Sometimes I like to think about situations where I may need to drop the most passion-filled piece of trivia I can think of. And there’s often one thought which precedes the others I may have. The piece of trivia?
“Nintendo created its biggest rival.”
How did this happen? In 1988, Sony had started developing a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. 3 years later, they announced at the Consumer Electronics Show they were going to develop this. A day later Nintendo said they were going to work with Philips to develop the add-on. Considering that this was in development for 4 years, you would think Sony, and at the time Nintendo, would have some kind of prototype for it, right? Yes. They did. That prototype?
The PlayStation.
Around 200 units were created, and 99% of them were destroyed leaving only 2 in existence. One that was abandoned by founder of Sony Computer Entertainment, Olaf Olafsson. And the second deservedly sitting in the hands of Ken Kutaragi, ‘the father of the PlayStation’. And another 3 years later in December 1994, or early 1995, the Sony PlayStation would finally release and revolutionize home consoles and video gaming forever.
“Where were you?”
We’ve all got a memory with the PlayStation. For me, one of the earliest I remember was going to my best mates house because they’d rented out the PlayStation from our local video store. Yes, the era of physical media was a wonderful time to be alive. As much freedom as streaming gives you, that tactile feedback you get from choosing something in the flesh feels so much more rewarding. Like when you pick up the contents of the console bag and the games you rented. Including a demo disc which allowed us to play even more games for brief periods of time. The 2 ‘full’ games we had and could fully play were true classics of the PlayStation release.
Tekken and Ridge Racer.
My mate and I weren’t exactly experts at them. I mean we were kids. But boy did we have fun. Something about getting lost in this new 3D space we had at home, as fighters fought into the backgrounds and cars drove off into the distance. It’s a fond memory and one I feel fortunate to hold onto.
The world was Sony’s oyster, as they moved on to developing and launching the world’s best-selling video game console of all time. And much like my previous story, I have another around the launch of this hugely successful console.
By this stage I was working part-time, but still didn’t have enough money to purchase it. I definitely wanted to try it though, and get a first taste of what greatness may look like. Thankfully a local electronics store had taken to setting up epic demo units for consoles, and it was across the way from my work. So I strolled over on a break one weekend, casually looked around and saw it.
The PlayStation 2.
I distinctly remember the game they had on ‘demo’. I quote that because the demo was just the full game. And that game was Tekken Tag Tournament. Yes, the very first Tournament game. Just when you thought Tekken 3 was a gorgeous conclusion for the PlayStation, Tekken Tag swooped in to show you that you didn’t really know where graphics were going.
Or how much further they had to go.
Damn, that’s quite the sizzling sentiment to close out on isn’t it. Join me as I continue my own 30 Years With PlayStation, with the PlayStation 3 and 4 era over at THE EMPIRE.
