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Playstation is celebrating its 20th birthday this month, and it certainly has a lot to celebrate.
Sony’s legendary console has remained one of the most popular gaming devices since it launched on 3rd December 1994 – long before the Xbox was released, or mobile gaming was even considered fun, let alone a competitor.
Throughout its life, Playstation has gone through many – not just the cosmetically and technically, but conceptually as well.
Obviously focusing on gaming itself, then going down the Blu-ray route, adding in motion controls and letting players record themselves, edit their videos and upload them online.
The gaming industry has certainly been kept on its toes – but without the likes of Playstation there would be no progression in what is now one of the most lucrative markets in the world.
Unfortunately, Sony – who recently launched a retro-style PS4 to mark the occasion – wasn’t able to celebrate for long as its online store, was attacked by hacker group, Lizard Squad.
Users of the Playstation store were met with a message stating: “Page Not Found! It’s not you. It’s the internet’s fault.” Reports the BBC.
The hackers put their hand up as the cause of the outage in a tweet reading: “PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad.”
Sony has acknowledged the issues that users are facing, and has said that it is investigating.
Following this, and in light of Sony’s infamous console turning 20, we have pulled together 20 highlights from Playstation’s lifetime.
1. Where better to start than at the beginning – cue the launch of the Playstation One.
2. The PS1 was the first console to sell one million units worldwide.
3. Initially, Sony was in partnership with Nintendo to create a built-in CD-ROM drive for the Super Famicon – but after Mario’s mothership backed out, Playstation went and made its own toy – rendering the good ol’ game cartridge obsolete.
4. The PSone: Sony has a thing about taking its consoles and shrinking them down – This one in particular went on to outsell all other consoles in the market. Just goes to show that size doesn’t always matter.
5. We can’t go without mentioning some true classics launched on this platform, including Tekken, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider and the first 3D Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid titles.
6. Following its launch, the PS2 sold one million consoles faster than any other gaming device in history.
7. A favoured feature of the PS2 was its backwards compatibility – allowing gamers to enjoy their older 32-bit favourites.
8. Then came the Xbox, which proved to be a worthy competitor – however instead of backing down, Sony surged forward determined to prevail over Microsoft.
9. The launch of the PSP revolutionised handheld gaming – making it the first portable console that posed a threat to Nintendo’s GameBoy.
10. Another pivotal moment on the game side of things, Grand Theft Auto three launched on the PS2 and Xbox – refreshing what is now the most successful game franchise of all time.
11. Playstation’s iconic dualshock controllers won an Emmy in 2007 for the impact they had on the overall gaming experience.
12. PlayStation 2 was so popular it attracted large numbers of third party developers and in turn consumers, meaning it beat both the mighty Nintendo and Microsoft launches with ease.
13. More recently, Sony’s third generation console was the first to have Blu-ray and motion-sensing technology built in – even though Blu-ray never really took off.
14. The PlayStation store was also launched around this time – generating well over 600 million downloads to date, which may not be much compared to the Apple App Store for example – but it’s still quite impressive.
15. The third console also saw Sony’s first wireless controllers, boasting six axis of tracked movement.
16. Playstation Move motion controller and Camera was launched in 2010, finally stepping up to the Nintendo Wii, and beating Xbox Kinect to the punch by a few months.
17. Back to GTA. Rockstar’s much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released in September 2013, selling 13.51 million copies on the PS3 alone.
18. The fourth and latest console was rolled out this year alongside the Xbox One – and although fierce competition was expected, the PS4 initially outsold its rival three-to-one.
19. This new console made some significant alterations, one of the most noticeable being the new controller. This was the first in Playstation’s history to change its shape – even if slightly – and feature a mono speaker, touch pad and a light bar.
20. Finally, for all the PewdiePie wannabes out there – players can stream gameplay live, or record, edit and upload it directly from the device.
All that is left to say is Happy Birthday Playstation. Here’s to the future.
