board, Strah was right behind him.
“I took the position of Sega based on a conversation with Hayao Nakayama, the chairman of the company at the time,” Strah said. Compliments published on Saturday By Dean Takahashi of Venture Beat. “We introduced and introduced a new hardware system to run online multiplayer games. That became Dreamcast. I led it. Unfortunately Nakayama [Isao] When Okawa was pushed out at the end of 1999, I also had a discussion with Japan. “
Stolar has been working for a variety of entertainment software ventures for the next 17 years, including Google, which acquired the company for which he was an advisor and board member. Stolar recalled Takahashi trying to get Google into the gaming business by “getting games from publishers and streaming them over an online network.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt wouldn’t do that, Strah said. “At that time, I thought I should leave the company.” 14 years later, Google started Stadia. This is a cloud gaming service where games from major publishers are streamed to users via Google’s Chrome web browser.
