PlayStation lead architect and PS5 designer Mark Cerny says that Sega was a "sweatshop" when he worked there in the late '80s, because leadership believed the key to beating Nintendo was to release more games than its biggest competitor.
Speaking with Simon Parkin on the My Favourite Console podcast, Cerny explains the toxic working conditions he experienced at Sega's Tokyo office in the late 1980s. "Now, I've gotta caveat this," Cerny starts. "I'm only talking about the second half of the 1980s at [the] Tokyo office. But man, Sega was a sweatshop. Three people, three months, that's a game. And, you know, we would sleep at the office."
Unfortunately, sleeping at the office is not an uncommon part of Japanese work culture, even in what should be lower-stress jobs. However, Cerny blames the toxic conditions at Sega on the company's leadership, claiming that former CEO and president, Hayao Nakayama, demanded intense software production.
"This is because Nakayama's idea was, 'Why is Nintendo successful? They have 40 games. What are we gonna do? We're gonna have 80 games for the Master System, and that's going to be our path to success.'" Cerny claims.
However, Cerny believes that this point of view was misguided. "Now, if you look at the history of games," Cerny says. "I think if you're [trying to] sell a console, you need about two good games, and that sells you your console. Like Nintendogs and Brain Training, I think that's what sold the DS, if I remember that properly for Nintendo. So the bulk software thing is not the approach."
It does appear that conditions improved at Sega, but this was apparently after Cerny returned to the US in 1991. "The reason I have to caveat this is because this is not where Sega ended up," Cerny says. "People will listen to this podcast and [say] 'Mark, you're so wrong. Sega's this incredible, creative place.' Well, I expect that was '90s, not my room of 40 people back in 1987."
Sega is willing to take risks on "highly volatile" new games, and can do so using the "stable foundation" created by its strong free-to-play revenue.
