PlayStation is a series of video game consoles and handheld devices, produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Initially released in Japan in 1994, and in the United States in September 1995, the PlayStation was an immediate success with both consumers and critics, despite competing against established 64-bit consoles such as the Sega Dreamcast and Nintendo GameCube at a similar price point. Its premier franchises such as Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon became incredibly popular, spawning many sequels. This aided in the rapid sales of the console, and by March 2005 it had already sold over 100 million units.
After the release of the PlayStation 2, an online service was introduced in July 2001, allowing players to interact with each other in multiplayer games and to play off-console games on the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and PlayStation Vita system. PlayStation also features the ability to stream games online or to a friend’s console (“Remote Play”), and an array of accessories including headphones, microphones and controllers with built-in touch pads.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is the latest console in the PlayStation family. It is designed to be a midcycle upgrade of the PlayStation 4, and it offers a number of technical improvements over the original PS5. It uses AMD’s APU, which is based on the x86-64 architecture and can reach up to 1.84 teraflops. This allows it to render images at a higher resolution, as well as to increase the framerate in certain games without losing image quality.