The playstation was launched in December 1994 and quickly established itself as the gaming platform of choice. It is one of the best-selling video game consoles of all time, with over 100 million units sold to date. The playstation also revolutionized the way we play games, introducing a whole new level of immersion and empowering gamers with an unprecedented degree of power and control over their virtual worlds.
It was a risky venture for Sony management, who believed that video gaming would tarnish the company’s image as a high end electronics manufacturer and only appeal to a very specific demographic of consumers. However, tenacious Sony employee Ken Kutaragi convinced them to let him design a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and later a standalone console called PlayStation. The deal was structured so that the Sony DADC division would manufacture the CD media and Sony Imagesoft would license the console software.
The defining feature of the playstation was its ability to display 3D graphics. To achieve this, the PlayStation was fitted with a 33Mhz RISC processor and custom silicon that processed sound and video in real time. It was the first console to offer this level of processing power, although rival systems like the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 offered slightly better 2D graphics.
The original PlayStation controller featured a basic design consisting of a D-pad and 4 select buttons ((‘Green Triangle’),(‘Red Circle/Red O’),(‘Blue Cross/Blue X’) and (‘Pink Square/Pink O’). The controller was later upgraded to the Dual Analog in 1997, adding two analog sticks based on potentiometer technology.