Sony is one of the most recognizable names in electronics. They make pretty much anything you need for a home entertainment setup. One of their biggest success stories is the PlayStation gaming console.
Dating back to 1995, the Sony PlayStation has been in homes for over 20 years. A lot can happen in 20 years, so we’ve comprised a list of some of the most little known and interesting things about the PlayStation. Let’s get started.
1. Attempted Collaboration With Nintendo (eventually Sega)
Back in the early days, Sony didn’t seem too confident with the gaming industry. Instead of jumping into it with their own console, first they attempted to work with Nintendo to create an add-on for the SNES that would play CD’s. Nintendo wanted full licensing rights however, which Sony wouldn’t come to terms on.
Sony then went to Sega, at the time Nintendo’s biggest competitor. They worked together to create the Sega CD attachment to the Genesis. It surprisingly didn’t fail, and sold over 2 million units. A few years later is when Sony went on their own and developed the PlayStation.
2. One Hundred Million
Sony was seemingly destined to enter the gaming world. Their original PlayStation was the first console to reach 100 million units sold. In terms of consoles, excluding handheld devises, the PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, and Wii are the only consoles to reach this milestone.
Funny enough, the PS2 is actually ahead of the PS1 in sales as the number one best selling console in history, with >155 million units sold. Sony’s legacy in gaming is being cemented even today with the PS4, which is currently breaking all the sales records of it’s predecessors.
3. PS2’s Glowing Towers
This one is ridiculously cool. Pictured above are the glowing towers from the PS2’s start up screen. Now, possibly your whole life, you’ve gone thinking this was just a fancy graphic for the start up, right? Actually, the more games you play, the more towers there are, and the longer you played those games, the taller they are.
This is such a cool feature, it’s a wonder that it’s been all but scrapped. We’d love to see something to this effect make a return sometime, but with consoles nowa days not even having start up screens, we doubt it’ll ever come back.
4. PS3 Lost More Than $3 Billion
This kinda hurts. The PS3 has since caught up to the Xbox 360 in terms of sales. The two sit very, very close, with only hundreds of thousands separating them. However, back in the early days of the PS3, things weren’t so good.
The PS3 was pretty expensive back then, and also very expensive to make. Sony lost $2.16 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2008 because of this. With the success of the PS4 however, it’s safe to say Sony isn’t feeling these losses anymore.
5. The Condor Cluster
Okay. Wow. This one is out of left field. Basically, the US Air Force connected 1,760 PS3’s together to form one big supercomputer. Yup. As it turns out, the consoles were actually quite powerful at the time, and with the right OS installed, together, they could make for some good.. computing.
Amazingly, the Condor Cluster was the 33rd largest supercomputer in 2010, when it was created. It was used to analyse high definition satellite imagery. So while we were T-Bagging each other in CoD, they were doing something a bit cooler.
6. The Sixaxis Controller
While we typically know Sony’s controllers as the Dualshock series, right on the brink of E3 in 2006, when Sony was to unveil the PS3, they made a last minute decision to implement the Sixaxis controller. While is may look about the same as any PS3 controller, with the general Dualshock design, the Sixaxis had some weird motion sensor tech that never took off in the PS3’s lifetime.
Eventually, Sony decided to ship the PS3 with the Dualshock 3 controller, which simply improved on the Dualshock 2. The Sixaxis died out, and will be missed.
7. Ken Kutaragi Hated Crash Bandicoot
Ken Kutaragi is the former Chairman and Group CEO for Sony Computer Entertainment. Ken also hated Crash, Naughty Dog’s very successful video game character, and former mascot for the PS2.
This was because Ken felt Crash was too immature, and the PlayStation was meant to be targeted for a more mature audience. Ken clearly didn’t know his games very well if he thought ‘mature’ gamers didn’t play the crap out of Crash Bandicoot.