The history of PlayStation One

Did u know that the Playstation One was originaly built for nintendo ???

Read to learn the true origin of PlayStation one.

The development of the PlayStation actually began before the 16-bit era. At that time, Nintendo wanted to experiment with the CD-ROM media for use on the Famicom, but encountered a few problems. Nintendo finally decided to work with Sony, one of the creators of the CD-ROM (with Phillips) to produce a CD add-on to the Super Nintendo, named the SNES-CD. A contract was signed in 1988, and Sony began work on the product. Initially, the partnership was supposed to be announced at CES 1991, but while reviewing the first contract, Hiroshi Yamauchi found out that Sony would entirely handle every title release on the console. Nintendo then secretly canceled the deal, and at CES, announced that they were working to bring Nintendo franchises on Phillips’ own console, the CD-i. This proved to be a bad decision on Nintendo’s part as every game that used those properties were poorly received by both gamers and critics.

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony later dubbed the “The Father of the PlayStation,” was angered by the turn of events. He even declared that they would bury Nintendo. After this, Sony considered abandoning the whole project, which would have lost millions of dollars. Instead, they decided to take everything they learned while developing the console to create their own stand-alone video game system. In 1992, Sony signed a deal that would allow their new console to still be able to play SNES games, with Nintendo maintaining the rights to the game. However, Sony decided to abandon this idea and began reworking their concept for a video game system. They now were aiming for the next-generation of consoles and 3D gaming, making the contract they signed with Nintendo irrelevant. Nintendo tried to prevent the release of the PlayStation with a lawsuit in 1991, claiming they essentially owned the name, but this tactic did not work.

The final version of the PlayStation took about 6 months to develop. Selling the console to publishers and developers was not an easy task for two reasons. One, Sony had to contend with the success of Nintendo and Sega at that time. Two, the PlayStation was a CD-based video game system, and so far none of them had been successful. Yet, when Sony showed them tech demos of the 3D capabilities of the system, gaming publishers and developers were sold on the console. At E3 1995, the first Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony announced the price point of $299.

The console was first released in Japan, on December 3rd 1994, over 9 months before it would appear officially in the west. This fueled a massive import market in Europe and the US prior to it’s official release there. The release date of the console in North America was September 9th 1995, in order to compete with the Sega Saturn and its supposed “Saturnday” September 2nd release. Its launch was accompanied by the advertising campaign “U R Not E” with the E printed in red, symbolizing the “9th of September”. Launch titles were:

• Battle Arena Toshinden
• ESPN Extreme Games
• Kileak: The DNA Imperative
• NBA JAM Tournament Edition
• Power Serve 3D Tennis
• The Raiden Project
• Rayman
• Ridge Racer
• Street Fighter: The Movie
• Total Eclipse Turbo

The European release followed soon after, on September 29th, by which time more games were already available for purchase, including the enigmatic Wipeout. A platform exclusive title, that would take center stage in securing the ‘cool’ image of the Playstation brand.

S.F