Sony chose PlayStation’s first desktop with late-night drinks in mind

When Sony Computer Entertainment established its flagship brand PlayStation in 1993, its executives’ main concern was to ensure that the company’s first offices were located in an area with nightlife bars. At least that’s the story Ken Kutaragi, who is widely known as the father of the PlayStation, told Bandai Namco’s Katsuhiro Harada on the latter’s new YouTube show, Harada bar.

“We started at Aoyama-Itchōme,” Kutaragi explained to Harada, completing the Tekken director in a video game story. “The reason we chose this as our office was because we wanted to drink together.”

Sony’s main office at the time, Kutaragi said, was in an area in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district where water points all closed at 8 p.m. better to find a “sleepless city” where they could take people from other companies for a drink. Aoyama, a neighborhood in the neighboring Minato neighborhood, ended up being that place.

In addition to Sony proper, Sony Computer Entertainment had another parent company in Sony Music Entertainment Japan. According to Kutaragi, the branch often threw huge festive parties with record artists that stretched beyond midnight. As such, video game executives have stuck with the tradition and wanted to translate it into their fledgling business.

Harada even remembers that Kutaragi offered the Tekken team with an expensive bottle of sake every time they ship a game. He got so used to the treatment, apparently, that he was surprised he didn’t get alcohol from Microsoft after the 2007 launch. Tekken 6, the first game in the series to dress up an Xbox platform.

Harada’s conversation with Kutaragi also covers some interesting moments in their shared history as well as a discussion of current trends in technology like artificial intelligence and robotics. Check it out if you’re interested in two game legends chatting in a bar.