PlayStation: 10th Anniversary Retrospective

by Jeremy Parish 09.06.2005

Bake a cake and light some candles—this Friday marks the 10th birthday of everyone's favorite 32-bit system, the Sony PlayStation. It's hard to believe that it's been a full decade since the PS1 came along and launched Sony to the pinnacle of success. But here we are, downshifting our Emotion Engines as we cruise into the twilight days of the system's successor, making way for the PS1's Cell-powered grandchild.

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.

All in all, not bad for a slim gray box. And on the dawn of its second decade, we'd like to take a look at the system's life: where it came from, what it was, what it achieved.

Real Gaming Roots
Like any good drama, the PlayStation has a lengthy and convoluted story packed with twists, betrayals, and diabolical schemes.

The PlayStation's tale begins with the creation of the Super NES. Nintendo had ruled the videogame industry with near-monopolistic control for the duration of the 8-bit era. In the latter half of the '80s, the company's name was synonymous with gaming the world over. But Sega's Genesis came along in 1989, offering great graphics and quality software, and soon the NES was looking awfully long in the tooth next to arcade-quality 16-bit blockbusters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Strider.

Nintendo was still raking in the money with the NES but grudgingly accepted that it had to meet Sega head-on if it wanted to remain competitive. In order to create a system even more impressive than the Genesis, Nintendo focused on adding unique features to the Super NES rather than cramming raw processing power under the hood. As a result, the console's speed was half that of the Genesis', but it could perform impressive scaling, rotation, and tiling effects and display dozens of times more colors than its competition.

But perhaps the Super NES' most impressive feature was its DSP sound chip, which allowed for audio quality that represented a massive leap over the FM synthesis and wavetable noise of previous consoles. Even now, the Super NES sound chip remains the gold standard for cartridge-based consoles.

And the company that provided this musical dynamo? Sony.

Sony's gaming division was headed up by a man named Ken Kutaragi, who took an interest in the runaway success of the NES and convinced his company to enter the market. Many speculate that the DSP chip that powered the Super NES was created as a Trojan horse, with the ultimate intent of giving Sony a back door into the lucrative business of console manufacturing (not unlike what Microsoft did with the Dreamcast's Windows-based OS). Console gaming is definitely a risky business, as countless would-be Nintendo-come-latelies have learned, but the potential benefits of creating the next NES couldn't have been lost on the consumer electronics giant—especially since it was feeling the sting of having the "Walkman for games" market swiped from under its nose by Nintendo's Game Boy.

If indeed the Trojan horse theory is correct, then Kutaragi must have been gratified when Nintendo and Sony strengthened their partnership by announcing plans to create a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES. At the time, the CD-ROM was a fairly new technology that offered a significant boost in storage space over the traditional ROM cartridges most consoles used. While CD drives were expensive, the media itself was far cheaper than cartridges. Both NEC's TurboGrafx-16 and the Genesis had their own CD peripherals on the way, and Nintendo had no interest in being left behind.

Sony would provide a CD-ROM drive that Super NES owners could attach to their existing systems, and Nintendo in turn would manufacture a combination SNES with the CD-ROM built in called Super Disc. Furthermore, Sony would have the worldwide rights to manufacture the CD-based games for the system—bad news for Nintendo, which had built its massive empire on the profits reaped from its licensing and manufacturing system. So perhaps it's not surprising that Nintendo decided to back out of its contract with Sony and, on the eve of the Super Disc's announcement, forge a new deal with European electronics giant Philips. Many speculate that this was nothing more than a game of high-stakes brinkmanship, with Nintendo merely feigning interest in Philips in order to renegotiate a more favorable deal with Sony. But if that was the case, it was a failed bluff. Sony never blinked.

The fallout wasn't pretty—Nintendo's betrayal of a Japanese company in favor of a foreign interloper was a betrayal of the nation's unspoken corporate insularity. Meanwhile, Philips' CDi was hardly a cutting-edge gaming rig, with a library mainly consisting of edutainment. Nintendo willingly licensed its precious flagship properties to tiny European development houses that promptly unleashed such gems as The Legend of Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Hotel Mario on unsuspecting gamers. In other words, everybody ended up a loser...except maybe Nintendo, which was able to maintain control of its precious profits.

A PlayStation Is Born
Sony, for its part, decided not to take Nintendo's double-cross lying down. It pressed ahead with plans for the Super Disc, which it renamed Play Station. The specs were largely unchanged from those drafted with Nintendo's cooperation, and Sony's console would retain the ability to play Super NES games. Meanwhile, the CDi turned out to be a horrible disappointment of a console, plans for a Philips-manufactured SNES add-on fizzled, and Nintendo still had to rely on Sony for production of the Super NES DSP.

Unsurprisingly, the two companies shook hands and made up. The result was the announcement of a mishmash monstrosity of a system, with promised support for SNES carts and both Play Station and CDi format discs. Nintendo showed off impressive tech demos for the system, including a console version of Trilobyte's cutting-edge FMV adventure The 7th Guest, but in the end, the delays and disputes were the undoing of the format. Sega's Genesis CD add-on had failed to make significant inroads in the market, and Nintendo decided that disc-based media was too expensive and flimsy to bank on. The Play Station died a quiet death, and numerous games planned for the system were either scrapped or scaled back. For instance, Square's Secret of Mana was remade as a standard Super NES game, and the creators later complained that they'd been left with a glitchy adventure suffering from obvious holes where entire portions of the game had been excised.

Nintendo forged a deal with Silicon Graphics to create an ambitious 64-bit system called Project Reality, and Philips did its best to drum up interest in the CDi
Sony had money to plaster the brand all over the media.
(with little success). Meanwhile, Sony refused to back down. Under Kutaragi's direction, the Play Station was reimagined as a powerful 3D-capable machine with no connection to its Nintendo-oriented roots. The project was rechristened PlayStation-X and reborn as a solo Sony venture.

On May 10, 1994, Sony unveiled the final machine with its final name: PlayStation. Built around a powerful 33MHz R3000A chip, Sony claimed the system was capable of rendering 1.5 million polygons at 60 frames per second. The actual numbers were quite a bit lower in practice, but nevertheless, it was clear that PlayStation had far more polygon-pushing muscle than any of its competitors.

The system featured unique innovations. The console's front bezel housed two ports for memory cards, which allowed data for up to 15 games to be stored on an inexpensive portable card that could be transported easily and used independently of a single system or game. The back plate featured a serial I/O port that would allow two systems to be linked together, much like the Game Boy. Although few games actually supported this feature (thanks to the sheer impracticality of daisy-chaining multiple systems and televisions together), it was an interesting innovation that suggested Sony was interested in delivering an authentic arcade experience to home gamers.

The PlayStation's controllers were easily the system's most overt nod to its Super NES heritage. Despite the addition of conical handles for improved ergonomics, the PlayStation's controllers were basically Super NES controllers with a single significant difference: a second pair of shoulder triggers. Though few Super NES games had made effective use of the system's L and R buttons, Kutaragi realized that the system's emphasis on 3D gaming would require new input options and insisted on adding two more. Time would prove this to be an incredibly insightful decision. Multiplatform 3D games like Tomb Raider were far easier to play in their PlayStation incarnations than on other systems.

While the PlayStation's technical details were exciting in terms of sheer numbers, many gamers were skeptical. Sony was known for its consumer electronics, not its games; this was, after all, the company responsible for such atrocious games as Hudson Hawk, Cliffhanger, and Hook. Power is all well and good, but the numerous failed consoles of the '90s proved that processing power alone is nothing without worthwhile software.

It was something of a relief then when Sony announced that it had 164 licensees signed up to make games for the PlayStation. Ranging from the insignificant (Artdink) to the colossal (Namco, Capcom), Sony's licensees were ultimately responsible for helping to realize the full potential of the PlayStation's impressive power. More important, they denoted a level of creative support that Sony's competitors couldn't touch.

U R Not e
When the PlayStation debuted in Japan on December 4, 1994, it didn't exactly send a seismic shock through the industry. The system certainly sold well, but Sega was determined to go toe-to-toe with the newcomer and released its 32-bit powerhouse right before Sony's launch. According to many reports, Saturn actually outsold PlayStation for the first few months, despite its higher price and less-impressive 3D performance.

Eventually, Sony's sales edged ahead, though the Saturn was never completely out of the game in Japan. However, when Sega launched its system in the United States the following summer, the Saturn arrived more or less dead in the water, thanks both to both an accelerated release date and Sega of America's dogged determination not to import many of the console's best games. PlayStation hit U.S. stores on September 9, 1995, and the system immediately topped the charts.

Sony Computer Entertainment America wasn't taking any chances with its new baby. The most impressive trick in its launch salvo was to sponsor the 1995 MTV Music Awards, bringing the system to the attention of millions upon millions of young adults—aka the target demographic. (We would be remiss if we failed to note that Microsoft shamelessly adopted a similar strategy for the Xbox 360 announcement.)

PlayStation advertising was pervasive; Sony had the money it needed to plaster the brand all over the media and the perspicacity to make the investment. The initial batch of ads stumbled somewhat—those who remember the failed system mascot that was Polygon Man have few kind words to say about him. But next to Sega's bizarre bald-headed woman and Nintendo's desperate entreaties to stick with 5-year-old technology, Sony's advertising seemed remarkably strong. And Polygon Man soon gave way to the cryptic U R Not e campaign, allowing the system to strike a comfortable balance between coolness and accessibility.

The launch wasn't without its troubles, though. The initial cost of the system—$299—was far lower than that of previous CD-driven systems like 3DO, but it was still a bit steep for gamers accustomed to shelling out $200 or less for 16-bit systems. To make matters worse, the console came without a pack-in title or memory card, meaning that to use the system, customers had to drop another $80 to $90.

There was also the not-so-insignificant issue of software quality. Despite the presence of a few gems (most notably Jumping Flash and Ridge Racer), the PlayStation's first-generation titles offered a lot of flash but not necessarily much in the way of gameplay. At the time, it was easy to be dazzled by endless screens of fast, colorful polygons; in retrospect, though, few of those titles have weathered the test of time.

Although the system's offerings soon improved, that first batch of games left a bitter taste in the mouths of certain gamers who were dismayed at the emphasis on visuals over gameplay. The arrival of PlayStation opened a schism in the gaming community. Fans had always drifted into opposing camps over which console was the best—Atari or Intellivision? Genesis or Super NES?—but with the move to 3D gaming there came a new rift: old versus new. Those who felt the medium was perfectly fun with old-style graphics resented the complexity and sloppiness of polygon-based games, and rumors that Sony CEA had a strict policy of forbidding 2D games did little to endear them to the PlayStation.

Despite these hiccups, the PlayStation soon rose to the top of the heap. And nothing, not even Nintendo's wildly hyped Project Reality, could dethrone it.

The New Regime
Sony's domination was a surprise to most people; even those who expected the PlayStation to be a success were caught off guard by just how successful it ultimately was. Steadily, methodically, the pieces fell into place to put the system ahead of the pack.

PlayStation's dominance was abetted by many factors, not least of which was Sony's willingness to leverage the advantages of the CD format. Cartridges had always been expensive, and as ROM sizes increased over the years, so did prices; the NES launched with most software falling in the $20 to $30 range, but each new wave of must-have software came with a higher price tag. By the time the PlayStation arrived, games such as Chrono Trigger and Phantasy Star IV sometimes ran as high as $100.

Sony initially followed the industry standard, asking the typical $60 for its games—but the company soon realized that it could break that standard and remain profitable. As PlayStation sales moved into the million-units-plus range, SCEA lowered the price of games to $50. In 1997, Sony introduced a "budget" line of games priced at $40. Sega followed suit. Nintendo, on the other hand, launched Project Reality (aka Nintendo 64) in 1996, doggedly clinging to the cartridge format. Whether this decision was motivated by the high profit margins of cartridges, the fear of piracy, or simply a desire to thumb its nose at Sony, it was universally regarded as a poor one. N64 software offered less content for more cost, a crucial weakness in the console that was supposed to trounce PlayStation.

It wasn't just gamers who balked at the high cost of N64 games; the format's limited storage capacity and expensive production requirements scared away most third-party developers as well. Many publishers (including Capcom and Acclaim) had taken a serious financial hit when they overproduced 16-bit carts, and few were eager to stick their necks out again. Sony offered a much safer business model, a high installed base, and a growing brand name. PlayStation became synonymous with gaming, just as Nintendo had been 10 years before.

The system's position was strengthened by a rash of developer and publisher defections that went hand-in-hand with the publishing model—a major sign that everything that was going wrong in Nintendo's camp was going right for Sony. While Nintendo focused on its "Dream Team" of developers, Sony courted any and all comers. The first and most dramatic defection came in 1996 when RPG giant Square announced it would be bringing its Final Fantasy series (and, in fact, all its games) exclusively to PlayStation. Enix soon followed suit with its Dragon Quest franchise. This effectively sealed the N64's fate in Japan: The two developers responsible for the country's most popular games had abandoned the company that had turned them into giants.

Things weren't any rosier on the Saturn side, either; the system found itself starved for content as Sega methodically alienated loyal publishers like Working Designs. Slowly, inevitably third-party support for the N64 and Saturn dwindled as the PlayStation library burst at the seams with fantastic exclusive content.

Significantly, PlayStation marked the first time since the Atari 2600 era that Western developers and publishers were as vital a force as Japanese creators. British developer Psygnosis was absorbed into the Sony corporation and created Wipeout, a blistering futuristic racer that did for PlayStation what F-Zero had done for Super NES. Incog's Twisted Metal, Gremlin's Loaded, Insomniac's Spyro the Dragon, Eidetic's Syphon Filter—all were top-notch original creations that helped make the system a best-seller, and all were designed in Europe or America. Western developers even dabbled in console genres that had always been dominated by Eastern companies. For instance, when Japanese-developed RPGs were slow to trickle overseas, Crystal Dynamics filled the void with the superb Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain.

Kain was significant as more than just an attempt to reclaim the RPG genre from Japan; it also signified one of the first attempts to make effective use of the ESRB's Mature rating. "Mature" software in the 16-bit era was generally blood-soaked comic-book nonsense along the lines of Primal Rage and Mortal Kombat. But developers found that Sony's relaxed content policies offered them the freedom to truly explore adult themes. Legacy of Kain, for instance, told the story of a man who had been cursed with vampirism and set out for revenge against his tormentors. Players were forced to decide whether it was worth slaughtering innocents in order to maintain their antihero's health.

The change in content was a welcome nod to the fact that PlayStation appealed to an older crowd than its predecessors had. While the competition continued to play to its usual audience of teens (and younger), Sony recognized that people who were teens (and younger) when they bought an NES or Genesis were becoming adults who still enjoyed gaming. By targeting these adult gamers, the PlayStation was able to expand its market beyond its built-in demographic.

There was no shortage of pandering, of course. Eidos was among the worst offenders, turning the minor lesbian subtext of Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix into the centerpiece of its ad campaign, for instance. But on the whole, Sony's efforts helped push the medium further into the mainstream, creating a bigger market not only for itself, but for everyone in the business.

By the time the PlayStation's successor launched in October 2000, Sony had made its console into a giant whose life was further extended by the compact PSone unit and the PS2's backward compatibility. The system's final U.S. release arrived last fall (in the form of EA's FIFA Soccer 2005), meaning that all told, the PlayStation lasted nine years on the market. That puts it on par with the NES and Atari 2600, which in turn were only surpassed by SNK's NeoGeo (which has always proven to be the exception to a lot of rules).

So what hath the PlayStation wrought? It's perfectly reasonable to say that Sony's sleek little 32-bit machine was responsible for bringing the gaming industry back from the brink of self-destruction. By making the medium accessible, affordable, and appealing again, PlayStation helped make videogames into the multibillion-dollar industry it is today.

As gamers brace themselves for a new hardware generation, it's easy to speculate about what will happen in the next few years. Will PlayStation 3 continue Sony's winning streak? Will Xbox 360 pull ahead? Will Nintendo survive? Whatever happens, we wouldn't be where we are today without the help of the original PlayStation. Happy birthday, little guy.