Mark Cerny, chief architect behind Sony's next-gen contender and contributer to numerous iconic titles, will accept the Development Legend award July 9 at the Development Industry Excellence Awards in Brighton.
"Mark Cerny is a true legend of games development," said Develop's publisher Michael French. "He is a respected games designer and hardware developer with a multi-faceted, cross-discipline skill set. He has helped shape some of the most compelling original titles in the history of interactive entertainment, and has been a true visionary in the design of new games machines."
Cerny got his start in the industry in 1984 at the age of 18 with Marble Madness for Atari. Since then he's had a hand in many of Sony's premier IP including Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Killzone, and Uncharted. Knack was Cerny's pet project for the new generation, and was designed from the ground up to make use of the system's new features and tech (you can read our thoughts on it here).
However, his crowning achievement is undoubtedly his work on the PS4, which has launched to unabated success. Interestingly, Cerny was able to head the system's development simply because, back in 2007, he asked the top brass of Sony if he could—to which, and to Cerny's surprise, he admits, they said yes.
Congratulations, Cerny.
