The PlayStation Rift
The strange currents emanating from Sony of the Matrix had been detected long ago. Released amid anxiety, the PlayStation 1 ignited the 32-bit video game console war. Soon after, traditional players like Nintendo, Sega, and 3DO rushed to launch their own 32-bit machines. In the early stages of the console war, no single company pulled decisively ahead, leaving the market in chaos. Over time, however, a clear hierarchy emerged. The unexpected leader was Sony’s PlayStation 1. Though it was the company’s first foray into the video game hardware market, Sony had prepared more thoroughly than its rivals and understood what truly mattered: securing a larger library of high-quality game software than the competition. To that end, Sony offered more aggressive support policies to game developers than any other company. The result was the exclusive release of titles like Final Fantasy, Doom, and Wolfenstein on the PlayStation 1, giving it an early advantage. Now, more than four years after launch, the 32-bit console war had ended in an unambiguous victory for Sony’s PlayStation 1. Cumulative sales exceeded 80 million units. The market predicted that, with steady ongoing sales, the console would soon surpass 90 million. They were right. Yoo Jae-won knew the PlayStation 1’s exact lifetime sales figure: 102.49 million units. It had sold enormously well. Yet Sony was not smiling. Despite winning the hardware war, the company felt it had reaped far less of the spoils than expected.
Profit in the console business came not from hardware sales but overwhelmingly from game packages. The PlayStation 1’s software sales, however, lagged far behind its hardware numbers. The culprit was the copy chip. CDs were easy to duplicate. PlayStation 1 game discs were readable on ordinary computers, so anyone with a CD burner could copy them. In the early 1990s, CD writers had been prohibitively expensive, costing millions of won and far beyond the reach of ordinary consumers. By now, however, high-speed burners could be purchased for around 100,000 won. Sony had responded by adding copy-detection mechanisms, but the arrival of the copy chip rendered those measures useless. Simply installing the chip allowed illegally copied discs to run without issue.
What disappointed Sony even more was the flood of PC ports from third-party publishers. The CPU and VGA architectures of PCs and the PlayStation were fundamentally different, yet game engines shared the GlideX library, and both platforms ran on Android. Converting a PlayStation 1 title to PC was therefore a relatively simple matter of adapting its dedicated libraries to the Android operating system. Because no one had ever imagined an exclusivity clause, once a game’s PlayStation sales began to decline, many developers ported it to PC for additional revenue. While piracy was rampant on PC, plenty of gamers still bought legitimate copies. As a result, many popular PlayStation 1 games eventually appeared on PC as well. Even Final Fantasy, the title Sony had invested in most heavily, received a PC release.
“Finally, there is information suggesting that the chairman’s second Japan campaign also significantly influenced Sony’s decision to sever ties with ID Group,” President Ellen added cautiously. Yoo Jae-won nodded. In Japan these days, criticism of the Liberal Democratic Party’s economic policies was fierce. The famous refrain of the “Lost Decade” had begun to circulate. The more cornered the LDP felt, the more it stoked anti-Korean sentiment. Dokdo was the primary target, but Yoo Jae-won was rarely omitted. Economic invasion was invasion nonetheless; even U.S. federal government maps, following the CIA’s lead, now labeled Dokdo by its proper name and included the East Sea. Beyond that, Yoo Jae-won’s active support for victims of forced labor and sexual slavery during the Japanese colonial period had earned him the label of “nationalist” in Japan. None of this mattered much to Sony’s executives. Capitalism recognized neither borders nor ethnicity; had continued cooperation with ID Group remained profitable, they would have maintained the relationship indefinitely. In the end, Sony judged the partnership a net loss. When analyzing the rapid emergence of third-party PC ports and copy chips, executives concluded that the PlayStation’s excessive similarity to PCs was the root cause.
“A perfect miscalculation.”
“Indeed, Mr. Chairman.”
Ellen agreed without reservation. The primary reason high-quality games had poured onto the PlayStation 1 was the existence of the PC as the most convenient development tool available. No 3D game engine was yet as developer-friendly as the ID Tech Engine. Epic had released the Unreal Engine, but it still lagged far behind ID Tech. What was especially difficult to replicate in the short term was ID Tech’s powerful post-launch support. Purchasing the engine granted access to a dedicated community where developers exchanged feedback, accumulated vast know-how, and shared source code, shader code, 3D models, and textures. The bundled resources were excellent, but the free assets available through the ID Tech community were also of impressive quality. Furthermore, the ecosystem of plugins for the ID Tech Engine was enormous. All of this data could be used not only for PC game development but also for PlayStation 1 titles, thanks to the shared Android operating system.
Sony had been aware of these facts, yet the PlayStation 1’s staggering 80-million-unit sales had filled the company with confidence, leading it to boldly sever ties with ID Group. Yoo Jae-won’s reaction was indifferent. After all, Sony’s decision to abandon Android for the PlayStation’s successor would not significantly harm him. The Android operating system had been licensed to Sony at a flat rate; higher PlayStation 1 sales did not translate into greater profits for Yoo Jae-won. The only benefits he received were royalties from third-party developers adopting the ID Tech Engine and modest licensing fees when the Live Force Feedback technology was used in PlayStation 1 controllers. Even if Sony abandoned Android entirely with the PlayStation 2, the damage would be minimal.
“Hmm.”
Still, complacency was dangerous. Yoo Jae-won examined whether he might be overlooking any critical points. After more than three minutes of deliberation, however, nothing stood out. The only potential downside he could force himself to identify was a possible reduction in PC ports. Sony would almost certainly demand that third parties refrain from releasing PC versions. With a different operating system and development environment, porting to PC would become considerably more difficult than before. Fortunately, Sony’s move also presented an opportunity.
“What if we made our own console?”
“A console? You mean an independent hardware platform?”
“Exactly. Sony did it. There’s no reason we can’t. Besides, we already have the foundation.”
“Now that you mention it, ID Electronics could certainly produce game consoles in volume at low cost.”
In the original timeline, Microsoft had released its own console around 2001—the Xbox. Though its appearance had seemed abrupt, the Xbox had competed against the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s GameCube and achieved respectable results. There was no reason Yoo Jae-won could not do the same.
“Then shall we draft a proposal?”
“Understood!”
President Ellen, also seeing strong potential, answered immediately.
“Will we also need to develop the software ourselves?”
“ID Technology will handle system design, Android Corporation will create the dedicated game operating system, and ID Electronics will manage manufacturing. We should probably form a task force by selecting experts from each organization.”
Even though ID Group’s online collaboration systems were excellent, it was undeniably more efficient to gather everyone in one place rather than have them work separately.
“This would be the Group’s first official task force, then. I’ll identify suitable candidates and make recommendations.”
“It’s not such a grand or difficult undertaking, so don’t worry.”
Building the console itself was not complicated. They could simply replicate what Microsoft had done with the Xbox: create a PC optimized for extreme cost-performance in gaming, then make minor modifications. The original Xbox had used an Intel CPU and NVIDIA GPU, along with a hard drive, DVD-ROM drive, and network card—so much so that it was often called a “game-dedicated PC.”
“Will that be all right? If it’s too similar to a PC, it could be just as vulnerable to piracy as Sony’s machine, and it might also cannibalize NewEgg PC sales.”
Ellen voiced her concern. Yoo Jae-won did not disagree on that point. From a consumer perspective, however, a dedicated console was far more appealing. In households that owned PCs, gaming was the most common use. Yet PCs were expensive for gaming alone. While Yoo Jae-won, who championed high-end machines, had nothing to say on the matter, purchasing a NewEgg PC solely to play games offered poor value. A console priced at a reasonable 500,000 won that allowed users to enjoy games exclusively therefore held clear appeal. The real challenge lay in securing a steady supply of game software. In the original timeline, the Xbox had possessed superior specifications to the PlayStation 2 yet struggled because it lacked exclusive titles. Yoo Jae-won had no intention of repeating Microsoft’s mistake. Fortunately, ID Group already possessed ID Entertainment, home to the industry’s finest game developers. Though primarily focused on PC games, the studio possessed more than enough capability to produce console titles as well.
Moreover, Sony had voluntarily surrendered its greatest advantage. The company that had achieved massive success with the Android-based PlayStation 1 was now choosing to abandon that foundation for a proprietary operating system on the sequel—a catastrophic error in Yoo Jae-won’s eyes. Sony’s alternative would inevitably be a tuned version of Linux, which meant the only available graphics library would be OpenGL. If ID Group instead released a console that retained the Android operating system, it could absorb not only PC game developers but also the third-party studios that had previously released titles for the PlayStation 1.
‘We also have Bungie’s Halo.’
And there was one more trump card: Halo. Originally, Halo had been intended as a Macintosh exclusive, since Bungie Software had long specialized in Mac games. The situation changed last year. Although Apple’s sales had briefly rebounded after Steve Jobs’ return, no new products had yet been released. Innovation under the returning Jobs was proceeding aggressively inside Apple, but nothing had reached the market. Apple’s annual product showcase was Macworld. Many fans anticipated a major announcement at this year’s event, but Yoo Jae-won’s expectations were low. Bungie Software had been suffering severe financial difficulties since last year. With Mac sales slumping, Bungie’s Mac-focused game revenue had naturally contracted as well. The studio had approached the newly returned Steve Jobs for support and received a cold rejection. Although Apple and Bungie shared a somewhat special relationship, Apple lacked the resources to absorb Bungie. The one who had picked up the stranded studio was ID Entertainment—acting, of course, on Yoo Jae-won’s instructions. President Stefan Barber had wondered why, yet he had carried out the order faithfully. The bold acquisition had been driven by the game Bungie was developing: Halo. If Doom had defined the FPS genre of the 1990s, Halo had dominated the early 2000s. The Xbox’s ability to withstand the PlayStation 2’s onslaught had owed much to Halo. Now that Microsoft was gone, Yoo Jae-won had no desire to see Halo released as a Mac title. He had acquired Bungie simply because he liked the game itself. With Sony’s departure making ID Group’s entry into the console market a certainty, Halo had become an even more valuable asset.
“I’ll prepare the proposal as quickly as possible and submit a formal report.”
The video meeting with Ellen, which had begun as a report on the Matrix Phone, concluded with the decision to enter the console business. A few days later, news of the split between ID Group and Sony broke to the public, sending shockwaves through the industry.