Sony enters the scene of Video Gaming consoles

The PlayStation quickly entered the scene as Sony's debut into the gaming industry market, and just as rapidly snatched a huge share of the market.

What a lot of people probably didn't know was that Sony began its design for Nintendo, prior to the release of the Super Nintendo system. Nintendo began looking into CD-ROM capabilities and its vast superior memory capacity as an option, but due to contractual failings, Nintendo gave up on the idea.

Sony didn't, however, and continued development of CD technology with video gaming.

The original design of the "PlayStation" would have included both a slot for Nintendo's cartridges as well as a processor for CD-rendered game software. (How Stuff Works, How PlayStation Works by Jeff Tyson)

This new technology allowed for game storage on disks to climb to 650 megabytes, which was incredible at the time. The capacity was so great in fact that most games designed on the PlayStation never reached the full-capacity of the technology.

Sony released the PSX (PlayStation) in Japan Dec. 3, 1994, in North America Sept. 9, 1995 and Europe and Australia in Nov. 15, 1995.

Nintendo and Sega tried to answer with releases of the Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast, which did provide some competition, the Dreamcast also utilizing CD-technology, which Nintendo continued using cartridges, but Sony kept the stranglehold.

Sony estimated throughout its lifespan that 1 in 4 households in the U.S. owned a PSX, I'd supposed including the 2 that I owned. (One stayed at home with my parents, and I bought another one for when I moved out)

That part that I find most amusing is Nintendo had the opportunity to work alongside Sony to develop this technology that pretty much knocked Nintendo out of the in-home video game console market for several years (after releasing another bid with the GameCube, then several years later with their current Wii system), but because of contract issues, they signed their own downfall, and allowed Sony to get involved in the industry and swallow Nintendo's market hold.

Sony PSX had a game library consists of over 2,400 games!

here's a link to the article by Jeff Tyson with in depth specifications of the system