With the introduction of Sony's Playstation, I had high hopes that Sony's first-gen console would be different, offer great games and not fall into oblivion in six months. This was my first disc-based console and I had my doubts about it's speed considering cartridges, although limited in size, delivered fast game play. I wasn't looking forward to loading times.
I quickly became a convert and when I was some of the compilation discs of classic games - I was a happy guy. From Williams to Activision, there were a lot of classic games that would live on via this new console from Sony. Yay!
Sony Playstation - Technical Specifications
The PlayStation (officially abbreviated PS) brand is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Spanning the fifth, sixth, and seventh generations of video gaming, the brand was first introduced on December 3, 1994 in Japan. The brand consists of a total of three consoles, a media center, an online service, a line of controllers and a handheld as well as multiple magazines.
PlayStation was the brainchild of Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who had just come out of his hardware engineering division at that time and would later be dubbed as "The Father of the PlayStation". The console's origins date back to 1986 where it was originally a joint project between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-ROM for the Super Famicom/SNES console.
The PlayStation made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991 when Sony revealed its console, a Super Famicom/SNES with a built-in CD-ROM drive (that incorporated Green Book technology or CDi). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between the two companies.
The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga, who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing of the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo.
At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended on May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to the board.
Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music, a completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of DVD).
The original PlayStation released in December 1994 was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation series of console and hand-held game devices. It has included successor consoles and upgrades including the Net Yaroze (a special black PlayStation with tools and instructions to program PlayStation games and applications), "PSone" (a smaller version of the original) and the PocketStation (a handheld which enhances PlayStation games and also acts as a memory card). It was part of the fifth generation of video game consoles competing against the Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64. By March 31, 2005, the PlayStation and PSone had shipped a combined total of 102.49 million units,[16] becoming the first video game console to sell 100 million units.
PS One
Released in July 2000, concurrently with its successor the PlayStation 2, the PS One was a considerably smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation video game console.[17] Originally launched on July 7, 2000,[18] it went on to outsell all-other consoles including its successor, PlayStation 2, throughout the remainder of the year.[17] It featured two main changes from its predecessor, the first being a cosmetic change to the console and the second being home menu's Graphical User Interface.
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