Talking about the history of the journey of one of the oldest consoles, namely the Playstation, since Sony was first released in 1995 to become the most dominant and innovative company in the gaming industry, the Playstation is now one of the largest and best-selling game consoles in the world.
Even though at the beginning the company had the strongest competition and had failed because of the Nintendo 64 console, Sony did not give up and was finally proud because its Playstation 2 console set a new record as the best-selling console of all time.
Since then until now there has been no game company that has always been successful for 20 years. During that time, its success has not been matched by its competitors. As a form of appreciation below, there are some hidden facts about Playstation that you may not know.
1. It was originally a Cooperation with Nintendo
Surely many of you don’t know that the beginning of the Playstation was the result of a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony. In the early 90’s Nintendo wanted to take advantage of the superior sound and video quality of Compact Discs or CDs. That’s what makes the collaboration between Nintendo and Sony happen.
The Sony CEO at that time saw the great potential of a chip created by Ken Kutaragi. Until finally Sony made Kutaragi’s chip into a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES, including the beginning of the Playstation. However, this collaboration ended after Sony terminated the cooperation contract with Nintendo, and Sony finally made their own console with the name Playstation as we know it today.
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2. Meaning of Playstation Controller Symbol
Have you ever thought about what the triangle, round, x, box symbols mean on this Playstation controller since the days of PS1 to PS4? This means, the Playstation uses several controller button symbols instead of letters or numbers that make it different from its competitors. However, it turns out that each symbol has its own meaning.
This symbol decision was made by designer Teiyu Goto, he felt that symbols were easier to remember than numbers or letters. The cool thing is, each symbol is not random, but each symbol is arranged according to its respective meaning. In Japanese, the triangle symbol means perspective and direction. Circle and cross is the meaning of Yes and No. While the boxes are symbolized as menus, documents, and maps.
3. This is the Original Playstation Mascot
Maybe you’ve wondered why the Playstation doesn’t have a mascot like Nintendo. It turns out that there is a gloomy story about the mascot that has been used by the Playstation. Actually Playstation once had a mascot named Polygon Man. But because it was considered to have a very bad design, the mascot was removed in 1995 before the launch of the Playstation in America.
The Polygon Man mascot was originally introduced to show 3D visuals from the Playstation console during the 1995 E3 exhibition. Although the mascot has been removed, it has appeared as the final boss in the PlayStation Battle Royale game.
4. This is the Rareest Playstation Game
The original Playstation, which is now a legendary console, turns out to be a game that is said to be very rare and only owned by a few people in the world. The game is Elemental Gearbolt Assassin’s Case which was never originally released to the public.
To replace him, the developer Working Designs made a few copies, only 50, including a very special gold-plated GunCon controller and it was only distributed as a gift at E3 1999. Because so far only a few people have played the game.
Talking about the Playstation 1, there is new news, you know. Following in Nintendo’s footsteps, Sony recently launched the PlayStation Classic which was just launched in December 2022. The price is around 1 million, perfect for those of you who want to be nostalgic for playing old PS1 games.
5. Become the Best Selling Game Console of All Time
Currently in the world there are 40 game consoles from various brands such as Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega, Atari and others. And of all that, only 5 consoles managed to achieve sales of over 100 million units. What console is that?
Playstation is listed as the best-selling game console of all time through sales of Playstation 2 of more than 155 million units worldwide. Then in second position followed by Nintendo DS with 154 million units, 3. Game Boy, Game Boy Color 118 million units, 4. Playstation Original 102 million units, and 5. Wii 101 million units.
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6. Ken Kutaragi Hate Crash Bandicoot Concept
Old Playstation players must be familiar with the game Crash Bandicoot, including the author who really likes this game and used to play it often. However, it turned out that the game made by Naughty Dog was not liked by Sony’s CEO at the time, Ken Kutaragi.
Think of the concept of the game as nonsense because it is very contrary to the concept of the Playstation itself which is intended for teenagers and adults. He highlighted the initial concept of the game made by Naughty Dog which was shown for teenagers and adults but instead had a ridiculous character design.
7. PS3 is costing Sony billions of dollars
When it was first released in 2006, the PS3 was priced at a very high price of around USD 600. However, this price drew a lot of criticism from consumers and game observers. Sony immediately revealed the reason why the PS3 can be so expensive, because it turned out that Sony had spent a lot of money on cell microprocessors and Bluray.
After the PS3 failed at the beginning of its release, Sony finally racked its brains and removed some features that were not too important and immediately lowered the price of the console so that after that PS3 sales shot up sharply. However, by then Sony had already lost billions of dollars from its updates. Sales of Playstation 3 until the last report of November 2022 has reached more than 84 million units worldwide, almost surpassed by Playstation 4.
Those were the 7 hidden facts of the Playstation as the best-selling console of all time and the console of a million people. Until now the dominance of the console is still held by Sony, it is not impossible that in the future the Playstation can become the most influential console and continue to set new records.
