December 3, 1994 is the day Sony PlayStation was officially released in Japan. After its long arrangement with Nintendo to come up with CD-ROM based video game console which was supposed to be called “Game Player”. The arrangement didn’t end well due to unfavorable impact arrangement with Sony, Nintendo partners instead with Philips to create their own console. The race has begun when Sony decided to create their own 32-bit console with the CD-ROM and it was named “Sony PlayStation”.
Sony PlayStation was the brainchild of Ken Kutagari, known as the Father of PlayStation who has been secretly working with Nintendo for SNES console sound processor improvement. He was almost sacked by Sony for this but Sony president Norio Ohga recognized the potential of Kutagari and keep him as protege.
When Nintendo and Sony separate their ways, Ohga and Kutagari decided to develop their own console for the company.
In December 3, 1994, Sony released their first video game console in Japan with 23 game titles readily available during the launch, including these featured game titles.
- Ridge Racer (Namco)
- Powerful Pro Baseball (Konami)
- Gokujuo Parachute Deluxe Pack (Konami)
- A-IV-Art Dink
- Tama-Time (Warner Interactive)
- Hot Blooded Family (Tecnosoft)
- Raiden Project (Seibu Kaihatsu)
- Motor Toon (GP-SCE)
Sony PlayStation cost around ¥38,500 ($400), while each video game cost around ¥5,800 ($60). According to Historical exchange rates fxtop.com (1 USD = PHP 24.23), at that time, the console only cost around PHP 9,600 when converted to Philippine currency.
There were more than 240 game companies who signed up for a license on PlayStation to create a video game, and that is for Japan alone. A year after, Sony released the console to the other parts of the world, on North America in September 9, 1995, Europe in September 29, 1995 and Australia in September 15, 1995 with various new titles on the day of the launch.
Over its lifespan, PlayStation 1 releases 7,918 game title for the console and sold more 962 million game copies. That time, digital copies are no where to find, all of that sales are coming from physical disk copies. One of the best selling game title was the Gran Turismo who sold 10.85 million copies alone.
Sony PlayStation host of the some popular game titles today like Tekken, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, and many more.
PlayStation 1 Specification
The following are the official specification of Sony PlayStation:
- CPU: 32-Bit RISC (R3000 custom, 4KB Cache, 1K Data Cache) at 33 8688 mHz
- RAM: 16 MBit (Main), 8 MBit (VRAM), 4 MBit (Audio)
- GPU: GLU, Sprite Rendering Performance: Max 4000 per 1/60 seconds rotation/enlargement/shrinking/deformation possible with all sprites displayed.
- Geometry Engine (GTE): Vertex Processing Speed. 4,500,000 per second (1,500,000 polygons per seoncd in the case of flat shading).
- Effects: Texture Mapping, Gouraud Shading, Fog depth cueing
- Full Color Display Max: 16,770,000
- Resolution: 256×224 to 640×480
- Sound Processer (SPU): Simultaneous Sound Sources Max 24 channels, Sampling rate Max 44.1 kHz, Playback quantization 16-Bit digital effect capability.
- Data Decompression Engine (MDEC): Directly connected to CPU bus, supporting format (JPEG), Video playback Function, Fullscreen, full color. Playback time: 35 minutes.
- Data Memory: Memory Card
- Other features:
- Video output
- Audio output
- Composite Video
- S-Video
- RGB Output
- Stereo Audio
- RF Power Output
What’s your best memory on this console? We’d like to know your thoughts.