Industry-defining PlayStation turns 20

Sony’s PlayStation video game console – born out of a failed technology partnership with Nintendo – was the first home console to ship 100 million units, and one of the first capable of generating 3D graphics
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PLAYSTATION (PS1)

Compared to modern consoles, PS1’s spring-loaded lid was primitive

Best-selling game:Gran Turismo (10.85 million copies)

Price:$299

CD-Rom: Games no bigger than 650MB

Memory: Game saves stored on plug-in cards

Controller: Updated several times, but basic design still in use today

Game changer: Trendy, youth-orientated marketing ensured domination over rivals, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64

Lasting appeal: Some PS1 games can be down-loaded to today’s consoles, smartphones and tablets
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CONSOLE LINEAGE

Original PlayStation boot screen 

PlayStation

Launched: Dec 3, 1994

Withdrawn: Mar 31, 2006

Media: CD-Rom/CD

PlayStation 2 (PS2)

Launched: Mar 4, 2000

Withdrawn: Jan 4, 2013

Media: DVD/CD

CPU: 299 MHz

PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Launched: Nov 11, 2006

Media: Blu-ray/DVD/CD

CPU: 3.2 GHz

PlayStation 4 (PS4)

Launched: Nov 15, 2013

Media: Blu-ray/DVD

CPU: 1.6 GHz (supported by 1.84 teraflop Radeon graphics processor*)
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PLAYSTATION CONSOLE SALES (millions of units)

PS1 104.25m

PS2 157.68m

PS3 83.73m

PS4 13.01m
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Sources: Sony, wikipedia, VGChartz

*1.84 million floating point operations per second

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