SNIA Developer Conference September 15-17, 2025 | Santa Clara, CA
John Carlsen
Principal
Syncopated Systems
John Carlsen is an electronic multimedia pioneer who contributed to the development of the first television tuner card for personal computers, early PC sound cards, and CD-ROM interfaces, and supervised the first pressing of Microsoft Windows on CD-ROM. After working for video game legends Atari, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, and Activision, Mr. Carlsen co-founded game developer Iguana Entertainment, which created the Batman Forever arcade game, NFL Quarterback Club series games, home versions of NBA Jam, and some of the first Nintendo 64 games, including Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and the first South Park game. Afterward, he created the reference design used for most flash-based MP3 players, including the first Apple iPod Shuffle, and led hardware development for a Sony PlayStation. Mr. Carlsen has earned degrees in management and computer science from Saint Edward’s University (Austin, TX), and has taught computer game development. Mr. Carlsen is an IEEE Senior Member, is on the IEEE Silicon Valley Technology History Committee, is a recent chair of IEEE’s largest consultants’ network, and provides consulting and development services as Syncopated Systems.
Related Sessions
Media Objectives for Next-Generation Video Games
The consumer video game software industry is on the cusp of its 50th year, and its revenues continue to grow steadily, in recent years outpacing even those of motion pictures. The role of data storage media is uniquely central to the video game industry, as it is ultimately the canvas upon which game developers paint. Despite the convenience of downloadable content via the Internet, strong demand continues for games on physical storage media, especially from major publishers.
Games from major publishers also require more storage than ever, not only for their distribution, but also for logging data about game play, from high score lists to saved session information and sharing playback videos. But the growth in the industry’s distribution media has slowed, from more than 1000 times over three generations of semiconductor ROM cartridges to hardly more than 150 times over five generations of optical discs. So what’s next?
This session reprises a popular 2019 SDC presentation surveying the significant roles and evolving types of digital storage media that enable this interactive digital art form, updated to include the latest generation of video game systems.