He initially worked on 3DO games including Crash 'n Burn (1993) and Total Eclipse (1994). Cerny was instrumental in helping Crystal Dynamics become the first American developer to secure a PlayStation development kit from Sony Computer Entertainment, having gone to Japan to negotiate the deal with Shuhei Yoshida, at that point a young executive within Sony. While the development kit had been delivered to Crystal Dynamics by 1994, Cerny had left the studio to lead Universal Pictures' newly formed multimedia division. 1996–present: Partnership with Sony From 1994 to 1998, Cerny was involved with Universal Interactive Studios, a newly formed division of Universal for video games that Cerny described as a "boutique publisher". Cerny was initially a vice president of product development and later became its president. Cerny had been given a good amount of freedom with the division, stating "The best part about this was that Universal didn't really know the business and as a result I had a great big bag of money to spend and no supervision". Under Cerny, Universal Interactive Studios hired in two small and new development studios to develop for the PlayStation, aided by his past connections within Sony: the three-person Naughty Dog and two-person Insomniac Games. In the case of Naughty Dog, they were brought in to build Way of the Warrior and had signed on for three additional titles. Cerny helped with their next title, Crash Bandicoot, which Sony picked up to publish in 1996. Insomniac similarly had completed their first title Disruptor and Cerny helped them prepare the next game, Spyro the Dragon, which also was picked up and published by Sony in 1998. When Naughty Dog and Insomniac's contracts with Universal expired, both studios signed up with Sony to continue to develop games for the PlayStation. Cerny kept in close contact with both teams afterwards. In 1998, Universal as a whole had financial issues that set a hiring freeze on the Interactive Studios group. Cerny opted to leave Universal to become consultant under his own company, Cerny Games, that would allow him to keep working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac and Sony. Around 1999, Sony was developing the hardware for the PlayStation 2. Yoshida, now executive producer of product development, contacted Cerny about helping to develop a graphics engine for the new console. Cerny accepted, and worked in Japan over a three-month span, being the first American to work on the PlayStation