Everyone seems to have a Ken Kutaragi story.

That was the only real premise I had for this article. I’d heard a few Kutaragi anecdotes while working on my Final Fantasy 7 thing, and it seemed like there were many more out there. So I started asking around and figured I could stitch a bunch of stories together, and hey — instant feature.

The main challenge came in editing, because by structuring a profile around the most interesting anecdotes you can find, you inevitably focus on the extreme aspects of a person, and I wanted this to be a fair portrayal. So I spent a lot of time on subtle edits and the story’s structure to show what people liked and disliked about working with the father of PlayStation.

Art: Steve Courtney