30 Years of PlayStation

[importaku]

PS1 is a strange relationship for me i have very faint memories before they reached the uk that virgin & hmv had japanese imports there was a tiny area where i saw the original mono ps1 boxes and a £40 memory card sat on the shelves with the grand total of 2 games all at horrendous i'm too poor to even look at prices. At that point it never really was on my radar as something i wanted, i saw them appear in import mags in various features & reviews but for me the stuff that people went wild for like ridge racer, tomb raider, tekken, wipeout were all to opposite to my game preferences that it was a total turn off add in the lad culture too cool vibe that was pushed around it in the uk it had a bit of a chavvy vibe to it.

I can't reven remember the exact year that i eventually got one as i never bought mine, it was roughly the time DDR was released in japan on ps1 as thats where me owning one started. When cex opened in albion street in leeds they had a ddr contest using a giant projection screen tv set up in the window with a dance mat routed out and on the floor in front and a dj with massive speakers on either side it was insane, 10 highest scores through the day came back at 4pm to battle it out. Ended up thrashing everyone and walking away with the dancemat a chipped ps1 and the copy of ddr they were using and that's how i ended up with a playstation. With it been chipped it opened up a whole new library of stuff i spent most weekends in cex browsing what they had in picking up whatever looked weird or interesting total opposite stuff to the typical mainstream ps1 flagship titles, however it was a mix of uk and japanese stuff as it was surprising but even weird stuff like incredible crisis,bust a move, parappa, vib ribbon & even mister domino all made it to the uk, Some of my friends had ps1's that were chipped so i used to find they had bought odd exotic japanese stuff from the local carboot so between the stuff that turned up in cex my tastes slowly matured. Sadly with no internet at that time to see whats out there i missed out on so many japanese titles due to not even knowing they existed something i rectified as they years have gone on.

I personally still hold it's library up against anything it's godlike and still one of my fave systems i regularly play on. Well not at moment it's all still packed up from the move but the games haven't aged for me i love them just as much now as i did then. Still have that dancemat i won all those years ago although the plastic inside it is probably degrading by now def needs the mold wiping off eww, the original ps1 & ddr i sold off a long time ago buy i ended up buying all the set of ddr years later.

[beecee]

Brilliant console, i waited for the UK launch though (in Sept 95 i think?) Ridge Racer full game dumped in RAM and off you go.

As good as the console was, i cant help think that the initial disc swap to allow copied games and then being chipped helped a lot into getting units sold, as pretty much everyone i knew had a chipped PlayStation, games for 5/10£ who could resist it.

i must have went though around half a dozen of these selling up and re buying over the years.

I still have all of my favorite games and a PSone to play them on, although i'm playing mainly through a Mister now.

[dataDave]

As good as the console was, i cant help think that the initial disc swap to allow copied games and then being chipped helped a lot into getting units sold, as pretty much everyone i knew had a chipped PlayStation, games for 5/10£ who could resist it.

This helped massively. Everyone at school went from copying Amiga games and loaning each other Sega/Nintendo carts to just flat out pirating everything for the PSX. Suddenly nearly everyone is a gamer with incredibly bad taste - it's worse than the MK days.

[dataDave]

I got mine at launch but absolutely hated the launch games, as well as mostly everything released shortly after. I was already bored of Ridge after a couple of afternoons with it in the arcade, so I didn't even bother renting it.

It wasn't until 1996 that I began to take the platform more seriously. Ridge Racer Revolution, Tekken 2, Resident Evil, and WipeOut'97 helped there. There was also a lot of Konami support beginning to surface which took me right back to the early 90s SNES days. Although I leveraged the spike in popularity to trade my console for a Saturn with a load of games which turned out to be one of the best decisions ever and helped form one of the best gaming winters I can remember.

During 1998 I came back in amidst another resurgence and played FFVII, MGS, and Tekken 3. Another great year.

I didn't import an NTSC console to begin collecting for until 2003. I ended up with a US PSOne and the official screen which I still have to this day. It's currently retired in the drawer while the MiSTer now carries all the PSX duties.

[Golgo]

I'd been burnt out and in the gaming wilderness for a few years before the PS1 came out, but me and my housemate borrowed one from a mate and we were hooked. Got one that Christmas from my folks and it was Duke Nukem Forever that hooked me back in. Loved it. Then Metal Gear Solid came out and it blew my tiny mind. I thought, "So this is what videogames can do now?!" Still have those games.

[nonny]

My fondest memory of the PlayStation is playing Resident Evil for the first time... My mate picked it up on the Friday and we played it all weekend taking turns. The crazy thing was he didn't have a memory card so we basically played it without saving which just added to the whole tension.

Absolutely brilliant and etched into my brain cells.

[hudson]

Mine fondest memories also relate to a memory card (which I still have). Ridge Racer Time Attack rivalry between me and my brother. I'd come home from work and the memory card would be sitting proud on the mantle piece. This meant my time had been beaten. This would go on for many months.

Equally, the same happened when the amazing International Track & Field game out. For months records were broken, back and forth. My bro won this one.

That same memory card has my FFVII save and many Music/Music 2000 tracks. What a machine!

[Neon Ignition]

-- 1996 --
The popularity of the PlayStation continued to build as it emerged further out in front of the Saturn. Meanwhile the industry looked on in awe as an array of competitors failed to make the same impact with the Virtual Boy, 3DO, Jaguar, 32X and CD-i all being discontinued. The PS2 hadn't been on the market for that long but it powered its way forward by delivering high profile efficiently released sequels as its schedule picked up pace. Wipeout 2097 and Tekken 2 landed alongide new titles like PaRappa the Rapper and mega-franchise creators Resident Evil, Soul Edge and Tomb Raider. By the end of the year Sony would go on to have sold over 6x the number of PlayStations as Sega had Saturns.



Did these major titles hit with you as being as important as they would eventually go on to be?

[hudson]

I didn't expect Tekken to become one of the biggest FG franchises sitting alongside the likes of Street Fighter and MK. Big Esport rep and just about to release number 8. Looking like the most accessible game in the franchise. Carrying on where SF6 left off in terms of getting new players in. Their new Arcade Quest mode looks to be one of the most fun SP modes in a fighting game!

[Neon Ignition]

At this point I still wasn't on board with PS1, a friend owned one so I could still experience the games but in 1996 my entire world was engulfed in N64 hype. Tomb Raider oozed atmosphere to be honest from day one it didn't play amazingly and as impressive as it technically was the footage of Mario 64 had already blown it away.

I was still rocking the SNES so DKC3 was my more realistic focus whilst the Saturn was clearly losing but dropping games that I preferred such as NiGHTS. Tekken 2 is one of the entries I enjoyed most though, it marked the point where its battle with VF felt closest. Resi didn't land with me too strongly, it felt too close to Alone in the Dark. PS1 at this point felt like it was picking up steam after a fairly unengaging launch for me but the appeal lay with the other two systems.

[wakka]

When I was a kid you could absolutely feel the difference in success between Saturn and PlayStation. I only knew one or two kids with Saturns. Absolutely everybody else had a PlayStation, apart from a few kids (mostly those with dads who gamed) who had the N64 too.

Even putting aside the popularity of copied games, PS1 games were dramatically cheaper. Half the price as I recall, £30 for a new release by the late 90s while N64 games were £60. The fact that Nintendo didn't see that coming and how powerful it would be I attribute to sheer arrogance.

Tomb Raider is an interesting one. I still like to play the original TR games to this day. They have that very particular control style which would only have existed in a time when developers were still learning how to allow players to manipulate characters in 3D space. There is a deliberate precision to it though, which I enjoy. Very atmospheric too.

TR (and other tank control games like Resi) are good demonstrators of how insanely skilled and creative EAD were when they created Mario 64. It still plays like a dream and they did it when there was absolutely no manual, let alone engine, for how to do that stuff.

[Neon Ignition]

-- 1997 --
The next year rolled around and the early months saw Sony look to its rivals and rip a page from their books right away so as not to get caught on the back foot, releasing the Dual Analogue - an analogue stick equipped version of the consoles controller that would go on to become its standard pad. Before the year was out it would be replaced by the Dual Shock, a rumble equipped version covering all the bases. The Nintendo 64 had landed and despite its shatteringly adored launch Mario title and the recent release of Goldeneye, was struggling to maintain momentum too as Nintendo also found themselves caught in Sony's wake. Sony had its own heavy hitter from SquareEnix, Final Fantasy VII releasing alongside other popular hits such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Gran Turismo and Crash Bandicoot 2. The Saturn was already finished at this point, drowned out and selling less than a million units in the year. Nintendo managed to recapture momentum and ended the year on an impressive 9m units sold but the media was focused on Sony who had reached 17m and were only building up speed more and more.




What did you make of the Dual Shock when it arrived?

[nonny]

What did you make of the Dual Shock when it arrived?

Loved the dual shock. Was almost a futuristic thing compared to what Nintendo were doing with the N64 controller... I think the first game I really used it with was Colony Wars?

[Atticus]

Did these major titles hit with you as being as important as they would eventually go on to be?

I remember being at Reading 96 and there was a decent size pod full of PlayStation set-ups running Tekken 2. Simply a jaw-dropping game to look at and defo a sign of mass market popularity given the peeps queueing to play it.

What did you make of the Dual Shock when it arrived?

I didn't love it. I was still more into the N64 at the time and in comparison the DS analogues felt spongy and imprecise. But I suppose the point is there were two of them ... a huge step in the right direction.

[Neon Ignition]

I wasn't a fan for two reasons:

1 - It didn't feel good to use however this wasn't really the problem of the controller. The DS was something kneejerked out and whilst NiGHTs felt better to play with its controller because it had been kept in mind, very little on PS1 felt like the DS was in mind. Ape Escape was probably the game I most associate with it but it still had that stilted feel PS1 games often did.

2 - The placement of the left hand stick. It sucked. And it still sucks to this day, it's staggering that Sony hasn't sorted this by now so many generations later.