Bernard Stolar, Influential Video Game Executive, Dies at 75

Bernard Stolar, who as an government at Sony after which at Sega of America performed an vital position within the improvement and advertising and marketing of the online game consoles of the Nineteen Nineties, together with the unique PlayStation and Sega’s Dreamcast, died on June 22 in Los Angeles. He was 75.

Jordan Freeman, founder and chief government of Zoom Platform, a online game firm for which Mr. Stolar served as government chairman, confirmed his demise, which he mentioned resulted from a protracted sickness.

The Nineteen Nineties had been a time of intense competitors and speedy technological development within the online game business. Mr. Stolar was on the coronary heart of the ever-changing scene, making daring selections that drew admiration from some however broke the hearts of others, who had been enamored of specific programs or varieties of video games.

He was an government vp at Sony Laptop Leisure America from 1993 to 1996, when Sony was growing the unique PlayStation, which was launched in the USA in September 1995. Nintendo and Sega had been dominating the market on the time, however PlayStation modified the equation.

For one factor, at $299, PlayStation, undercut the competing Sega Saturn by $100. And Mr. Stolar spurned advanced role-playing video games, which he thought appealed to a comparatively small and nerdy group of shoppers, in favor of action-heavy titles like Mortal Kombat 3.

PlayStation was successful, however Mr. Stolar was a short-timer at Sony: In 1996 he moved to Sega as president of Sega of America. He rapidly killed off the Sega Saturn, a lot to the dismay of followers of that system.

“I racked my mind on a solution to salvage Saturn, nevertheless it was simply too far gone and too costly and troublesome to develop for,” Mr. Stolar instructed the weblog The Dreamcast Junkyard in 2018. “Sega was almost bankrupt, they wanted a brand new console and so they wanted it fast. The one choices had been to go huge or go house.”

His concept of going huge was the Dreamcast console, which was to supply 128-bit processing when the competitors was nonetheless at 64.

“Dreamcast is Sega’s bridge to worldwide market management for the twenty first century,” he instructed The Ottawa Citizen in 1998, a yr earlier than Dreamcast was launched in the USA.

However Mr. Stolar wasn’t a part of that future at Sega, which turned out to not be fairly as predicted anyway. Shortly earlier than Dreamcast went on sale, he was ousted in one of many perpetual shake-ups that commonly roil the online game business. But Dreamcast was, for a scorching minute a minimum of, an attention-getter.

“As a sport machine its energy is unmatched, besides by high-end private computer systems costing greater than 10 occasions as a lot,” Peter H. Lewis wrote in a evaluation in The New York Instances that month, “and it makes the graphics on the present market chief, the Sony PlayStation, seem grainy and jerky. The Dreamcast is the closest factor to an arcade-quality sport expertise you may get at house.”

Dean Takahashi, lead author for the web site GamesBeat, interviewed Mr. Stolar a number of occasions over time.

“Bernie Stolar’s persona and sharp wit made him uniquely refreshing within the more and more company world of video video games,” Mr. Takahashi mentioned by e-mail.

Mr. Stolar didn’t mince phrases as he tried to upset the established order in gaming {hardware}, Mr. Takahashi mentioned. “The consequence was usually hilarious,” he added, “and it made being a reporter a pleasure throughout that point.”

Mr. Stolar was born on Oct. 9, 1946, in line with an obituary in Forbes. Details about his formative years and his survivors was not instantly obtainable.

He bought began in video video games in 1980 when he helped Brian Semler begin Pacific Novelty Manufacturing, which developed coin-operated arcade video games. Amongst its largest hits was a sport known as Shark Assault, during which the participant is a shark attempting to fend off scuba divers who’re out to kill it.

After a number of years, Mr. Stolar and Mr. Semler bought the corporate to Atari.

“We thought we had been geniuses as a result of we bought the corporate for inventory,” Mr. Stolar instructed GamesBeat in 2015. “Then Atari imploded and was shut down.”

Within the early Nineteen Nineties, after Atari had been revived, Mr. Stolar spent a number of years as an government there earlier than. He joined Sony in 1993 and Sega in 1996.

The Sega Dreamcast bought nicely at first. However the introduction of PlayStation 2 in 2000 reduce into its enchantment, and Sega’s hopes of returning to the highest of the online game heap light Mr. Stolar left Sega in 1999 and joined Mattel in 2000. He led its interactive division for nearly three years. He labored with a number of different start-ups over the subsequent decade, and in 2014 joined Zoom Platform, which, its Twitter account says, sells “outdated video games that play on new programs.”

Mr. Freeman mentioned Mr. Stolar had been wanting to help him.

“I met Bernie after I was 16, there was completely no motive for him to agree to satisfy with me, however he took that probability,” Mr. Freeman mentioned by e-mail. “He gave everybody a possibility. He was the paragon of a mentor to all who knew him.”