A Salute to the Sony Playstation

According to the Playstation 3 Playstation Network, the Playstation games are categorized under Playstation Classics. That means that the Sony Playstation is now old enough to be qualified as a classic. Which, if you are the kind of kid that grew up in the late 80’s, is kind of a strange thought. The Sony Playstation actually came out in 1995. That is really bizarre because to me, personally, it feels like yesterday. Sega has already come out with the Sega Saturn by this point and the Nintendo 64 would not be released till 1996. This strange new console comes out, neither by Nintendo nor Sega, both respected video game companies, but rather Sony. The same guys who make my TV and my Walkman. This is insane, they will fail. Sure the yellow Walkman is wicked cool and sure my TV is a Panasonic, but Sony making a video game console. No way.

Well I was wrong. The Sony Playstation was released, CD based and everything. Although the Sega Saturn was already using this new format, and the Sega CD was already experiencing it, Sony used it well. The strange thing isn’t that Sony joined the competition but rather how it became developed. Let me give you a short history on the Sony Playstation.

Nintendo has been working on a CD based system to counter SEGA’s Sega CD. This was to be dubbed the SNES-CD. Nintendo has been working on this for a while since the SNES has been out, but because of piracy Nintendo had its fears.  Nintendo contacted Sony and signed a contract with Sony.  Sony was to have its own system come out that was SNES compatible, but also meant that Nintendo would lose their control over their own titles such as Mario and Zelda. Nintendo quickly backed out of the agreement and thus created their own nemesis. Nintendo would eventually let Philips use Nintendo titles for their console and of course we got some of the worse games ever made, Hotel Mario, and The Legend of Zelda (THREE!!!) on the Philips CDI.Not to get into the whole legal feud that happened between Sony and Nintendo, to keep it short Nintendo saved their own butt but also created their own rival. It was a double edge sword. This is actually very poetic, the trainee became the master kind of deal, I can also be looking too deeply into this, which I am, and will stop….now.

So thus the Sony Playstation was announced and unlike Sega or Nintendo, this little bugger system didn’t have a mascot we grew up and loved. I mean Nintendo had Mario; Sega had Sonic the Hedgehog, what was Sony’s plan. Some kind of Bandicoot? Who had attitude? Who we all want to be rather than relate to? With a kick ass name like Crash? Good move.

Sure the Playstation had its fair share of good games, but a lot of them didn’t take off till later on. Sony just kept punching Nintendo in the gut. Nintendo released the Rumble pack, and Sony would release the Dual Shock. Nintendo had Final Fantasy VII planned, but then SquareSoft jumped to Sony releasing one of the most successful RPGs of all time, Final Fantasy VII. Although Final Fantasy VII was originally supposed to be released on the SNES, and then the Nintendo 64, it was the lack of Storage space that the Nintendo 64 cartridges offered that stopped them from continuing the project on the system. This really helped put the Sony Playstation on the map.

Thus a lot more games were made exclusively for the Playstation rather than the Sega Saturn who was really suffering and Nintendo who, if it wasn’t for their strong first party line up of games, would probably have suffered worse. The Playstation offered exclusives like Crash Bandicoot. Legend of Spyro, Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Chrono Cross, Syphon Filter(Franchise), 2Xtreme, Bust A Groove, Cool Boarders, Grand Theft Auto ( 2 and London),  Jet Moto, Twisted Metal, MediEvil, Oddoworld, Resident Evil, Silent Hill and of course Metal Gear Solid.

Now I’m  just barely scraping what the Playstation had to offer, a lot of franchises would even continue to this day with Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 5, Grand Theft Auto IV and even Final Fantasy XIII and a new Twisted Metal, all successful and all seen changes and developments that help keep the Sony Playstation 3 alive, where as other games such as Syphon Filter, Jet Moto and even Silent Hill slowly failing.The graphics on the Playstation was something incredible; Metal Gear Solid is probably the best game to use in terms of what the Playstation was capable of. Final Fantasy VII experienced with the system and Metal Gear Solid perfected it. The graphics, the music, the voices all fluent and perfect. The game was fun, the added breaking of the third wall and of course Memory Cards.

This era of gaming brought on a new console war, Sony Playstation vs. Nintendo 64 vs. Sega Saturn. Unfortunately the Sega Saturn was not doing too well, with a few great exclusive games be offered. Without a doubt Sony Playstation won the console war, but basically won with a landslide. Nintendo 64 wasn’t far behind, I personally knew an equal amount of people who either owned a Playstation, Or a Nintendo 64, but few people owned a Sega Saturn.  Sony Playstation really paved the way for Microsoft to join the competition because like Sony, Microsoft was not a game developer.

The Playstation control scheme remained the same to this day, the Dual shock is a very comfortable controller, it did not use the usual A, B, C buttons, but instead used shapes. The Dual shock is very weak in comparison to the Nintendo 64 controller (I’ve dropped many controllers and have had them shatter into a thousand pieces) but it still remains the same basic design, with a few tweaks which are found in the Dual Shock 3.Sony Playstation was a great system and due to its technology created some of the best franchises; it was always a favourite system of mine and acted as a CD player as well. So all in all, the Sony Playstation was a great system that introduced new ideas and new formulas to games, and for this Paranerds.com Salutes the Sony Playstation.

Listen to our podcast (We dive more into the Playstations history)