If Akio Morita goes down as the founder of Sony-one of the world's biggest consumer electronics companies-in history, then by the same yardstick Ken Kutaragi will be remembered as the man who opened up a whole new frontier for the Japanese giant. If Morita was the man who came up with the idea of what would become known to the world as the Walkman, it was Kutaragi who fashioned the Playstation.

While Japanese companies are masters of miniaturisation and repackaging of existing technologies, they have proved themselves rarely as quick at embracing new, 'disruptive' technologies. Rarely, except in this instance. Kutaragi's brainwave was to realise that the future of entertainment was in the gaming console. However, his most remarkable achievement was to build up a $-8 billion division literally from thin air while being looked down upon by most people in the company. Yet, today it is Kutaragi's division, Sony Computer Entertainment, that contributes over half the parent company's net profit.

Few engineers have an eye for both technological innovation and a keen marketing sense. Kutaragi has both, as well as gritty determination. If Sony had ever mass-produced his other ideas-a Liquid Crystal Display TV (way before anyone else) and a disc-based digital camera-it might have been a totally different company. The one idea of his that did reach fruition succeeded in transforming Sony.

Since 1994, when the first generation Playstation (ps1) was launched, 75 million consoles of the ps1 have been sold. The second-generation Playstation 2 (ps2) has sold over 70 million consoles worldwide in just over four years. In fact, the stellar success of the ps1 line was the primary motivation for Bill Gates to enter the game console business with his X-Box. Whether X-Box catches up with the ps2 or not remains to be seen but Kutaragi already has his next ace ready in the form of Playstation 3, which is lined up for release in 2005.

Kutaragi did not invent nor perfect the game console-two other Japanese companies, Nintendo and Sega, did that. His genius lay in identifying the tremendous sales potential of a relatively obscure product called the game console and making a household name of it the world over. With the gaming industry emerging as the single-largest entertainment industry in the world, outselling even Hollywood, Ken Kutaragi's place in business history seems more than assured.