A Brief History of the PlayStation The history ...

A Brief History of the PlayStation
The history of video game console dates back to 1972 when the world’s first videogame console, Magnavox Odyssey, was released. It was invented by Ralph Baer, a German born American inventor1. But it was not until 3rd December 1994, when Sony introduced PlayStation, that the Gaming Industry was revolutionized2. Sony PlayStation became an instant success3. Sony's PlayStation was released as the 5th generation console that used CDs to store games. In 2000, Sony came up with 6th generation video game console PlayStation 2, as the first home game console to be able to play DVDs. The 7th generation video game console PlayStation 3 was introduced by Sony in 2006 that come with a hard drive and was able to play Blu-ray Disc movies and games out of the box. It was the first video game console to support HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface)5. The first hand held video game console, the PlayStation Portable made its entry in late 2004. PlayStation Portable uses optical disc format, Universal Media Disc (UMD), as its primary storage media6.
1
1. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey
2. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console#cite_note-5
3. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A197174
4. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console#cite_note-5
5. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console#cite_note-5
6. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable


Evolution of the PlayStation
The other competing 5th generation consoles at the time were the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Genesis. It was only after the introduction of the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and the Nintendo 64 however that the 5th generation gaming consoles started gaining popularity.
While the PlayStation and the Saturn used CD roms, the Nintendo used cartridges to store games. There was initially a business partnership being formed between Nintendo and Sony to create a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. They faced problems in the development of the disc technology as the magnetic layer being used could be erased easily and also was in danger of copyright infringement. Nintendo later broke off the deal with Sony and went ahead with Phillips instead. Sony then went on to develop its own console, christened the PlayStation which was a 32-bit gaming console. Since then, Sony has come up with a line of consoles that earned it quite a reputation.
The successor to Sony’s PlayStation was the PlayStation 2. This model was fully backward compatible with the PlayStation and included the original PlayStation processor as well. Like its predecessor, it was developed solely by Sony. It enjoyed great sales from the time of its launch partly due to the already developed “PlayStation” brand name and also due to the backward compatibility feature ...