(Quoted from Wikipedia.org)
PlayStation (abbreviated as PS), is
a series of video game consoles developed by Sony, a video game company
situated in Japan. The first of the series, the PlayStation (dubbed the PSX by
people nowadays, not to be confused with the actual PSX, a digital video
recorder released on December 13, 2003) , was released on December 3, 1994, and
became the first console to have ever shipped 100 million units, only after 9
years of its release.
The history draws back in 1986 with
a joint venture between Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo approached Sony to develop
a console which would use a CD-ROM, dubbed the “SNES-CD” or the “Play Station” (with
space). The reason behind this was that the man known as Ken Kutaragi, who was
dubbed as “The Father of The PlayStation”, was working with Nintendo to develop
the SNES’s audio processor, which almost got him kicked out from Sony, as he
was still working there at that time.
The joint product was to be
released in May 1991 at the Consumer Electronic Service. However, after a brief
review on the contract between the two companies (Nintendo and Sony), it was
ultimately canceled. Sony then decided to team up with Sega to develop a
stand-alone console, but Sega vetoed the proposal, prompting Sony into halting
their research. This also prompted Sony to use what it had developed so far
with Sega and Nintendo to make a complete console based on the SNES.
Nintendo, claiming to have their “contract
breached”, filed a lawsuit on Sony to obtain an injunction against the release
of what would be the “Play Station” which they claimed its name, which was denied
by the court, and by October 1991, the aforementioned product’s sneak peek was
revealed.
In 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached
an agreement where the “Play Station” would still have a port for SNES games,
but Nintendo would own everything from the console, and would continue using
Sony’s audio processor. However, in 1993, Sony decided to rework the concept of
the “Play Station” to target a new generation of hardware and software. As a
result the port for SNES was dropped and the space between the two words “Play
Station” was removed, resulting in the name “PlayStation”, thus removing any
kind of Nintendo’s involvement with the project. Initial marketing would market
the console under the branding “PSX”, but the term was scrapped before launch.
The first launch of the PlayStation
was in Japan on 3 December 1994, while in North America, Europe, and Oceania on
9 September 1995, 29 September 1995 and 15 November 1995 respectively. It was
an immediate success, selling over 6 million units in Japan within half a year.
The slim, redesigned model, dubbed the “PSone”, was released on 7 July 2000.
Following the success of the PlayStation,
many successors to the original PlayStation have spawned. The first successor,
dubbed the PlayStation 2, was launched on 4 March 2000 in Japan. It is backward
compatible with the original console, meaning that one can play a PlayStation
game on a PlayStation 2 console. The third generation of the PlayStation, the
PlayStation 3, was initially launched on 11 November 2006 in Japan, and is also
backward compatible for some models. The fourth generation, the PlayStation 4,
was initially released in the US on 15 November 2013, and is also backward
compatible with the PS3, although only select games are backward compatible
through PlayStation Now. The first PlayStation portable console, the PlayStation
Portable, was released in 2004, and the second portable console, the
PlayStation Vita, was released in 2011.