10 Year Anniversary of PS1 Launch

1up is reporting on the anniversary this week of the original PlayStation. For many people the system represents a fundamental shift in consumer gaming. From the article: "PlayStation changed the way people played games--the way they thought about them, really. When Sony launched its console, the gaming industry was bogged down by expensive production, too many competing standards, and crippling uncertainty among the mind-share leaders. In just a few short years, PlayStation rose from that morass to become the undisputed champion of the era, not only taking the 32-bit prize but simultaneously paving the way for a comfortable lead in the following generation."

Comments

Re:How is anything different?

[MBCook]

As for the "expensive production", I don't think they meant games as a whole, but copies.

Before the PlayStation (and Saturn, which never took off in the Sates and ended up a black sheep in my opinion), games came on carts. SNES carts, NES carts, Genesis carts.

Carts cost money. While back then it may have cost 10 cents to press a CD (just a guess), it cost $10 for a cart (again, a guess). And the more memory you put on, the more expensive the cart (remember the ads about how much data was packed into Donkey Kong Country?). With a CD, it didn't matter if you put 50 megs or 650 megs on, it cost the same.

You press a CD, then you sell it.

You burn the ROM chips for a cart. Then you make the circuit boards. Then you solder the two together. Then you add the little battery for saved games. Then you put in in the plastic cart. Then you label it. Then you sell it. Did I mention that Nintendo did all this so you had to pay them to do it?

The difference is in where the expense is: at the front (design, programming, etc) or the back (production). Not that making games was dirt cheap back then.

But for the rest of your point, you're right. Too many standards today? Yep (PS, PS2, GC, XBox, NGage, DS, GBA, PC, Mac, and anything else). Crippling uncertainty? Yep (but... that game is... new! We can't do that.... what if it doesn't sell? Just make Madden 2006 and Generic FPS 7 instead).