PlayStation is 10 years Old Today

pluke writes "ComputerandVideoGames.com reports that today is the 10 year anniversary of the PlayStation launch in Japan. Facing stiff competition from the already entrenched Sega Saturn it went on to conquer the market and define the modern games industry. Happy Birthday old boy, though I must confess was always a Saturn man." Sniff...so many memories.

Comments

And to think...

[pappy97]

The Playstation and PS2 never would have happened if it weren't for Nintendo pulling the plug on the CD-ROM add-on for SNES.

People say Nintendo's biggest mistake was Virtual Boy. I say it was dropping this project allowing Sony to get into and dominate the console market.

Launch titles....

[hollismb]

Ah, memories. The two launch titles for the PS1 (yes, there were only two!) were Toshiden and Ridge Racer. Toshiden was a graphical masterpiece that played like Street Fighter, and also, um, sucked. Ridge Racer, on the other hand, was an amazing game, and an arcade perfect conversion to boot. It had only one track, that had a couple different branching paths (based on difficulty) and that was it. Nonetheless, the hardcore, broke college boys that we were, we'd race that damn track over and over and over again, trying to shave precious hundreds of seconds off our times and striving for the perfect lap (which was basically impossible to do two laps in a row).

PS VS SS

[computertheque]

The Playstation came bringing with it one very important factor, which is what I believe is the only reason it became as large as it did. It was easier to program for than the Sega Saturn. I'm sure that after a while Sony did things to entice publishers, but that is the main reason it got the upper hand. It's no secret that developers did not like the dual processor nature of the Saturn, and the Playstation's better internal structure allowed for titles to be made with ease. The Saturn did 2d very well, a key reason that it plays home to so many Capcom fighters. People seem to forget that the Saturn did very well in Japan, and was still doing moderately well even after the Playstation was killing in America. The surprising thing about the entire story is how loyalties were changed from the established name of Sega. That's not to say that Sony wasn't an established name, but not in gaming. It truely was a case of the underdog's success. While I do like what the Playstation brought to the game world, I do not favor how Sony has brought things into the mainstream. Sure it allows for more growth, but it has also brought about many unfavorable things. Your average game is now made for the lowest common denominator, resulting in unchallenging difficulty and bland properties. Don't even get me started on the Urbanization of games. Definately a key moment of gaming history.

I disagree

[Carlos Rodriguez]

While I agree that Sony would sooner or later have released its own console, it would have arrived later rathen than sooner if not for Nintendo's actions. Had Nintendo just killed the project Sony would quite likely still have been allied to Nintendo for a while. In fact, according to "Revolutionaries at Sony", a Sony approved "biography" of the original Playstation, Ken Kutaragi, the creator of the Playstation, had tried to convince Sony's upper management to release their own console, but the plan had always been rejected because Sony was happy just being a provider of parts for the Nintendo consoles.

That same book details what happened. The problem was that Nintendo, instead of just pulling the plug for Sony's original Playstation (which was a SNES/CD-ROM hybrid platform), went behind Sony's back and formed an alliance with Philips to develop a SNES CD-ROM add-on. One day after Sony announced that it was working along with Nintendo to develop the Playstation, Nintendo announced that it was working with Phillips to develop the true SNES CD-ROM and that Sony's project wouldn't come to light. This conference made Sony's management appear as complete fools.

Kutaragi saw his chance and told the President of Sony that they could go ahead with the Playstation project and release it as a stand-alone console. The main reason why Kutaragi's plan was approved was not because of a great business plan, but because he stressed how it would be the best way to get even with Nintendo.

Virtual Boy was a mistake, true, but while it was a dismal failure it didn't cause Nintendo's presence in the market to shrink one fourth of what the original PS did just a couple of years after its introduction.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I am _not_ NCL or SCEI, but the following is fact.

Nintendo's deal with Philips was not a nonsensical backstab at Sony, as this official Sony biographer claims. (That is merely a case of the "winner" writing history.) It was a response to a Sony licensing agreement that limited Nintendo's ability to have any say in what happened on the Playstation side.

Basically, Sony was restricting Nintendo's ability to license (and therefore profit from) CD-based games. The PlayStation was, in Sony's view, a Sony machine that also played SNES games. You want to make Playstation games? You go through Sony, and Nintendo is out of the picture. Otherwise, you make a SNES game and, hey, Playstation will be able to play it.

As such, Sony expected to hold total control over the CD-ROM business, while Nintendo's technology (SNES) became less and less relevant with time. In time, SNES compatibility would not have mattered, much like the way PlayStation is now a dead-end compared to PS2 development.

Additionally,_ALL_ of Nintendo's future technical development (future consoles, etc.) would depend on a partnership with Sony, giving them leverage to squeeze more and more out of Nintendo. If they moved away from that partnership, they would have already lent credibility and market experience to a competitor with huge killing power.

So what did Nintendo do? They took a chance to get out of the situation they were stuck in: They partnered with Philips (a non-Japanese technology provider) and announced an exclusivity agreement. This was a move to sour Sony on progressing with their plans to enter the console space. This was Nintendo's gamble, and they lost.

So is Nintendo's handling of Sony their biggest mistake? In the big picture, yes. Sony snuck into the console industry under Nintendo's nose using their own platform, and when Nintendo finally noticed what was happening, they were almost powerless to stop it.

Virtual Boy...big deal. Every technology company has their own Virtual Boy. Microsoft themselves have had the equivalent of at least three Virtual Boys in their lifetime, and yet they have the power to dictate policy to national governments. But I digress.

Re:I disagree

[NanoGator]

"The PS hurt nintendo, but so did their refusal to launch a disc based console."

That isn't all that clear. The fact is, Nintendo got 30 million units out the door while Sega... well their Saturn was a huge flop despite being CD based. Nintendo could not have released a CD based system to compete with the Playstation and survived. In order to get a reasonable cost, they'd have to toss the 64-bit processor and go with something less distinct than Sony's offerings. Additionally, they would have made less money on media royalties going with a CD based system. The gamers out there may not care, but look what happened to Sega.

A lot of people keep saying that the N64 failed. 30 million units is not a failure. A lot of people keep saying that the N64 lost out due to a lack of a CD-ROM drive. I can sort of agree with that. It would have been cool for that machine to have an optical drive. But not if the machine ended up costing $350 dollars. Nintendo would still have had a huge uphill battle. They did the right thing by making a cheaper machine that had better graphic capabilities.

The real key to Sony's success wasn't so much the hardware, though that helped. Rather, it was that it flooded store shelves with titles. Yes, many of them were awful. But when it came time to decide which machine to get, it was hard to ignore that the Playstation was where the action was. That is where Nintendo 'failed'. They're just not getting the developer volume they need.

Fortunately, though, Nintendo has created its own audience. Nintendo has loyalty that Sony just cannot have until they start creating their own AAA titles. In other words, Sony's boat could easily be rocked by another company with whiz-bang technology. It could be Nintendo. It could be Microsoft. Heck, it could be IBM if they were so inclined.

Shit.

[jkujawa]

Well.

I feel old now.

Keep forgetting where I put my dentures, too.

You feel old now?

[Lord Kano]

Go to the mall. Look for cute girls. They are all too young for you.

I've been feeling old since I was about 22.

LK