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
Showing posts with label playstation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label playstation. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
The history of in-home video game systems
Most members of the classic retro video gaming culture of today know about the Nintendo, Sega and Playstation of the past, but here's a website that goes even beyond that. Time Magazine does a blast from the past to recap even earlier additions to the video game world prior to the video game crash of 1983, which nearly killed the video game in-home console industry in its wake.
http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2029221,00.html
I remember playing the Intelivision at my cousins place, but couldn't for the life of me put a name to what the system was called. I used to play the sports montage on it, namely the baseball game. You'd put the game card inside the controller, and based on the icon on the card designating the player you'd want to throw the ball to or control, you'd push the button underneath the 'game card'. It was a neat idea in my opinion.
Like many families in middle-class America, my parents owned an Atari 2600 system with a variety of game cartridges. Man, how games used to be is amazing to say the least. We used to be satisfied and even thrilled with the Burger-Time or Donkey Kong style graphics made up of VERY noticeable pixels. Your character was a series of squares put together in some semblance of order, with different clashing colors to denote clothes and such. Ah, the good ol' days.
Then came the Nintendo Entertainment System into our home. We thought we were in heaven with games like Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt (although often times I lost bullets on the next round from trying to shoot the dog for laughing at me), Legend of Zelda, Bomberman and Duck Tales. I even now sometimes go back to play Super Mario Brothers and realize just how freaking hard that game was! How could I play is so well and even beat the entire game as a kid?
Well, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis came after, and from then on I tended to have enough spending cash to buy both systems. That was the only way back then to get the best games, as some games were only made on Sega, and others only on Nintendo. Alas, to think that we now describe Super Nintendo and the Genesis as "retro games" and I was a teenager when those two systems were in their prime.
This site does well in going even further back than my own lifetime and experience to some of the predecessors even to the Playstation and Nintendo even. We've all heard of Pong, but there was actually video game life prior to Pong!
Feel free to post any comments, negative positive or otherwise on this blog. All additions are welcome, and feel free to feed this blog to your other friends who used to live in the closet of Nintendo video gamers of the "retro age."
http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2029221,00.html
I remember playing the Intelivision at my cousins place, but couldn't for the life of me put a name to what the system was called. I used to play the sports montage on it, namely the baseball game. You'd put the game card inside the controller, and based on the icon on the card designating the player you'd want to throw the ball to or control, you'd push the button underneath the 'game card'. It was a neat idea in my opinion.
Like many families in middle-class America, my parents owned an Atari 2600 system with a variety of game cartridges. Man, how games used to be is amazing to say the least. We used to be satisfied and even thrilled with the Burger-Time or Donkey Kong style graphics made up of VERY noticeable pixels. Your character was a series of squares put together in some semblance of order, with different clashing colors to denote clothes and such. Ah, the good ol' days.
Then came the Nintendo Entertainment System into our home. We thought we were in heaven with games like Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt (although often times I lost bullets on the next round from trying to shoot the dog for laughing at me), Legend of Zelda, Bomberman and Duck Tales. I even now sometimes go back to play Super Mario Brothers and realize just how freaking hard that game was! How could I play is so well and even beat the entire game as a kid?
Well, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis came after, and from then on I tended to have enough spending cash to buy both systems. That was the only way back then to get the best games, as some games were only made on Sega, and others only on Nintendo. Alas, to think that we now describe Super Nintendo and the Genesis as "retro games" and I was a teenager when those two systems were in their prime.
This site does well in going even further back than my own lifetime and experience to some of the predecessors even to the Playstation and Nintendo even. We've all heard of Pong, but there was actually video game life prior to Pong!
Feel free to post any comments, negative positive or otherwise on this blog. All additions are welcome, and feel free to feed this blog to your other friends who used to live in the closet of Nintendo video gamers of the "retro age."
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