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/vr/ - Retro Games

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1582864 No.1582864[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

How did the PS1 make it big? Sony somehow easily beat its competitors, the two big ones for years, when they had no real prior experience with gaming.

Other systems tried and failed to do the same. Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, Turbografix, 3DO..

>> No.1582873

Lucky timing and luck.

Sega was losing trust and respect due to their add-ons. They released the Saturn too early, too suddenly, and without good US advertising.

Sony was lucky the N64 was cart based. If it wasn't some of its major titles, like FF7, probably wouldn't have been on it

>> No.1582883

Better hardware for 3D graphics, which started exploding at the time.

>> No.1582885

Not just appealing to kids, but adults.

>> No.1582887

>>1582864
Well, Sony did make video-game related hardware(like the SNES sound chip) and also published SNES games under the Sony Imagesoft moniker.

As for their success, they hyped it up extremely well and got a lot of quality developers and publishers to jump over, as many of them really wanted to work with CD-based hardware. They were a lot more welcoming to newcoming developers and had a lot more developing tools than Nintendo and Sega had.

The earlier disc-based consoles or add-ons(Turbo CD, Sega CD, 3DO, Jaguar CD) were not very attractive for developers to work on because of the consistently low market share. The Turbo/PCE CD however was very popular in Japan and took over most PC Engine development after 1992.

>> No.1582890

-It caught the 3D boom fairly early on
-Decent marketing
-CD structure meant that it got lot of flagship games the N64 didn't

And perhaps most importantly:
-It was cheap

>> No.1582913

The Neo-Geo AES wasn't really meant to compete with the Sega and Nintendo consoles. It was just a home version of the arcade hardware.

The PC-Engine (TG-16 outside Japan) was actually the second most popular console in Japan at the time.

>> No.1582919

It is not enough to succeed, others must fail. - Gore Vidal

Sega of Japan being idiots and Nintendo clinging to cartridges were the main reasons.

>> No.1582926

>>1582864
>Other systems tried and failed to do the same. Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, Turbografix, 3DO..
Neo Geo didn't try at all to "make it big". They aimed to bring TRUE arcade experience to the homes of people that could afford it. They knew very few people will be able to buy it, AVS system actually sold better then SNK predicted.
Also, PC Engine sold a bit better then Sega consoles in japan at the time, so i would not consider it a failure, at least not in its home country.

>> No.1582934 [DELETED] 

>>1582864
>Other systems tried and failed to do the same. Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, Turbografix, 3DO..
Neo Geo didn't try at all to "make it big". They aimed to bring TRUE arcade experience to the homes of people that could afford it. They knew very few people will be able to buy it, AVS system actually sold better then SNK predicted.
Also, PC Engine was pretty successful in japan(being more popular then Master System/Mark 3 and similar to Mega Drive, so i would not consider it a failure, at least not in its home country.

>> No.1582946

>>1582864

The Neo Geo and 3DO consoles cost a fortune compared to the Playstation.

I'd imagine not too many parents were keen on buying their kids a $500 console whose games cost close to $200 each in the case of the Neo Geo.

>> No.1582968

Sony made a cheap console with a good controller which was about about games (the most important thing in a console) instead of making an expensive multimedia console like other companies did (even Sega fell at this trap with Saturn, that's why its hardware was so complicated to make good games).

>> No.1582969 [DELETED] 

>>1582873
FF7 and RPGs in general were not so important for PS1 success outside japan. I doubt many people actually bought PS1 just because of FF7. Outside japan, games that pushed the sales were Gran Turismo, Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer, Tekken and to the lesser extent Crash, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil(i know these last two series is mostly multiplat, but PS1 was the system of choice for them).

>> No.1582972

>>1582873
FF7 and RPGs in general were not so important for PS1 success outside japan. I doubt many people actually bought PS1 just because of FF7. Outside japan, games that pushed the sales were Gran Turismo, Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer, Tekken and to the lesser extent Crash, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil(i know these last two series are mostly multiplat, but PS1 was the system of choice for them).

>> No.1583000

>>1582885
This

>> No.1583007

>>1582972
>many people actually bought PS1 just because of FF7
I did exactly that, so yes, it helped quite a lot.

>> No.1583009

>>1582885
>Not just appealing to kids, but adults.
Sega was that too y'know.

But alas the real reason is that there were big marketing dollars, the product didn't suck, the games turned out to be better than expected and the competition shot itself in the foot. Very lucky for Sony, but if the product wasn't good it wouldn't have gone far.

>> No.1583015

A friend of mine bought FF7 before he even had the console, which he ended up never getting (sold game to me at half price). Some gaijin.

>> No.1583019

Sony kept costs low and were really cool to their third party developers. The console was easy to develop for and developer consoles were relatively inexpensive. Once a developer had a game written, Sony produced and distributed it using their already massive CD production/distribution structure.

Basically, they treated the video game business like the music business for the first time which made Nintendo's business practices seem old fashioned and retarded and at the same time Sega was doing its typical dumbass Sega shit, surprise launching the Saturn and pissing off its distributors, having a msrp $100 higher than Playstation's etc.

The 3D revolution was a revolution for more reasons than just the domination of 3D graphics.

>> No.1583036

>>1583007
Do you know how many PS1 systems there are? PS1 is not like N64 in that aspect. In N64 realm, there is like 1 Mario 64 game on every other N64 sold. Even if we take 10 million off(for every copy of FF7, like all 10 million were sold just because of that game, which is impossible btw) it does not make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

>> No.1583268

>>1582864
They marketed the thing towards a 20+ market and managed to create and capture the said market.
Before that you had the kiddie-firendly, censoring Nintendo and Sega that was pandering to 12-15 yearolds.

>> No.1583276

Why do purple use the Neo-Geo as an example in these threads? SNK never intended for it to be competition with the Genesis or SNES, it was just meant to bring their arcade games into the home.

>> No.1583278

>>1583276
*People

>> No.1583296

>>1583268
Actually, the Playstation was officially targeted at 17 year olds. Their theory was that the entire gaming demographic wanted to be 17 years old.

On a related note, Playstation launched when I was 17.

>> No.1583306

It wasn't a matter of Sony doing things right as it was Sony depending on Nintendo and Sega to fuck themselves over. Same is applied in the current generation, they essentially advertised the PS4 as "it's not the Xbox One". Even if the Kinect/NSA/DRM thing didn't exist, the PS4 wasn't just marginally more powerful, but it also cost less. Sony uses the loss leader marketing strategy, which means they take a hit on each console sold in exchange for making the money back on software, and considering they have third party support on their side no matter what, it's a flawless idea.

>> No.1583325

>>1583296
That's not such a bad theory.

>> No.1583351

>>1583325
It's grounded in "12 year olds want to be 17 and 25 year olds want to be 17 again".

>> No.1583356

Final Fantasy Tactics. It sold about 90% of them.

>> No.1583372

>>1583325
>>1583351
And it's also why the American Sony group were worried about the name. 90s 17-year-olds absolutely rejected the word "play"

Also it's a big part of the continued adherence to the abbreviation PSX. 90s 17-year-old LOVED the letter X.

>> No.1583383

Good engineering compromises for the technology available at the time on the console made it affordable, easy to program for and appealing to both consumers and developers.

The old adage stood true again:

perfect is the enemy of the good.

>> No.1583385

>>1582864
I've heard (Don't know if there's any truth to it) that Sony pulled a lot of developers away from Nintendo due to Nintendo's draconian licensing and such in the past, but I don't know specifics. I do remember the whole thing about not being able to make games for the NES without their approval though.

>> No.1583392

>>1583385
I think it's probably true. Nintendo was getting really full of itself in the mid 90s. the Virtual Boy and their botched dealings with Sony coming back to bite them in the ass much have been extremely humbling. But at least they were able to get their shit together and recent a solid product with the 64.

...unlike Sega.

>> No.1583398

>>1582972
Final Fantasy was the major thing that convinced me to get a Playstation at the time compared to a 64. It was still a difficult choice because I grew up with LoZ and FFs, but ultimately, Final Fantasy won out.

Looking back though, the Playstation had many more titles that I'd actually play compared to the N64. While Nintendo had a few great games on their console at the time, the Playstation had a few great ones as well, but also a ton of pretty good stuff to go with it. I remember getting a magazine with a demo disc on it every month, and there'd be something cool to play on just about every one of them.

>> No.1583405

>>1583385
Yeah, like... All of them. Square, Enix, Capcom, Konami.. It was a mass exodus.

>> No.1583406

A lot developers at the time believed that Sony would take video gaming to new heights, that they would make it more mainstream, and game sales would dramatically increase as a result.

Funny how many of those same companies are now out of business or are struggling to survive in the current industry.

All Sony did was pave the way for Western domination by making graphics and story more important than gameplay.

>> No.1583409
File: 1.99 MB, 320x252, 1386864869488.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1583409

>>1583351
>tfw turned 25 this year and was just thinking about how everything was so much better back in high school

>> No.1583451

>>1583409

>longing for high school

Dear god, I couldn't disagree more. I'm happy have evolved from awkward boners, getting my ass kicked, having no goals, etc.

>> No.1583456

>>1583409

I'm 25 and high school was full of jerkoffs.

>>1583451
>getting my ass kicked
lol that sucks

Having a life and money is p sweet.

>> No.1583465

>>1583451
>>1583456
My time in high school was great. I had a nice job as a computer technician, I could for the first time in my life afford video games on my own (I'll never forget buying an N64 and a bunch of games with my paycheck one month), I was actually looking forward to new releases, and there were still a ton of games I hadn't played. For some reason, girls flocked to me and didn't even care that I spent the vast majority of my time playing video games, whereas now even mentioning them gets me shunned from the public.

I don't know where the fuck everything went so wrong.

>> No.1583480

>>1583465

Oh. I guess my life now is your life then.

Get your confidence back Anon.

>> No.1583495

>>1583356
Unless that game sold 90 million copies, that's wrong.

No single game is responsible for the PS1 selling as much as it did.

>> No.1583584

... It was a good console. It's nice to think it only succeeded because the mistakes of its competitors, but that's just not the truth. It succeeded because people liked the hardware and the games.

>> No.1583615

free market motherfucker

>> No.1583618

Price and exclusives.

>> No.1583621

also people forget that console sales are driven by sports games.

>> No.1583629

>>1583621

Fucking Winning Eleven importation.
Here in italy everyone had it on their modded psx.

Though that's kinda moot as one had it and 10 people had it copied from him.

>> No.1583852

>>1583406
>All Sony did was pave the way for Western domination by making graphics and story more important than gameplay.

How did Sony pave the way for that? Every console producing company in history has always marketed their new generation of consoles with, "Everything looks a little better than before!" Of course gamer focus is going to shift to style over substance when it's been the main selling point of a console since forever. Blame aggressive advertising on a shitty platform as well as the people who buy into it, not an individual company or Westerners.

>> No.1583943

>>1582864

Sega dropped the ball HARD in NA, and Nintendo pissed off lots of 3rd Party developers. Cartridges were also expensive, and cumbersome. CDs were very cheap, and easy to manufacture.

Sony was also on the ball back in the 90s with advertising, and PS1 had a number of huge titles that gained it a lot of attention.

>> No.1583958

>>1583406

Wrong.

Sony didn't drive the market into the West-focused mess it's in right now alone. They followed Microsoft's lead into the bowels of Hell.

All Sony had to do was stick to the strategy that brought them to the top with the PS3, but instead followed the Xbox's (which was a colossal failure in it's first generation) strategy. It also did not help that Sony screwed the PS3's launch so bad, and had to cater to the Xbox crowd to stay afloat, and look what it's gotten us.

PS1 and PS2 were outstanding successes for a reason, and what Sony's doing now has nothing to do with it.

>> No.1583962 [DELETED] 

>>1583958
"Its" is the possessive of "it".
"It's" is a contraction of "it is".

>> No.1583967

>>1582864
The same reason why Nintendo make it big.

Square soft

>> No.1583986

>>1583584

The PS1 had -very- affordable games, and the games were much easier to come by than they were back in the cartridge era.

You could find copies of the Final Fantasy games, and other Squaresoft games easily back then. But in the SNES-era? If you didn't catch a copy on the first printing, or the very unlikely second printing, you didn't get a copy unless you found it used. There was no eBay back in the SNES-era. There was Funco, however.

CDs could be printed/manufactured far easier than carts could be, and for much, much cheaper. So the games -were- cheap, and they -were- plentiful. The PS1 also had a great selection of games, from a lot of great developers.

This is just my opinion, though. I'm sure someone else has a better reason as for why the PS1 was so successful.

>> No.1583991
File: 35 KB, 377x421, FAGGOT DETECTED.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1583991

>>1583962

That's nice, but do you have anything to say in regards to my post's content, or are you just a gigantic cocksucker?

>> No.1583997

>>1583991
Neither. Just regular-sized.

>> No.1584008

>>1583962
go the fuck away

>> No.1584162

>>1583852
It's no coincidence that ever since Sony took over the game industry, the top selling Japanese games have been big-budget, story-driven, interactive films: Metal Gear, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy. It's the type of game they promoted, that they encouraged developers to make. They set a new standard for graphics and story-telling, of which few Japanese developers could match, and thus the Japanese game industry started its decline.

In addition, by shunning 2d games, Sony fostered a gaming culture where gameplay design was not appreciated as much as graphics design.

Sony convinced an entire generation of gamers into thinking that interactive movies were the same as video games, and now many years later we live in a world where most people who buy "video games" do not know what real video games are, and they probably wouldn't enjoy them if they did. Today, if you tell a "gamer" about a new game coming out, chances are the first question out of their mouth will be "what's the story about?".

This new breed of gamer that Sony created is what has allowed Western developers, who had been emphasizing graphics and story telling for many years on the PC, to come in to the console realm, which before Sony was more about challenging arcade games which heavily emphasized the mechanics, to swoop in and take over the industry. Now, even if your game is outstanding (Vanquish), no one will buy it because "the story is shit" or because today's "gamers" couldn't make progress by simply pushing up on a stick and pressing a button occasionally to advance the story, and thus they thought it sucked.

>> No.1584169

There are many reasons

1) Cutscenes were very impressive back then, If you think of the biggest Playstation titles, many of them like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and Resident Evil had cinematic cutscenes that were possible because it used cds instead of cartridges. They used that to attract people, and even to this day Sony games tend to be cinematic and heavy in cutscenes.

2) It was cheap and easy to pirate, and also played cds. Super Nintendo existed in a world in which people would buy a console for their kid, and then get their kid an average of 2 games per year, one for the birthday and another for xmas.And everything was expensive, Playstation was much cheaper and you could pirate the games, that is why Playstation is to Latin Americans was NES was for the USA and Japan.

3) Playstation had 2D games and 3D games, N64 was almost 3D only, and even the 2D games like Yoshi's Story and Mischief Makers were 2.5 with 3D backgrounds. I think N64 just couldn't do 2d games, otherwise they would have gotten Street Fighter ports and many other games.

4) Third parties prefered Sony because lower royalties and symbiotic relationship, "you make the hardware and we make the games", with Nintendo they had to compete with the games of the hardware maker, and they could not expect to be treated as nicely as by Sony who needed them.

>> No.1584186

>>1584162
This is pretty cynical but I'm sad to say I agree with it.

>> No.1584190

>>1582864
It did what Nintendo and Sega consoles lacked at the time.

>> No.1584195

>>1584169
>I think N64 just couldn't do 2d games

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czY3JDaEpRA

>> No.1584201

>>1584169
>2) It was cheap and easy to pirate, and also played cds. Super Nintendo existed in a world in which people would buy a console for their kid, and then get their kid an average of 2 games per year, one for the birthday and another for xmas.And everything was expensive, Playstation was much cheaper and you could pirate the games, that is why Playstation is to Latin Americans was NES was for the USA and Japan.
It took 50 replies till someone mentioned piracy, wtf. That is exactly the #1 reason of its popularity. Guess how many countries didn't even have shops that sell legit copies of PSX CDs.

>> No.1584205

cheap, jrpg's, mgs, survival horror, and cheap

>> No.1584209
File: 39 KB, 600x531, 1351543010055.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1584209

You're all wrong.

When the original playstation boots up, it makes a sound that goes "BVVOOooombeAUURGH doodlee doodlee doodlee boomeaurhh" and then when the playstation logo shows up, it goes "FSST Fsstyeauraaaahhhh..doo dah... ..uhh...."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aXFNtEm7Hc
And that, my friends, is why the playstation was successful.

>> No.1584216

>>1584195
That is why I wrote "I think", but I imagine there must have been some kind of technical reason why Saturn and Playstation had a lot of 2d games while N64 had so few, N64 sold similarly to Mega Drive worldwide, like 3 times what Saturn sold, and Capcom did not make Street Fighters Arcade ports for it.
Konami gave Playstation Symphony of the Night, and 2 3Dvanias to N64.

>> No.1584294

>>1584216
Neither of those were a true 3D machines, the playstation has no z axis. The N64 can do actual 3D.

>> No.1584313

>>1584209
The PS logo isn't part of the system boot up. It's part of the game boot up. You won't get that at all if there's no game inserted.

>> No.1584323

>>1584216
The newer SF games would have been memory hogs for the animation. Newer SF games would have been cut up if they did it on N64. Shit, they had to cut quite a bit from the PS versions,

MK Trilogy and KI Gold had tons of animation cut just so they'd fit on cart.

>> No.1584327

Sony computer entertainment america had a lot of success with first party releases. Crash bandicoot, spyro the dragon, oddworld, it was the golden age for platform type adventure games.

>> No.1584345
File: 118 KB, 640x639, xmenvssfps1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1584345

>>1584323
>Shit, they had to cut quite a bit from the PS versions

They couldn't add tagging (without using the same fighters) in the versus ports because the ps1 didn't have enough ram to store data for four different characters. A huge let-down.

>> No.1584356

>>1582972
I remember my aunt, who knew nothing about the PS1, bought one for her husband. She got Gran Turismo, FFVII and some Formula 1 game.

>> No.1584364

>>1584356
damn that's one lucky uncle

>> No.1584365

>>1584209

there should also be the sound of the disc being read whrrrrrrwhrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>> No.1584371

Game Overthinker summed it up nicely a couple years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bDbj4j1ylE

>> No.1584390

>>1584364
I'm pretty sure he never touched FFVII

>> No.1584413

The deciding factor was price. Shit was $299 at launch for bad-ass arcade quality graphics.

>> No.1584450

>>1582864
>How did the PS1 make it big?
Undercut Nintendo's licensing fees, along with their imposed restrictions & approval process. Turned a lot of smaller indie developers into console game developers. Developed a platform which was easy to program for. The cheaper optical media manufacturing costs.

>> No.1584458

>>1583986
>The PS1 had -very- affordable games

I remember getting a PS1 simply because the average game was $40-$50 versus the $60+ of N64 games.

>> No.1584463

I don't really feel like making a thread about this but, is there a way to mod a PS2 to play PS1 games without a mod chip? Or am I just going to have to get one?

>> No.1584491

>>1582972
FF7 sold more copies than the gaming population in Japan at the time

>> No.1584518

>>1584371
There's something he doesn't understand.
Sony is a hardware company. Nintendo is a software company (for the most part). Sony didn't just get lucky, they produced a system that can play games and relied on the developers to make games for it. Meanwhile, Nintendo used old hardware to play well made software. The only reason why Sony did better than its competitors is because it had good hardware, and the inverse with Nintendo. Sony didn't just "get lucky", they tried to keep their promise of a good system.
Sony now on the other hand, they compete neck-to-neck with Microsoft due to both systems having nearly the same specs. This tie requires the software to determine the winner, so the software now relies on the third party devs

>> No.1584529
File: 398 KB, 480x238, 1338412280218.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1584529

Cheap to make.
Cheap to develop for.

Everyone buys and everyone makes.

PS

>> No.1584542

>>1584491
Is "gamer" like a box they check on their census or...?

>> No.1584549

>>1582864
Neo Geo did make it big, there are still arcade machines all over the world. (besides north korea)

>> No.1584550

>>1584463
psxloader.elf

>> No.1584567

>>1584550
>PS2 v.9/SCPH 5000x and up

Well shit.

I got the swap disk trick to work, but it requires you to disassemble the ps2 and take off the DVD cover so you can swap the disks fast enough. You just need an original PS1 game and a burnt game.

>> No.1584575

It had games.

Sony didn't restrict developers and publishers too much and they naturally gravitated towards it.

>> No.1584576

>>1584567
Sorry, Buddy. If it makes you feel any better I have WAY too many fat PS2s and network adapters but zero slims because I didn't know in advance that it would end up being best to just play ISOs over the network, but slims make swapping easy peasy.

>> No.1584601

>>1584576
I guess I'll just grab a PS1 off eBay and a mod chip. They're only $4.

>> No.1584608

This is was just asked in another thread pretty recently. The perspective here seems to be unanimously western. Keep in mind that Nintendo, Sega and Sony are Japanese companies. Their success depends largely on how they perform at home, and a company like Sony wouldn't have any trouble getting the partners they need to succeed in that market.

Also, don't assume that Sony wasn't part of the market before the PS. Pop open an old Nintendo or Sega console/cart and you'll see plenty of Sony logos. A lot of technology was developed and patented by Sony, including non-trivial things like CD technology itself.

>> No.1584740

Not only was it cheap to develop for, as many people have already said, but it gave a lot of developers freedoms that they had never had before. I saw an interview from OPS Magazine back in the day where the devs of Spyro said that the Playstation hardware was amazing to them, quoting something like 5000 polygons for Spyro's character model. Not only was it cheap and easy to dev for, but it offered a huge amount of freedom to make pretty much any type of game. Meanwhile, N64 devs were bashing their heads against the wall trying to fit into all of its arbitrary limitations.

>> No.1584785

FF7 WAS a huge seller but the PSX was already a winner when it hit. Something to remember about the N64: it literally had no games for half a year after its release. Mario 64 and Pilotwings. Great library, right? People making up shit about cartridge limitations or the hardware itself don't know what they are talking about. Here's the deal: the Playstation launched in 1995 and had actual great games. Maybe not launch material that beat what the SNES was doing in 95, but good enough to announce that its a legit console, unlike the Jag or 3DO. So it has a full year before the N64 rolls around. Then the N64 has no games for most of another year. By the time the N64 starts to get games, FF7 hits.

>> No.1585159

>>1583962
that was a childish response and it made me angry

>> No.1585679

It had some quality titles that weren't mostly shovelware like the Genesis, plus disc system for GRAFIX and FMVs even though a lot of first party N64 games ended up way better looking

>> No.1585689

CD based
Easy to program
Large target audience, not only kids
Piracy

>> No.1585749

>>1582864


Cheap games ($40 - $50 was a fucking bargain incomparison to the $70 - $100 per game Nintendo and sega charged).


Tons of shovelware which did help because it helped pad the number of titles avaialble as well as helped launched tons of companies.

>> No.1585760

>>1582873
>Lucky timing and luck.

I wouldn't say luck had anything to do with it. Sony was already a billion-dollar multi-national corporation before they ever launched the PS brand. Obviously it would be easier for a corporation like Sony to get the support of major developers like Square; and Sony itself could afford to fund divisions to develop first-party titles. Most likely, Sony pressured a lot of developers to get on board with them, and they had plenty of money to do that.

>> No.1585761

>>1582864
Better software development kit, courtesy of Psygnosis
Better manufacturing, courtesy of Sony Music
Better hardware, courtesy of the Kutaragi

>> No.1585848

>>1582864
Early in, no competition, first system with a CD system that wasn't a peripheral that made it a point to support it and that managed third party support and interest and was designed like a valid gaming console. Unlike say the CD-i which was a joke.

Turbo had the heaviest competition in gaming. Neo Geo was pricey as fuck and rarer and also had to fight the same competition as the TG16 and had even less major coverage other than neo-geo arcade cabinets to pimp them. Plus most of the popular neo geo games were already there fore you to play at the arcade cabinets.

Jaguar failed to get traction because hideously bad controllers and the fact that no one gave a shit because no one could give the shit because it was a broken awful console. It's not even word of mouth, it's lack of word of mouth that killed it. Plus there wasn't a whole lot in the propaganda mags for games for it. It's sole killer app was, AVP.

3DO was in the same position as CD-i. They were tacked on cash ins on on the CD with no real support, lazy design and still yet more expensive than all the other competition.

Playstation had pretty much every advantage over every system that generation.

>> No.1585858

>>1585848
>fore you to play

*For you to play

>> No.1585860 [DELETED] 

>>1585848
"Its" is the possessive of "it".
"It's" is a contraction of "it is".

>> No.1585875

>>1582972
>games that pushed the sales were
Every sequential sports game ever.

Playstation was a fairly unified system in that it gave a home to all the casual gamers who wanted sports, a gigantic fucking home a significant portion of the people that used to be all over Sega who Sega was no longer supporting. This group is fucking gigantic. This is 'the' casual group. They did have large tendrils that went into fighting, racing games and FPS games.

Then it also gave a home to RPGs. And it gave somewhat of a home to more action arcade games, some fighting games, more experimental games.
It had a library that interested most people and just about anyone in a family would find something they would be interested in.

>> No.1585894

>>1584201
It sold over 60% of it's total sales in Japan and North America.
Even that alone was enough to be twice as much as N64 and crushed every other system.
Europe was just a fucking bonus.

It's popularity preceded piracy.

>> No.1585959

People underestimate how much Sony consoles sell to poor countries.

The PS1 had 30% of its sales AFTER the year 2000.

>> No.1586158

>>1585894
>implying Europe

>> No.1586179

sony only charged $10 for licensing, making it a 3rd party developer's stable

>> No.1586202

>>1582864
You forgot the Sega Saturn

>> No.1586213

>>1586202

Not really.
>the two big ones

>> No.1586220

The PS1's hardware was way ahead of its time at release. It's very powerful despite being far simpler than any of the other consoles from that gen, and very straightforward to program to boot.
If you like, I can dig up the article where the guy responsible for DirectX basically says "yeah, DirectX pipeline, we completely copied the PlayStation. That thing was really smartly designed."

>> No.1586247

>>1586179

I think you mean staple.

Whatever, the whole thing is a damp squid.

>> No.1586253

>>1586220
It was probably itself a copy of Silicon Graphic's API (the predecessor to OpenGL)

>> No.1586258

>>1584576
>swapping
Just get a damn chip, they're like $15.

>> No.1586275

>>1586258
It's easy to botch the soldering if you don't have the best tools and experience

>> No.1586305

>>1582873
Not luck.Sony was making PS1 for Nintendo but they rejected it.Sony produced the console on her own and success!!haha joke is on Nintendo..

>> No.1586319

>>1586253
I'm sure they were aware of and inspired by OpenGL, but I'm not really talking about the API. I'm talking about the specific way that they designed the hardware, which elegantly splits the duties of 3D rendering between 3 components on 2 chips:

an otherwise bog-standard MIPS CPU with a "Geometry Transformation Engine" on the same chip, that does a great deal of the hard "math" for 3D games for you. You basically just plug in a vertex, transformation matrix, and optionally a light vector, and get a transformed and (optionally) lit vertex out a few cycles later.

and a "dumb" rasterizer chip that takes 2D triangle coordinates + optional color values and texture coordinates, fills them in, and renders the result to a framebuffer.

So there's this simple pipeline here, where the CPU plugs vertices into the GTE, then feeds the results into the dumb rasterizer. Each component has little "smarts" but is very optimized for the task it is designed for.

I'm not 100% positive, but to my knowledge, all the professional 3D rendering hardware before the PS1 were basically DSPs on steroids doing everything in software, with no attempt to specialize into different hardware components for different parts of the rendering pipeline. This worked well at the time for workstations that cost upwards of $10k a pop, but is a completely worthless strategy for a machine that needed to launch at $300. It took a real feat of ingenuity for Sony's engineers to come up with this design that could do a lot with very little silicon and still be very easy to program for.

>> No.1586423

>>1585959
>30% of its sales
At 30% (or less) of the original price, while the PS2 was bringing in all the money. Like Anon already told you - Europe was just the icing on the cake.

The fact that you think your country contributed to the success of Playstation with its $69 prechipped consoles in 2002 and the rampant piracy you're so proud of meaning practically zero software sales.

The war was already won.

>> No.1586838

i dont think gaming has that much to do with it. Coming out of the 80's, Sony was the go to for consumer electronics. Walkmen, TVs, Video Cameras; Sony meant quality with lots of features.

Panasonic & Philips had tried earlier to sell a system based on their brand name and failed but Sony had a way better reputation by then.

pretty much the same thing happend with the Ipod/Iphone.

(No experience + Brand Loyalty)*Decent Product = Great Success

>> No.1586854

Sony created a system extremely friendly to developers. They wanted to flood the system with games. Thanks to the CD-ROM format being so cheap, they were able to do so.

Sega had botched the Sega CD and 32X and the Saturn was more expensive, so nobody bothered with Sega. Nintendo stuck with cartridges because they didn't want load times, so fewer developers wanted to work on the system due to the higher cost and harder development.

Sony also benefited from the opening up of more global markets.

It isn't that Sony was brilliant, they just put out the system with the least baggage at the right time and flooded it with games.

>> No.1586889

>>1586305
A sound chip and a cd drive is not a console.

>> No.1586952

>>1582864
Honestly?
I really do feel it has to do with how they had soured relations with Nintendo.

Sega was off doing their own thing.
Nintendo was in deals with Sony to build a new CD-based system to compete with Sega (As that's how it was at the time).

BUT

Nintendo said "Fuck it, we'll bring out tech to a cheaper developer of CD tech and all" because Sony wanted more rights to licensing and royalties for the collaboration.

So, Sony said "Screw off, we're taking all the work we've done for you and going to build the rest of it ourselves".

Nintendo was suddenly years behind in their next console, now that Sony took all their work with them, and when they announced the Playstation, Nintendo didn't have the time or resources to build a proper CD-based system, so they went with carts again and rushed the N64 out.

So basically.

Sega was being Sega.
Nintendo fucked up with Sony AND CD-drive technology.
Sony pumped all their dollars into the system and promoted the fuck out of it.

>> No.1586971

>>1582972
>I doubt many people actually bought PS1 just because of FF7.


I actually did, as did at least three of my friends that I can remember.

We were a bunch of fucking nerds, though so what did we know

>> No.1586972

>>1586854
>Sony created a system extremely friendly to developers.
every system from that era was easy to use
can't say the same for the current generation anything. even the wiiu has a weird, unnecessarily complicated interface, same goes for xfax and PS$.

>> No.1586975

>>1586971
I think the people who doubt many of us buying the PSX for FFVII don't remember or aren't old enough to remember the ad campaign.

I hadn't even played a previous FF game before VII and I got one for VII for Christmas. That's how powerful that game was. Hell, the only two RPG's I played up to that point was Chrono Trigger and Earthbound.

Maybe I was a casual of the times, but Square was hitting all the numbers from what I recall.

>> No.1586983

>>1586972
He's talking about to develop for not to use. Saturn and N64 both have weird hardware, Saturn has two separate processors, N64 has storage and memory handicaps...

>> No.1586992

>>1586983
The bonus to Sony's system was that it could all be coded in -slightly modified- C. People don't realize how big of an advantage that is after all those other systems using assembler and various toolchains.

>> No.1586995

>>1586975
>I think the people who doubt many of us buying the PSX for FFVII don't remember or aren't old enough to remember the ad campaign.


Hah, god damn EGM even had its big preview article on the game titled THE GREATEST GAME EVER MADE. I hung it up on my wall for months leading up to that release. I was never more hype for a game before or after.

And I wasn't, in any single way, disappointed by the game either.

Nintendo possibly could have kept Sony from becoming king of my house if they got OoT out at the same time.

>> No.1587120

>>1584542
Anyone physically able to play video games, so ages 5-60.

>> No.1587234
File: 355 KB, 1024x1491, StudioLiverpool_WipEoutAd.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1587234

Let me put this into perspective for ya'll.

Global sales in millions:

NES: 61.9
SNES: 49.1
N64: 32.9
GC: 21.7

PS: 102.4
PS2: 155+

The NES was the beginning and the end for Nintendo. And you've got to remember that, in the 90s, Sony was still considered a premium brand. That they were entering the video game market, meant to the general public that shit was getting real - that gaming was coming of age. The Playstation was the first console I ever saw dudebros, soccer moms and normalfags playing, and getting excited about. Since it was Sony, it was "okay." Buying a PS was as normal as buying a TV, or a VCR. It became the next hi-fi appliance. Owning one was a sign of being middle class; of having your money burn a hole in your pocket.

That, and its general fucking edginess. If you thought Sega was cheeky, Sony took their shtick into outer space. They must've spent more money on avant garde marketing/sartorialist cliques, than they spent on the R&D on the hardware.

>> No.1587443

>>1587234
Are you including Famicom and Super Famicom sales in there?

>> No.1587468
File: 165 KB, 1600x1050, junon.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1587468

>>1587443
>>1587234
>Global sales
Yes.

>> No.1587515

>>1587234
>The NES was the beginning and the end for Nintendo
The DS sold 150 million units, the Gameboy and Wii both sold 100 million, and the gameboy advance sold 80 million.

>> No.1587525

>>1587515
No anon! Nintendo is always doomed! They were doomed even before the company started!

>> No.1587528

>>1587525
They've been doomed for a century!

>> No.1587543

>>1587515
>handhelds
Way to miss the point. We're talking about why Sony's first home console was a success, despite the prior dominance of contemporary competitors.

>>1587525
>>1587528
Nintendo has already suffered the effects of being doomed in the home console sphere. Judging by the sales of the Wii U, we can safely say that the Wii was an outlier in an otherwise downward trend. That their handhelds are successful is a completely separate issue. Handhelds are things of backpacks and purses, the toys of backseat car trips and subway commuters - an obviously different market, selling to a different demographic. Nintendo themselves were completely confused by the fact that grown ass women were buying the 3DS in droves for Animal Crossing. These aren't the same people buying hardware for their AV cabinet.

>> No.1587573

>>1587543
>Way to miss the point. We're talking about why Sony's first home console was a success, despite the prior dominance of contemporary competitors.
Yet you put the GC and PS2 in there for a reason. Excluding Wii and PS3 sales only further shows what you were trying to do.

>> No.1587575

>>1587468

I loved the ads from that time. It's boring that companies aren't allowed to take cheap shots at each other anymore without a bunch of fags crying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLlCRE9kDVg

>> No.1587612

>>1587573
Keep crying. They're illustrations to show a projection to a point. The climate of 1994 was one of a descending Nintendo, which...

>>1582864
>Sony somehow easily beat its competitors
Is a possible explanation for OP's conundrum.

>>1587573
>shows what you were trying to do
The Wii outselling the PS3 by 20m hardly means anything when you take the rest of the sales figures into account. Again, it was an outlier. Fluffing their figures in a discussion about consoles with handheld sales figures is disingenuous.

>>1587575
Yeah, Sony has gotten so much shit for their ads lately. You can't make anything remotely interesting anymore without people tweeting how it triggered them.

>> No.1587614

>>1586158
Europe counts for the rest of the majority sales that make up a hundred someodd million units. Sure, count non European countries but no one gives much of a shit to include them in figures.

>> No.1587650

>>1587612
>Keep crying. They're illustrations to show a projection to a point. The climate of 1994 was one of a descending Nintendo, which...

That's called the cherry picking fallacy. Congratulations, you're a fallacious fellating fucker full of fucking faggotry.

>> No.1587651

Can't we just all agree that the original Playstation exploded onto the market, did everything right that everyone had been doing wrong, and forced other console manufacturers to change to the new style or die?

Because that's a truth that all these numbers, and the history behind them, support.

>> No.1587667
File: 628 KB, 601x602, 1386011340519.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1587667

>>1587650
It would be cherry picking if I chose to pick some figures, and not others, but I included all Nintendo and Sony console sales figures of comparable generations, thank you very much. You could take the GC and PS2 numbers off the list and the story would be the same. We are, after all, discussing the success of the first Playstation, and not the companies involved as a whole.

>>1587650
>you're a fallacious fellating fucker full of fucking faggotry
Do you want to hate fuck, or something?

>> No.1587676

>>1587667
>You could take the GC and PS2 numbers off the list and the story would be the same.
So why didn't you? If you're going to go out of /vr/ territory you need to go all the way or not at all.

>> No.1587693
File: 38 KB, 493x363, monoploly.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1587693

>>1587676
>So why didn't you?
I'm going to assume you've been made fun of for nitpicking before, and save myself the trouble.

>If you're going to go out of /vr/ territory you need to go all the way or not at all.
This is an arbitrary rule you made up on the spot.

>> No.1587712

>>1587693
>This is an arbitrary rule you made up on the spot.
>>1587650 pointed out why that's the case, actually. You can't just stop listing things off when it's convenient. If you had stopped with what was relevant to the thread (and /vr/) no one would be complaining.

>> No.1587780

>Wii
>PS3
/v/'s leaking here...

>> No.1588434

>>1582864
The beast can play CD's

>> No.1588958

>>1587234
Just posting sales numbers isn't telling the whole story. During the mid-80s through the 90s the global economy was healthy and growing, and so were populations. Consoles benefitted from those trends up until 2008 when the housing market collapsed and took much of the global economy with it.

>> No.1588972

>>1587234
>The Playstation was the first console I ever saw dudebros, soccer moms and normalfags playing

Wow this is some serious anecdote shit. Almost one in every three homes in the USA owned a NES at one point. Are you talking me that it was possible to do that without selling to dudebros, normalfags and soccer moms?