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*[[Net Yaroze]]


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Revision as of 20:44, 12 May 2006

PlayStation
File:Pslogo.jpg
The original PlayStation was produced in a light grey color like Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
ManufacturerSony
TypeVideo game console
Generation32-bit/64-bit era
LifespanDecember 3 1994 (JP)
September 9 1995 (US)
September 29 1995 (EU)
Units sold102 million (March 2005)
MediaCD-ROM
CPUCustom MIPS R3000
Best-selling gameGran Turismo
SuccessorPlayStation 2
For other versions of PlayStation, please see PlayStation (disambiguation)

The PlayStation is a video game console of the 32/64-bit era, first produced by Sony Computer Entertainment in the mid-1990s. The original PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of console and hand-held game devices, which has included successor machines including the PSone (a smaller version of the original), PocketStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PSX (Japan only), and the forthcoming PlayStation 3.

By March 2005, the PlayStation/PSone had shipped a total of 102.49 million units, becoming the first home console to ever reach the 100 million mark. In 2001, it was noted in a brochure that one in three houses in the US owned a PlayStation.

History

Development

An original PlayStation control pad. This model was later replaced by the Dual Analog, and then the DualShock.

The first conceptions of the PlayStation console date back to 1986. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disk technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. Its rewritable magnetic nature could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and the disks were a piracy danger. Thus, when details came out of CDROM/XA, an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously being developed by Sony and Philips, Nintendo was interested. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was struck, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation," was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the 8 channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.

Sony also planned to develop another, Nintendo compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both SNES cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CD discs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.

In 1991, the SNES-CD was to be announced at the June CES. However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo and learned that it allowed Sony 25% of the profits from the machine, he was furious. He deemed the contract totally unacceptable, and secretly cancelled all plans for a joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Indeed, instead of announcing their partnership, at 9 am the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that they were now allied with Philips, and were planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had (unbeknownst to Sony) flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.

The 9am CES announcement was a huge shock. Not only was it a complete surprise to the showgoers (Sony had only just the previous night been optimistically showing off the joint project under the "Play Station" brand), but it was seen by many in the Japanese community as a massive betrayal- a Japanese company snubbing another Japan-based company in favor of a European one was considered unthinkable in Japanese business.

After the collapse of the joint project, Sony considered halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what they had developed so far and make it into a complete, stand alone console. This led to Nintendo filing a lawsuit claiming breach of contract and attempted, in U.S. federal court, to obtain an injunction against the release of the Play Station, on the grounds that Nintendo owned the name. The federal judge presiding over the case denied the injunction. Thus, in October 1991, the first incarnation of the new Sony Playstation was revealed; it's estimated that only 200 or so of these machines were ever produced.

By the end of 1992, Sony and Nintendo reached a deal whereby the "Sony Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, but Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the SNES would continue to use the Sony-designed audio chip. However, at this point, Sony realised that the SNES technology was getting long in the tooth, and the next generation of console gaming was around the corner: work began in early 1993 on reworking the "Play Station" concept to target a new generation of hardware and software; as part of this process the SNES cartridge port was dropped, the space between the names was erased, and the PlayStation was born.

Launch

The PlayStation was launched in Japan on December 3, 1994, the USA on September 9, 1995 and Europe on September 29, 1995. In America, Sony enjoyed a very successful launch with titles of almost every genre including Toshinden, Twisted Metal, Warhawk, Philosoma, Wipeout and Ridge Racer. Almost all of Sony's and Namco's launch titles went on to produce numerous sequels.

Launch price in the American market: US$ 299,00 [1], a price later repeated by its sucessor.

The PlayStation was also able to generate interest with a unique slew of ad campaigns. Many of the ads released at the time of launch were full of ambiguous content which had many gamers rabidly debating their meanings. The most well-known launch ads include the "Enos Lives" campaign, and the "You Are Not E" ads (the "E" in "You Are Not E" was always colored in red, to symbolize the word "ready", and the "Enos" meant "ready Ninth Of September", the U.S. launch date). It is believed that these ads were an attempt to play off the gaming public's suspicion towards Sony as an unknown, untested quantity in the video game market.

Titles

File:Thbbb.jpg
PlayStation Memory Card

The console was extremely popular, spawning the so-called "PlayStation Generation". Well known titles on the PlayStation include Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil, Tekken, Wipeout, Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, and Metal Gear Solid. As of May 18 2004, Sony has shipped 100 million PlayStation and PSone consoles throughout the world. As of March 2005, there were 7,743 software titles available with cumulative software shipment of 959 million. The PlayStation logo was designed by Manabu Sakamoto, who also designed the logo for Sony's VAIO computer products.

Production Run

Having lasted over 11 years, the PlayStation has enjoyed one of the longest production runs in the videogame industry. On March 23, 2006 Sony announced the end of production. [2]

Variants

The first new version was actually a revision in early 1996, produced in response to complaints that PlayStations were overheating. Sony did not change the technical aspects or the cosmetics but did remove the RCA ports left over from the Japanese release. The parallel port (which was mostly unused by Sony) was also removed to reduce production costs. Sony also slightly improved the laser assembly. Many gamers experienced skipping full-motion video or dreaded physical "ticking" noises coming from their PlayStations. The seemingly universal fix for this was to turn one's PlayStation sideways or upside-down—although some gamers smacked the lid of the PlayStation to make a game load or work. This problem was carried over to many first-generation PlayStation 2s in the form of the very well known Disc Read Error message.

Sony then released a version dubbed "Dual Shock", which included a controller with 2 analog thumbsticks and a built in force-feedback feature.

Another version that was colored blue (as opposed to regular console units that were gray in color) was available to game developers and select press. Later versions of this were coloured green. Contrary to popular belief, the RAM was not 4 megabytes but instead the standard 2 megabytes. The console included a CD-ROM emulator board connected to a PC. It was also able to run in-development games which lacked region coding (which would be rejected by a normal PlayStation as though they were pirated copies). A few of these units eventually appeared for sale through somewhat dubious channels at high prices.

A white version was also produced that had the ability to play VCDs.

The installation of a modchip allows the PlayStation's capabilities to be expanded. This allows unauthorized copies of games to be played, but it also allows the playing of games from other regions, such as PAL titles on a NTSC console. Since modchips allow playing games recorded on a regular CD-ROM, it created a wave of games developed without official Sony approval, using free GNU compiler tools.

Net Yaroze

A version of the PlayStation called the Net Yaroze was also produced. It was more expensive than the original PlayStation, coloured black instead of the usual gray, and most importantly, came with tools and instructions that allowed a user to be able to program PlayStation games and applications without the need for a full developer suite, which cost many times the amount of a PlayStation and was only available to approved video game developers. Naturally, the Net Yaroze lacked many of the features the full developer suite provided. Programmers were also limited by the 2MB of total game space that Net Yaroze allowed. That means, your whole game had to be crammed into the 2MB of system RAM. You couldn't officially make actual game discs. The amount of space may seem small, but games like Ridge Racer, ran entirely from the system RAM (except for the streamed music tracks of course). It was unique in that it was the only officially retailed Sony PlayStation with no regional lockout; it would play games from any territory.

PSone with LCD screen and a DualShock controller

PSone

The PSone (also PSOne or PS one) is Sony's smaller (and more ergonomic) version of its PlayStation video game console. The PSone is about 1⁄3 smaller than the original PlayStation (38mm × 193mm × 144mm versus 45mm × 260mm × 185mm), was released in September 2000, and went on to outsell all other consoles—including Sony's own brand-new PlayStation 2—throughout the remainder of the year. Sony also released a small LCD screen and an adaptor to power the unit for use in cars. The PSone is fully compatible with all PlayStation software. The PlayStation is now officially abbreviated as the "PS1" or "PSone," although many people still abbreviate it "PS" or "PSX". There were only 2 differences between the "PSone" and the original, the first one being cosmetic change to the console, and the second one was the home menu's Graphical User Interface.

File:PS one (logo).png
The new PSone logo

The original PlayStation was abbreviated in Japan to "PS" and was often abbreviated as "PSX" by North American gamers, as this was Sony's internal code name for the system while it was under development (PlayStation Xperimental). This led to some confusion in 2003, when Sony introduced a PS2-derived system in Japan actually called the PSX.

Successors

Sony's successor to the PlayStation is the PlayStation 2, which is backward compatible with its predecessor, in the sense that it can play almost every PlayStation game. This was done by embedding the most important parts of the PSone inside the PlayStation 2 design. Unlike emulators that run on the PC, the PlayStation 2 actually contains the original PlayStation processor, allowing games to run exactly as they do on the PlayStation. For PlayStation 2 games this processor, called the IOP, is used for input and output (memory cards, DVD drive, network, and hard drive). Like its predecessor, the PlayStation 2 is based on hardware developed by Sony themselves.

The next generation of the PlayStation is known as PlayStation 3, or PS3, and due to be launched in November 2006. Sony has stated the PS3 will also be backward compatible with all games that were originally made for PlayStation 1 as well as the PlayStation 2.

The PlayStation Portable (officially PSP) is a handheld game console first released in late 2004. Despite the name, it is not compatible with PlayStation games; it only runs games developed specifically for the PSP on the UMD format. However, at the PlayStation Briefing conference on March 15, 2006 in Japan, Sony revealed plans for PlayStation 1 games to be downloaded and playable on the PSP through emulation. Sony hopes to release nearly all PlayStation 1 games on a gradual basis. [3]

The success of the PlayStation is widely thought to have had some influence on the demise of the cartridge-based home console. While not the first system to utilize an optical disc format, it was the first success story, and ended up going head-to-head with the last major home console to rely on proprietary cartridges - the Nintendo 64. Nintendo was very public about its skepticism toward using CDs and DVDs to store games, citing longer load times and durability issues. It was widely speculated that the company was even more concerned with piracy, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive titles for its revenue. The success of Sony's PlayStation introduced high-quality sound and longer playing times as top priorities for modern gamers, leaving little choice for competitors but to follow suit.

Criticism

On the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation, Sony Italy released an ad which outraged the Vatican. An ad showed a man, who appeared to be Jesus, smiling towards the camera and wearing a Crown of Thorns made of the PlayStation button symbols (□, X, O, Δ). At the bottom of the ad it said (in Italian): "Ten Years of Passion". After the incident, Sony decided to take back all the ads and discontinue the printing.

Many consumers also were not happy that the PlayStation's laser pickup housing that rested on parts of the traverse path and was susceptible to friction to this part would form a groove if used extensively over time. This caused the pickup to rest at an angle instead of being perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the irridescent side of the disc. As a result, many people started experiencing longer loading times, and other loading problems. Users remedied this by flipping the console up vertically, correcting the laser aim and restoring read performance. However, this would prove temporary as the upper part of the pickup housing would start to groove and cause the problem to occur again, but in an opposite direction. Nevertheless, many consumers were forced to buy multiple PlayStations to replace broken ones due to this problem. This problem was mainly found in the first generation of PlayStation consoles, model SCPH-1001. Later revisions and models would employ corrections to the optical pickup construction, including the use of die-cast metals and more durable plastics instead of the softer plastic materials that were used in the older pickups.

In the PlayStation 2 this particular problem does not exist since the traverse design is totally different, employing metal bearing supports for the pickup instead of rudimentary flat surface supports and the use of a worm gear drive as opposed to a rack gear drive for the kicker mechanism, but susceptibility to dust accumulation of the pickup's kicker mechanism, primarily the issue of dust drying out the mechanism's lubrication, in all front-load full-sized PS-2 consoles has caused various read problems, especially the refusal to read blue-bottomed PS-2 CD-ROM discs whereas silver-bottomed PS-2 DVD-ROM discs could still be read if the problem wasn't severe enough.

The redesigned slim PS-2 does not have the dust accumulation problems of the front-load consoles as the air movement from the ventilation fan is much more isolated away from the drive as well as reducing the cooling requirement and, thus, the airflow volume of the console itself since the power supply, a major heat source, was moved from the inside of the console to the outside as an adapter module.

Sony Computer Entertainment provides full technical support for all problems of owners as long as the console has never been opened.


Specifications

Main CPU

File:Psboard 800.jpg
An early PlayStation motherboard

MIPS R3000A-compatible (R3051) 32bit RISC chip running at 33.8688 MHz

The chip is manufactured by LSI Logic Corp. with technology licensed from SGI. The chip also contains the Geometry Transformation Engine and the Data Decompression Engine.

Features:

  • Operating Performance of 30 MIPS
  • Bus Bandwidth 132 Mbit/s
  • Instruction Cache 4 kB
  • Data Cache 1 kB (non associative, just 1024 bytes of mapped fast SRAM)

Geometry transformation engine

This engine is inside the main CPU chip. It gives it additional (vector-)math instructions used for the 3D graphics.

Features:

  • Operating Performance of 66 MIPS
  • 360,000 Flat-Shaded Polygons per second
  • 180,000 texture mapped and light-sourced polygons per second

Sony originally gave the polygon count as:

  • 1.5 million flat-shaded polygons per second
  • 500,000 texture mapped and light-sourced polygons per second

These figures were given as a ballpark figure for performance under optimal circumstances, and so are unrealistic under normal usage.

Data decompression engine

This engine is also inside the main CPU. It is responsible for decompressing images and video. Documented device mode is to read three RLE-encoded 16×16 macroblocks, run IDCT and assemble a single 16×16 RGB macroblock. Output data may be transferred directly to GPU via DMA. It is possible to overwrite IDCT matrix and some additional parameters, however MDEC internal instruction set was never documented.

Features:

  • Compatible with MJPEG and H.261 files
  • Operating Performance of 80 MIPS
  • Directly connected to CPU Bus

Graphics processing unit

This chip is separate to the CPU and handles all the 2D Graphics processing, which includes the transformed 3D polygons.

Features:

Sound processing unit

Features:

  • Can handle ADPCM sources with up to 24 channels and up to 44.1 kHz sampling rate
  • Could perform digital effects including:

Memory

CD-ROM drive

Features:

  • Originally Single Speed, later replaced with a Two Speed drive, with a maximum data throughput of 300 KB/s
  • XA Mode 2 Compliant
  • CD-DA (CD-Digital Audio)

See also

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