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PlayStation (Games) Media Sony

The PlayStation Turns 20 101

Posted by Soulskill from the and-now-you-feel-old dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The 3rd of December marks an auspicious date in gaming history: 20 years ago today, the very first PlayStation went on sale in Japan. In that time, Sony has successfully muscled its way into the gaming scene, and seen off a few rivals as well. In a new retrospective, a writer looks back at how Sony's console series has changed gaming, from introducing the DVD and the Blu-ray disc to innovations like the second screen PocketStation and the still untapped power of Remote Play and Gaikai game streaming.
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The PlayStation Turns 20 More

The PlayStation Turns 20

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  • I will never buy from Sony (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Coming in 3.. 2.. 1..

    Nor will I illegally download any of their products

    Coming in 10**100.. 10**100-1... 10**100-2..

  • "second screen" innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GerbilSoft ( 761537 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @12:30PM (#48515067)

    innovations like the second screen PocketStation

    Not only was PocketStation released after Sega's VMU, it doesn't even function as a second screen. Both devices plug into the memory card slot, but while the Dreamcast's memory card slot is in the controller (which makes the screen usable while playing games), the PlayStation's memory card slot is in the console.

    Nice try attempting to rewrite history in Sony's favor.

    • Re:"second screen" innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GerbilSoft ( 761537 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @12:38PM (#48515153)
      Added bonus from the actual article:

      18) Introduced touch controls on a console controller Mobile gaming has clearly had some form of influence over the latest generation of consoles, and it’s most evident with the PS4’s DualShock 4, which includes a touchpad on the face for swiping and pointing with your fingers, and who knows what else in the future.

      Yes, PS4 was the first console with touch controls on the controller. There definitely wasn't a system released a year before with a controller based around a 6" touchscreen. Definitely not.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I love how most of the points start off with "Sure, XXXX may have been first to to YYYY, but..." You'd almost think Sony invented moving goalposts.

      • Heck, if you count portable consoles, the PS4 wasn't even the first *Sony* console to have touch controls.

      • Wouldn't the numeric keypad with overlays of the Intellivision controllers count as "touch controls"?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          Wouldn't the numeric keypad with overlays of the Intellivision controllers count as "touch controls"?

          If that counts as "touch controls", then so would a keyboard.
          In other words: No.

    • I know I may sound like sound like a defensive fanboy, but they said "introduced bluray and dvd (were those sony first?), and also brought out innovations such as second screen etc"

      That like denying that the iPod was innovative, or the iPhone, just because it wasn't first. Does an innovation require no prior existence of anything similar? Can version 2 be an innovation? Can I be innovative by creating a better more or more efficient coffee machine? It might not be the first ever coffee machine, but it might

      • The PocketStation doesn't even function as a second screen, since you can't make use of it while playing a game on the PlayStation. (In contrast, the Sega VMU is in the controller, so you can actually see it while playing.)

        • Re:"second screen" innovation (Score:5, Insightful)

          by GerbilSoft ( 761537 ) on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @01:03PM (#48515411)
          This is more a criticism of the terrible article, not Sony themselves. There's all sorts of other errors in the article, e.g. assertions that HDMI is required for HD (it isn't) and that Bluray holds 33 GB (dual-layer discs hold 50), plus mentioning that PS3 online play is free while conveniently leaving out the fact that PS4 online play isn't.

          ...and now I look at who wrote the article: Red Bull. Definitely a reliable go-to source for video game news.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Chris Mattern ( 191822 )

        introduced bluray and dvd (were those sony first?)

        Yes, Sony has been consistently in front on optical media. The PS was the first successful console with CD-ROM, the PS2 was the first console to have DVD (GameCube had a proprietary disc format, Dreamcast had CD-ROM with a more capable proprietary disc format. XBox could do DVD but came out after PS2 and unlike the PS2 wouldn't play video DVDs out of the box--you had to buy the special controller). PS3 was the only console of its generation to have BluRay

        • Wasn't Turbo Graphix the first successful CD game console in like 1990 only to later get beaten down by sega genesis and snes?

          • The Turbo Graphix-16 (Called the "PC Engine" in Japan) used small "HuCards" for games. The TurboGrafx-CD (PC Engine CD in Japan) was a CD add-on that allowed games to be played off of CDs. There was the Turbo Duo which was a combination unit.

          • Turbo Graphix had a CD add-on (the Genesis had one as well). They sold 500,000 of the CD units, which doesn't seem very successful to me.

            • I'm not a huge gamer but when I was in highschool I worked at a fast food place and a few gamers would take over the TV in the break room to play the turbo graphix on their lunch hour. I didn't know a lot of people that had them but I did know three and I grew up in kansas.

        • > unlike the PS2 wouldn't play video DVDs out of the box--you had to buy the special controller

          FALSE. You _could_ use the gamepad to play videos. I know because I was doing this back in 2002.

          • FALSE. You _could_ use the gamepad to play videos. I know because I was doing this back in 2002.

            TRUE. I know this because I just went to my Xbox and tried loading a video DVD into it. Just like always, this is what said, verbatim:

            "You need to connect the DVD Playback Kit receiver to a controller port to watch movies. Remove the disc to continue."

      • I love the old saying "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

  • Holy fandom, Batman! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by damn_registrars ( 1103043 ) <damn.registrars@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @12:41PM (#48515181) Homepage Journal

    innovations like the second screen PocketStation and the still untapped power of Remote Play and Gaikai game streaming.

    The PocketStation was never released outside Japan and most playstation owners have likely never even heard of it, let alone have made use of it. And when you go in to "still untapped power", you venture deep into slashvertisement territory.

    I know there are tons of Sony fanboys here on slashdot, but this is a bit absurd.

    • I know there are tons of Sony fanboys here on slashdot, but this is a bit absurd.

      Did you mean anti-Sony fanboys? I've certainly never seen anybody here in Slashdot say anything positive about Sony.

      • I know there are tons of Sony fanboys here on slashdot, but this is a bit absurd.

        Did you mean anti-Sony fanboys? I've certainly never seen anybody here in Slashdot say anything positive about Sony.

        What was this article but something positive about Sony? That said, if you haven't seen a Sony fanboy here yet, you haven't been around long enough. They're out there, believe me. I've been around long enough to encounter Sony, Microsoft, and Toyota fanboys here (sometimes all in one week). The only fanboys who are not allowed here are fanboys of President Obama or any other well-known democratic politician from the US.

  • This was shortly after the NES and partially Atari completely ruined everything. Companies thought they could put out anything that was vaguely a game, regardless of quality and fun level, and people would buy it. There were more bad Atari games than the NES but still, there were some real tragedies from no-name startup companies that instantly bankrupted them. When the Playstation came out, they enforced better standards and suddenly game makers realized games couldn't suck. This was just in time for t

    • Companies thought they could put out anything that was vaguely a game, regardless of quality and fun level, and people would buy it.

      Having worked in the video game industry for six years, nothing has changed.

      • Not exactly. Maybe for mobile but these days you spend $50 million, hire foreigners to do everything hard, make a deal with McDonalds and Doritos, bribe review companies, launch at midnight, and use early adopters as free beta testers or your game fails.
        • When the Hollywood and video game convergence was popular prior to the dot com bust, Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple personality disorder) made their video games available on ALL platforms (Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube/GameBoy Advance, PC, and Sony PlayStation 2). As a lead video game tester, I told management that the PS2 ports to the GameCube weren't going to fly with Nintendo. They didn't believe me until Nintendo pushed back and even demanded the cancellation of
    • nintendo single handedly changed things because they were the ones who enforced quality controls on the NES where atari simply let whoever make whatever. I think you are need to look into the NES quality seal

  • I generally hate any game products from Japanese countries, since they're such nationalistic/xenophobic and conformist society (Japan always gets all the releases first, every game is on-rails with the same lame anime style, and so on). But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles.

    • Well, you should stop hating, it's no good for your heart. I don't buy Sony hardware anymore (except for gaming stuff ) because the quality of their products has decreased dramatically these last years. But I have to admit that the PS (portable and "desktop") is a neat piece of hardware, despite of their stupid content delivery policies and stuff like making proprietary memory cards for the PS Vita. PS is a classical example of good engineering and broken management.

      • Aren't the PS Vita memory cards Sony's duo-sticks or whatever they're called?

        • Aren't the PS Vita memory cards Sony's duo-sticks or whatever they're called?

          Nope, that was the PSP. The Vita changed it again; they made it so you had to get a special memory card made solely for the Vita.

          • They're tiny little things too. They probably went with a Vita only format because you could take the Duo's out of your PSP's and mount them up in a memory card reader (since Sony used them in other devices). Or just hook the PSP itself up since it mounts USB storage. It's trivially easy to copy anything over to it.

            However, nothing reads those Vita cards but Vita's and the playstation TV, and if you hook a Vita up to the PC, you only get limited access, because the transfers are controlled from the Vita e

    • I generally hate any game products from Japanese countries, since they're such nationalistic/xenophobic and conformist society (Japan always gets all the releases first, every game is on-rails with the same lame anime style, and so on).

      I think there's irony somewhere in there. Or sarcasm. Or worse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      "But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles."

      No it doesn't. Microsoft making wrong moves pre-release says nothing about their actual released system.

      I have all current gen and last gen consoles. The PS4 has the least polished software and controller, but has the nicest physical console design and best specs. The Xbox One has the most good games,

      • "But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles."

        No it doesn't. Microsoft making wrong moves pre-release says nothing about their actual released system.

        I have all current gen and last gen consoles. The PS4 has the least polished software and controller, but has the nicest physical console design and best specs. The Xbox One has the most good games, by far the best controller, and a joint best UI with the Wii U, but the Xbox One is physically much to big and ugly. At release the Xbox One was also overpriced relative to performance but now it's often much easier to get it cheaper than the PS4 so offers better value for money at this point just over a year in to the X1/PS4 release.

        The Wii U is different, it's UI is polished, it's games are almost entirely consistently excellent quality, but it's underpowered relative to it's price, and there aren't enough games even though the bulk of what's there is incredibly high quality.

        So they all have their pros and cons, there's nothing inherently high quality about Sony's console, in fact, whilst the Xbox One and PS4 both had far more release issues than they should have I'd argue the PS4 had the lowest quality launch in terms of number and seriousness of defects. Neither were ready for release when they were.

        Which is interesting because as an owner of both the Xbox One and PS4 I tend to feel differently about the two by contrast. The PS4 has a smoother, more polished UI and overall experience, the controllers are more comfortable and the game selection is superior. Xbox One meanwhile feels like it has a UI which tried to innovate and failed to do so (in fairness I do not use Kinect) leading to a rather clunky and hard to navigate bastard offspring of the Windows 8 tile system....something the 360 also suffered

  • Playstation: 20 years of the most awful gamepads out there!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qwak23 ( 1862090 )

      While in the grand scheme of things, gamepad quality ranks somewhere near the color of socks I am currently wearing, if I had mod points, I would totally mod you up.

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