Sony PlayStation - 20th Anniversary of Japanese Release

[Nu-Eclipse]

International Track & Field was another PS1 favourite of mine. Broken mechanics for sure, but I loved it at the time.

"Who will be number one in the world?"

[importaku]

My first ownership of a playstation actually cost me nothing, one morning one of my friends tipped me off that there was a competition in town at CEX and they were playing dance dance revolution, this was when it was pretty much unheard of in the uk it was at the very start of the Bemani boom and had only appeared in the arcades.

Remember going down the street to CEX and there been a massive crowd that literally blocked the street, fought my way through & in the window they had a playstation running the Japanese version of the first DDR on a massive 42" rear projection tv they had run the cables outside and had put the dancemat on the street along with a massive pair of speakers and a DJ who was commentating on the proceedings it was pretty wild as there was eurobeat music filling the street. I decided to have a go as i had played the arcade a little so i knew what to do, it felt strange on the mat as i had never played the home version.

The 10 highest scoring players were asked to come back at 4pm for the dance off lol, i managed to get 10th place so i waited around for the finals. At 4pm the crowd was massive and i was asked to go first it's pretty daunting to get on a dancemat in front of over 60 strangers but i got on and was asked to select the song that everyone would then have to play so i chose butterfly and they cranked it upto the hardest difficulty. I just got over halfway into the song before my life bar drained however nobody else could get close to my attempt so i ended up walking away that day with a stealthchipped PS1 plus the mat and the Japanese copy of DDR that everyone had been playing on. The first time i had ever won anything in my life and my first playstation of my very own.

Ended up introducing me to the delights of the music game genre before the west eventually latched on saturated the market and ruined it for everyone. Guitar freaks, DDR, bust a move, parappa plus the weird games like mr domino & suzuki bakuhatsu even ended up owning some genres of games that i don't usually play much like rival schools.

Still have a small selection of PS1 games mostly the music ones and weird ones.

[QualityChimp]

That's a really great story, thanks importaku!

[speedlolita]

I guess Butterfly hadn't run its charm out by then huh?

Sounds awesome though, wish I wasn't so young sometimes. 20 years ago I was 4! Only got a PS1 when I was 9. Friends had them from when I was 7 or 8 though. Crash and Tomb Raider on demo kiosks in London/Kingston had me hooked though, so amazing compared to my Game Boy Pocket.

[importaku]

No butterfly was still super fresh back then hehe, very few people had seen the arcade let alone knew that there was a home version. Lol i certainly know i didn't know it had been released on PS1 then.

The fact it was chipped allowed me to experience a lot of playstation imports, it was when cex wasn't utter crap like it is nowdays back then you could find shelves full of Japanese games and a lot of obscure stuff too so i got to try a lot out. Also got a lot of PAL stuff back then as well, it was a total mix of regions of PS1. As much as i'm a huge Nintendo fan i also like a lot of Playstation games too, just a shame that PS2 was the last console where all the crazy an unusual quirky import games came out on, PS3/4 it's very reserved in comparison.

[Shozuki]

Well my PS1 story isn't anywhere near as cool as Mr. Taku's, I bought mine PAL from Toys R Us with 5 games: Pandemonium, True Pinball, X2, Worms and Doom. Honestly I didn't enjoy any of those really (Doom scared my 11 year old brain too much lol!), but eventually I got a platinum Tekken and Ridge which blew me away.

Played the crap out of them and the popularity just got me into the machine more and more. So many fond memories of the PS1in the end with stuff like Crash 1-3, Rage/Ridge Racer, Time Crisis, Resident Evil series, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII to name but a few. Some of that stuff really holds up well today too.

Ultimately I owe my love of gaming to the original Playstation, if only the PS4 was anywhere near as good or memorable...

That, or sat in some boring collectors basement unused.

Yup, this. Though sub basement for shelf and that'll be that lol. Looks lovely though...

[Decider-VT]

I was a staunch Nintendo boy growing up and was awfully snobbish about what I thought of the PS1.

Until my mate got one with Soul Blade anyway.

I managed to stay true to my Nintendo heritage by convincing my little brother to ask for a PS1 value pack along with Tekken 2 as a Chrimbo present.

I. Am. Mercenary!!

This is almost exactly what happened to me, except I got one with MGS. No little brother, so I had to swallow my pride.

[speedlolita]

I love that the PlayStation was basically a kneejerk reaction after Nintendo messed them around with that SNES CD add-on. For making a fool of Sony as a company they decided to use what they had and compete against Nintendo directly, so typically Japanese.

[Sam The Man]

I love that the PlayStation was basically a kneejerk reaction after Nintendo messed them around with that SNES CD add-on. For making a fool of Sony as a company they decided to use what they had and compete against Nintendo directly, so typically Japanese.

Yeah and also ironic that afterwards they were turned away by Sega who wanted nothing to do with Sony over a joint games console because they (Nakayama & the board) felt that Sony didn't know how to make hardware!

Anyway for me For me the Playstation 1 is the benchmark, the yardstick, the pinnacle when it comes to games consoles. Basically the best console ever. Every genre was covered and more importantly every Genre was covered at the highest quality level. It was also the proper start of the Indie scene with Net Yaroze (Let's do it together!).

[smouty]

I'm not a Playstation fan and have never bought one but I did have a PS2 for Singstar, DDR and Guitar Hero (I have daughters).
I appreciate that the PS1 made gaming popular and if nothing else made the other platforms raise their game.
Happy 20th

[nakamura]

I find it extraordinary that anyone into gaming never had a PlayStation. Each to their own though.

I don't remember Sony being turned away by Sega?

[Nu-Eclipse]

Yeah and also ironic that afterwards they were turned away by Sega who wanted nothing to do with Sony over a joint games console because they (Nakayama & the board) felt that Sony didn't know how to make hardware!

I actually hadn't heard of this before, but it appears to be true.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/tale-of-two-e3s-xbox-vs-sony-vs-sega/0118482

[Arashikage]

I remember picking up my first Playstation from Electronics Boutique (remember them?) with Final Fantasy VII and Darkstalkers 3. I certainly enjoyed my time with the machine and have fond memories of the Residents and the Final Fantasies but I guess I'm more nostalgically attached to the N64. There are some JPN exclusives that I love though like Harmful Park and Little Ralph, the machine was often overlooked for 2D stuff over the Saturn.

[Asura]

I didn't have a PS1 until much later, though naturally I played on other people's. I got mine to play Metal Gear Solid/Vagrant Story, selling my N64.

[Sam The Man]

I actually hadn't heard of this before, but it appears to be true.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/tale-...s-sega/0118482

Yeah Kutaragi & Kalinske have spoke about it numerous times in interviews.