History of the Playstation.

By Ronit

  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

    The successor to the Nintendo Entertainment System or commonly known as the NES. Sony was partially responsible for the huge success of he system as it produced the DSP sound chip for the SNES which was ahead of the competition by leaps and bounds. This also marks the beginning of the brief partnership between Sony and Nintendo; where Sony will begin development on a CD-ROM add on for the NES to compete with the NEC TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis.(LEvELING THE FIELD)(G.,K,)(PARISH)

  • Philips CDi

    Licensed by Nintendo to release some of its intellectual properties such as Legend of Zelda, the CDi was a massive failure overshadowed by the release of the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation. Originally Sony was supposed to handle this deal but after Nintendo decided to pull out of the deal with them at the last minute, the deal was given to Philips.
    (LEvELING THE FIELD)(G.,K,)(PARISH) History of CDi

  • Playstation

    Nintendo was initially going to collaborate with Sony to release a CD-ROM drive for their system but later Nintendo's president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to pull the plug on the project because he did not want Sony to have the worldwide manufacturing rights of CD-based games for the system.
    Sony decided to go on with the project and create their own gaming system to rival Nintendo and Sega. A hole that took Nintendo almost 12 years to dig out of after the release of the Playstation in 1994.

  • Playstation 2

    Successor to the gaming behemoth created by Sony, boasting one of the biggest games library of any other system on the market including backwards compatibility with Playstation 1 titles. 148 million units sold as of December 2009. Best selling game was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which shipped 17.33 million units as of March 26th 2008.
    Could read DVD-ROM/CD-ROM

  • Playstation Portable (PSP)

    Released in Japan first in Sony tradition. Rivaling the Nintendo DS, considered to be a handheld PS2 because of the amount of hardware Sony was able to cram into the tiny package. Unfortunately the Nintendo DS came out to be the superior system even with lower hardware specs, mainly because of Nintendo's impressive first party software lineup.

  • Microsoft Xbox 360 Release

    After their initial failure with the Xbox gaming system, Microsoft is coming out with a new system which promises to become the media hub by making one's media from different platforms playable on one system. i.e. playing iPod songs directly through the Xbox360 system. Microsoft was able to beat Sony to the punch in creating a central media hub within a gaming console, a strategy Sony has used with its previous systems.

  • Playstation 3

    Released first in Japan as always. 41.6 million units sold as of September 30 2010. Rivaling the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, one of the most advanced systems of our generation; boasting an impressive 8 core processor and 1080p video upscaling. Capable of reading BD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-ROM and SACD.

  • PSP GO!

    Successor to the Playstation Portable and the first Sony system which is getting ready for the future with no type of drive installed to read discs of any sort and going for a digital download approach for delivering games to the system. Gamasutra PSP GO! sales article.