Twenty years ago in the land of the rising sun, Japan, took birth a small grey box of electronic tricks, heralding the birth of the global gaming phenomenon that changed the entertainment landscape, launching titles that now outstrip sales from Hollywood’s biggest franchises. The Play Station was born and set to create a path breaking sphere in the entertainment industry and add a new dimension to entertainment. In the early December 1994 the commercial Play Stations hit the stores and introduced a revolution in the graphic world, engrossing gameplay and the kind of complex virtual worlds that had only previously been available in an arcade.
In the words of Jim Ryan, chief executive of Sony (SNE, Financial) Computer Entertainment Europe, he said “when we arrived, the video game was seen as a niche hobby. One of our achievements is to have succeeded in making a legitimate cultural object, like music or cinema.”
The Play Station was Sony’s first step into the world of computer games and posed a serious competition to the established giant of the sector, Nintendo (NTDOY, Financial), whose character-driven two-dimensional offerings like Super Mario had already hypnotized the children.
The Play Station Route
Unlike the 16-bit cartridges that powered the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sony’s Play Station housed an economic CD-ROMs, a technology that supported storage of huge data tracts.
The introduction of disc technology into gaming and use of powerful graphics in the original 32-bit machines made 3-D a possible dream and became the sweetheart for gamers and game developers globally. Sony as always known for its innovation lived up to its reputation and created the ergonomic gaming console that fit neatly in a player’s hands and replaced the rectangular box console of Nintendo.
Titles such as Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy brought about a sudden surge in console sales and launched what became multi-billion dollar franchises with legions of loyal fans.
Global blockbusters like Grand Theft Auto joined the PlayStation world, as well as other platforms. The latest installment became a member of the billion dollar club in its first three days of sales and overshadowed even blockbuster film releases worldwide keeping the citizens of the gaming world glued to their consoles and away from the theaters.
USP of Play Station
March 2000 saw the revolution in the design aspect of a gaming console. The Play Station PS2 not only leveraged the mega-capacity of DVDs from the previous standard storage format but also several additions in the design aspect. The trademark controller was retained, but with additional features like vibrations and a sleek new design featuring a black tower with clean abstract lines that had the grace of a designer’s touch and signified the bridge between the real and the virtual world. The company shipped out 150 million units worldwide and the PS2 still stands tall as the best-selling console of all time.
Although the Play Station fans got a handheld PSP in 2004, but owing to the popularity of the PS2s, Sony did not want to alter this popularity equation much and waited for six long years before launching the next version the PS3 a Blu-ray equipped and Internet-ready device that allowed gamers across the globe play against each other.
The introduction of PS3 with the unique feature of internet connectivity changed the whole world of gaming. Until then gaming was more of a solo activity or a small group activity in a single room but with internet access the gaming world turned into a huge group of gamers sitting in geographically diverse locations but all part of one world called the gaming world.
Unlike the ever-contracting windows of release for mobile phones and tablets, gaming consoles have retained their strung-out lives, with engineers packing as much hardware and spare capacity into them as they can.
“In every generation, Sony has tried to bring an innovation in its machines to make the difference,” said Laurent Michaud, head of consumer electronics and digital entertainment practice at Digiworld Institute/ IDATE.
Just like its predecessor the PS3 also ruled the roost in the gaming world for a fairly long time until 2013 when PS4 was launched which again redefined the gaming world. An ultra-powerful machine with 4,000 times the memory of the original and processing capacity orders of an ever larger magnitude.
Sony had shipped out 13.5 million of PS4 last year which allowed users to play games straight from the Cloud in a universe that now includes compatible smartphones, televisions and tablets. Hence PS4 took the gaming world to a new level of cloud computing and accessible from a wide range of devices making each device into a virtual gaming console.
What Next
From the introduction of PS4 and latching it to cloud computing the tech giants intentions are clear, they want to make the gaming world more and more futuristic with every launch and that every launch would signify a giant leap towards future. Sony is now introducing a cable-style television service in the United States delivered through Play Station 3 and 4 consoles, called ‘Play Station Vue.’
“The PS4 symbolizes Sony’s strategic move for future growth, as the product positions itself for a Cloud-based future where consoles might even disappear,” Yu Okazaki, analyst at Nomura Securities (NMR, Financial) was quoted as saying.
“PlayStation4 is selling well. The product shows Sony is looking at five, 10 years down the road. The number of consoles sold and their network capacity make it extremely promising,” Okazaki said.
To mark the 20th anniversary, Sony Computer Entertainment is releasing a special, limited edition PS4 in the original grey, which will be offered to 12,300 diehard fans worldwide.
Last Word
Sony has been revolutionizing the gaming world since the inception of the first Play Station. It added new design then brought about new connectivity changing the whole world into a mega sized gaming room and then changed the gaming hardware from a real set to a virtual cloud ambience turning almost every connective device into a gaming console. Though the gaming world has three major players – Nintendo, Sony Play Station and the Xbox from Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) however the Play Station is the fastest growing amongst them all and making Sony a name to reckon with in the gaming world.
The Play Station has successfully traversed 20 years since it was born and with each evolution it has also evolved the gaming world as a whole and from the way the Sony gaming think tank is working Play Station’s viability for the next 20 years can easily be predicted. It would be interesting to watch for the next edition of Play Station and find out how it takes the gaming world to a new level, so until then let us stay tuned here for the new Play Station.
