Mark Cerny | Code Like It's 198x

In the spring of 1984 a children’s computer magazine, MicroKids, visited Atari’s coin-op building in Milpitas, California, to meet the company’s youngest game designer. Mark Cerny was 19, 6 foot 1, and described himself as “a bunch of pipe cleaners stuck together”. The arcade game beside his workbench was unplugged so that the visitor could not see it. It became Marble Madness. Thirty years later Cerny was the lead architect of Sony’s PlayStation 4, and he went on to design the PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro. In between he made Master System games in Tokyo, set up the American studio where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was made, and signed the developers of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.

Fast facts

Born: 1964.
Atari: 1982–1985; Major Havoc (contributor), Marble Madness (designer and programmer).
Sega: 1985–1992; Master System games and the 3-D glasses in Tokyo, then founder of Sega Technical Institute.
Crystal Dynamics: 1992–1994; the 3DO games Crash ’n Burn and Total Eclipse.
Universal Interactive Studios: 1994–1998; Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.
Cerny Games: his consultancy, working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sony.
PlayStation: lead architect of the PS Vita, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro.
Honours: Game Developers Choice Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame (2010).

Atari

Cerny grew up in Berkeley, where his father, a nuclear chemist, let him use the university’s computer from the age of 12. “I tried to achieve every child’s dream by programming Dungeons and Dragons into the computer,” he told MicroKids. He skipped two grades, started university at 16, grew bored and played arcade games for three hours a day until he had mastered Defender. “I came to the conclusion that I’m a somewhat better video player than average,” he said. He dropped out: “If I’d known it was going to be this much fun, I would’ve dropped out a year earlier.”

A reporter writing a book of arcade tips had interviewed him, and the author offered to approach game companies for him. The result was an interview with a vice-president at Atari. “Even though I was 17 at the time, I somehow landed a job as a programmer,” Cerny said later, “which also meant I needed to be an artist and game designer, as those were also Atari game programmer responsibilities in 1982!” His title, MicroKids reported, was Associate Microprocessor Programmer, and he was paid about $25,000 a year while he worked for “the jackpot”: royalties if his game was a hit.

His first game went out on test and did not earn enough to be manufactured. His second was Owen Rubin’s vector game Major Havoc, which Atari wanted to have more maze waves. “Mark created the first flying fish robot wave — which was very funny, we loved the humour in that — and then he created the last four or five maze waves, the ones I still can’t get through, the hard ones,” Rubin recalled. His third was Marble Madness. He designed it and did “a bit of the programming”, but called it “a real team effort” by about five people, a large team for 1984. The Marble Madness entry tells the story of the trackball, the ray-traced courses and the four-minute game that topped the earnings and then vanished. A second Marble Madness was tested, Edge reported, but performed poorly and was never manufactured.

Sega

After Marble Madness, at 20, Cerny started his own company to design arcade games, hardware and software, and license them for manufacture. “I was radically underestimating the difficulty of that task,” he said. Sega was funding the work, and when the first game dragged on, Sega’s president, Hayao Nakayama, invited him to Tokyo to make Master System games instead. He was with Sega for seven years, from 1985 to 1992.

He was, he thought, one of perhaps two foreigners at Sega working on games, and he spoke no Japanese at first; by the time he left he was fluent. Management wanted each game in about three months from one programmer and one artist. After Shooting Gallery, a Light Phaser game, he went to Tokyo Disneyland, saw the 3-D Michael Jackson film Captain EO, and lobbied for 3-D glasses for the Master System. He wrote a 3-D Pong-style demonstration for the Consumer Electronics Show, and then Missile Defense 3-D, which was bundled with the glasses. The glasses used liquid-crystal shutters, so each eye saw every other frame, and the games ran at 30 frames a second, 25 in Europe, “which was headache inducing to say the least”. Sega sold 300,000 pairs, which Cerny thought a respectable number for a company with four per cent of the North American market.

His last Master System games were conversions. Shanghai was meant to be a six-week job and took three months, because the game needed a bitmap and the Master System only drew tiles. His solution was code “that raced just in front of the beam of the TV set”, changing the graphics as the picture was drawn. California Games took five months, with a designer of his own for the first time. For the Mega Drive he worked on a service that let subscribers download a game a month by modem. About 20 games were made for it, and the subscriber count “never went above a few thousand”.

Sega Technical Institute

Cerny returned to California in 1990 and founded Sega Technical Institute (STI), a studio meant to bring a dozen or so of Sega’s Tokyo developers to work alongside newly hired Americans. The American embassy in Tokyo rejected every visa, but two key people were already in the United States: Shinobi’s designer, Yutaka Sugano, and Sonic the Hedgehog’s designer, Hirokazu Yasuhara. When Yuji Naka quit Sega in Japan, STI re-hired him. The studio’s first game, Dick Tracy, was meant to take five months and took seven; Kid Chameleon followed.

Then came Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sega of America’s marketing department first told Cerny another Sonic was “much too soon”, then changed its mind two months into an 11-month schedule. The Japanese staff arrived late because of visa problems, and there were language and cultural clashes. “Sonic 2 did ship but after that we said ‘no more!’” Cerny said. The game came out in November 1992. Its credits list Cerny under programming and development support, not as producer. Cerny left STI after it was finished, and Roger Hector, another Atari veteran, replaced him as general manager.

Crystal Dynamics

In 1992 Cerny joined Crystal Dynamics, a new company making games for the 3DO console that had not yet launched. It was, he told Edge, “probably the most enjoyable place I’ve ever worked”, though “we weren’t very good at making the games”. The machine was a struggle. At one point its operating system grew to 600K of the 1MB of memory, until the makers doubled the memory, one reason the console cost $700 at launch. Cerny hid a line in the track graphics of Crash ’n Burn: “The OS for 3DO should’ve been called the SOS”. Total Eclipse ran at between 8 and 14 frames a second. He left in 1994.

Universal Interactive Studios

At Universal Interactive Studios, the games division of Universal, Cerny became vice-president of product development and then president. In 1994 Universal signed Naughty Dog, whose last game had been a 3DO fighting game. “The Universal relationship was a complicated but critical step in our evolution,” Andy Gavin of Naughty Dog told Retro Gamer, “particularly in the personification of Mark Cerny.” Cerny hired the cartoonist Charles Zembillas to design the characters of what became Crash Bandicoot, and was its executive producer, the start of a long working relationship with Sony on the PlayStation.

Universal also backed Insomniac. “The whole reason Disruptor exists is because an enthusiastic hobbyist could start development on 3DO, since it had cheap development hardware,” Cerny said in 1997. “We saw the prototype running on 3DO and agreed to fund development on PlayStation.” Insomniac’s next game, Spyro the Dragon (1998), was made, as Gamers’ Republic put it, “with Mark Cerny overseeing every last scale”.

Cerny Games and the Method

In 1998 Cerny set up his own consultancy, Cerny Games, and went on working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sony’s studios on the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank games, among others. In 2002 he gave the keynote at the Game Developers Conference Europe in London, explaining what he called the Method. Its argument was that most of a game’s mistakes are made before production starts. “Pre-production accounts for 80 per cent of mistakes,” he said. He set out eight myths, among them that pre-production can be scheduled, that a working team should not throw work away, and that a game needs a 100-page design document. Instead a team should expect to make several prototypes, aim for a “publishable first playable” of two levels with all the game’s features, and cancel the project if that does not work. “The epiphany of pre-production,” he told Edge, “is proving your concept, proving technically you can make it and proving, as far as possible, you can finish it on time and to budget.”

The Game Developers Choice Awards gave him their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. In 2010 the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences inducted him into its Hall of Fame, and its president, Joseph Olin, called him “the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci”.

PlayStation architect

Cerny took on the role of lead system architect of the PlayStation 4 in 2008. Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida was instrumental in choosing him, Edge reported, and late that year Cerny began a series of post-mortems on the PlayStation 3, whose launch Edge called “famously embattled”. The PS4 that came out of them was built from PC-style parts, and Cerny toured Sony’s studios and outside developers asking what they needed. Not every meeting went well. “What I didn’t realise is that I would get booed in a meeting,” he said. “And of course we ended up changing things and heading in a completely different direction.” He introduced the PS4 at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting in New York in February 2013, and also directed one of its launch games, Knack. Edge was unimpressed by the game and concluded that “it’s his role in the system, not its software, that’s had more success”. He was also the lead architect of the PS Vita handheld.

He was the lead system architect of the PlayStation 5 too, and explained it in a streamed talk, “The Road to PS5”, on 18 March 2020. Its centrepiece was an 825GB solid-state drive that could read 5.5GB a second, fast enough, Sony said, to do away with loading screens. In December 2024, as “Lead Architect, PS5 and PS5 Pro”, he gave a technical seminar on the upgraded PS5 Pro and announced a deeper collaboration with AMD on machine-learning technology for graphics and games.

In September 2026 Cerny and Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards, launched the Nova Games Foundation, which gives 20 young designers a year grants of $100,000 and mentoring, with further funding for the most promising projects. “I’m nearing the end of my career,” Cerny said. “I’m not done yet, but paying it forward — in the best way possible — is very much on my mind these days.”

Sources

Jane Ferrell, profile of Mark Cerny, MicroKids vol. 1 no. 3, May 1984, pp. 39–41: the Milpitas building, his age and height, the unplugged prototype, his father and the Berkeley computer, Defender, dropping out, his job title and pay, and his quotations.
Steve Jarratt and Damien McFerran, SEGA Master System: a visual compendium (Bitmap Books, 2019): Cerny’s foreword (with Sega “from 1985 to 1992”) and “An interview with Mark Cerny”, pp. 53–56 (the job at Atari at 17, his first three Atari games, his own company and Nakayama’s invitation, working in Tokyo, Shooting Gallery, the 3-D glasses and Missile Defense 3-D, 300,000 pairs sold, Shanghai and California Games, the modem service, founding STI, the visas, Naka, Dick Tracy, Kid Chameleon and Sonic 2); the introduction’s description of him as lead architect of the PS Vita and PlayStation 4.
Retro Gamer issue 53, 2008, p. 82: “The Making of Marble Madness” (joined Atari at 17).
Retro Gamer issue 107, October 2012, “The Making of Major Havoc”, pp. 33–36: Owen Rubin on Cerny’s waves.
Edge issue 43, March 1997: Marble Madness 2 tested but never manufactured, in Cerny’s account.
Retro Gamer issue 36, 2007, pp. 25–27: Sega Technical Institute (Cerny’s return in 1990, the Sonic 2 schedule and his quotations, his departure and Roger Hector).
“Mark Cerny”, Sega Retro (web, secondary): date and place of birth; STI established in 1990; credits including Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (programming and development support) and Kid Chameleon; Cerny Games founded in 1998. https://segaretro.org/Mark_Cerny
Edge issue 258, October 2013, pp. 60–63: “An Audience With… Mark Cerny” (Atari at 17 in 1982; Tokyo and fluent Japanese; Crystal Dynamics, 3DO memory, the Crash ’n Burn message, Total Eclipse’s frame rate; signing Naughty Dog and Insomniac; lead system architect from 2008; the booing).
Tom Ivan, “Who is Mark Cerny, the man behind PS5?”, Video Games Chronicle, 13 February 2020 (web, secondary): Crystal Dynamics 1992–1994; vice-president of product development and later president at Universal; lead system architect of the PS Vita. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/who-is-mark-cerny/
Retro Gamer issue 117, August 2013, pp. 68–69: Naughty Dog’s history (Universal in 1994, Andy Gavin’s quotation, Charles Zembillas).
Game Informer issue 66, October 1998: after the 3DO game Way of the Warrior, Universal signed Naughty Dog for three more games; Cerny as Universal’s “game design guru”.
Edge issue 41, January 1997: Net Yaroze feature (Cerny as president of development at Universal; the Disruptor quotation).
Gamers’ Republic issue 3, August 1998: Spyro the Dragon preview.
Edge issue 112, July 2002, and issue 116, November 2002, p. 76: Cerny Games; Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter; the GDC Europe keynote on the Method.
Edge issue 120, February 2003: “The Cerny Method” (the eight myths, the “80 per cent” quotation).
Edge issue 129, November 2003: the “epiphany of pre-production” quotation.
Game Developers Choice Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award archive (web, secondary): Mark Cerny, 2004. https://gamechoiceawards.com/archive-lifetime-achievement-award/
“AIAS To Induct Mark Cerny Into Hall Of Fame”, Game Developer, 13 January 2010 (web, secondary): the induction and Joseph Olin’s quotation. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/aias-to-induct-mark-cerny-into-hall-of-fame
Edge issue 252, April 2013, p. 10: the PlayStation Meeting in New York; Cerny as lead system architect.
Edge issue 253, May 2013, pp. 66–67: Yoshida’s part in choosing him; the PS3 post-mortems from late 2008; Knack.
Edge issue 256, August 2013: Knack preview.
“Unveiling New Details of PlayStation 5: Hardware Technical Specs”, PlayStation Blog, 18 March 2020 (web, secondary): “The Road to PS5”; Cerny as lead system architect; the 825GB SSD and 5.5GB/s. https://blog.playstation.com/2020/03/18/unveiling-new-details-of-playstation-5-hardware-technical-specs/
“PS5 Pro Technical Seminar reveals new in-depth details on console”, PlayStation Blog, 18 December 2024 (web, secondary): his title and the AMD collaboration. https://blog.playstation.com/2024/12/18/ps5-pro-technical-seminar-reveals-new-in-depth-details-on-console/
Stephen Totilo, “Exclusive: Two of gaming’s biggest names are making a big investment in gaming’s future”, Game File, 8 September 2026 (web, secondary): the Nova Games Foundation and Cerny’s quotation. https://www.gamefile.news/p/nova-games-foundation-mark-cerny-geoff-keighley
“Mark Cerny and Geoff Keighley launch university-linked fellowship”, Game Developer, September 2026 (web, secondary): 20 grants a year of $100,000, with further funding for some projects. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/mark-cerny-and-geoff-keighley-launch-university-affiliated-fellowship-program