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In the 1980s 8-bit era, Phil Harrison's first steps into the video games industry consisted, like many at that time, of copying code from magazines into his Commodore 64 - usually to find typo in the magazine meant there was no chance it would ever work. Taking things into his own hands, he dabbled in 6502 machine code, but his career began proper when he started working as graphic artist on several games for the Oric 1. Recognising his own limitation in the field of pixel pushing, he switched focused to game design. Soon Harrison landed a job with System 3 where, amongst other titles, he lent his skills to the design the 1989 hit title "Myth: History in the Making".
Months later he moved to fledgling publisher Mindscape where he stayed for three years. In 1992 he made what will arguably be the biggest career move of his life when he joined Sony Electronic Publishing Ltd to take the position of Director of Product Development. At that time, Sony was merely a publishing outfit, and little more than a small blip on the the gaming radar - though its 1994 acquision of Psygnosis changed that.
Before that happened, however, in 1993 Harrison was reassigned to a new company within the organisation, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, where he took the reins of third-party and software development for the PlayStation, which launched in the region in 1995. In October 1996 he moved across the Atlantic to manage several endeavours at Sony Computer Entertainment America, including third-party and licensee relations, product strategy and the research and development programmes.
After four years, Phil Harrison returned to SCEE in November 2000 to take the helm of the region's development division, where he has become something of a PlayStation Evangelist, responsible for the division's internal studios and the worldwide network of third-party developers creating PS2, PSP and PS3 products.
After 15 years described as "the defining journey of my life so far", Harrison resigned from his position as President of Sony Worldwide Studios in Feb 2008.
On February 4th that same year, Harrison was appointed as President of Atari, saying at the time, "This is the perfect time to join Infogrames and help shape the future of Atari - one of the industry's legendary brands. As the game business moves rapidly online I believe we have an outstanding opportunity to create amazing network game and community experiences for players the world over. I am especially excited to be working on this challenge together with David, one of the most respected leaders and successful executives in our industry."
Software Highlights from Credited Titles
Phil Harrison's first video game work that SPOnG is aware of is the 1989 title, "Myth: History in the Making" (C64) as Game Design. Of the titles listing Phil within the credits , "Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped" (PlayStation) and "Tomorrow Never Dies" (PlayStation) have been best selling titles.
Phil's most recent involvement was as Original Concept on the 1996 release "Total NBA 96" (PlayStation).
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