30 Years Ago, PlayStation Turned A Major Failure Into One Of The Most Important Consoles Ever

Before the PlayStation could launch, it first had to fail. Sony’s first foray into game consoles came to North America on September 9, 1995, nearly a year after it launched in Japan, and several years after it grew out of a cancelled collaboration with Nintendo. These days, PlayStation is a pillar of the games industry, as much as any company can be, but at the time of the first console’s release, it was a risky bet that even some of its creators seemed only half sold on. Despite that, by the time its North American release came around, it was an immediate hit, setting it up to become one of the most important consoles ever.

PlayStation famously began its life as a failed peripheral for the Super Nintendo. Sony had manufactured chips for Nintendo’s Super Famicom, which led to the two companies beginning work on a CD-based addition to the console in the late ‘80s. Work on that project progressed so far that Sony even announced the Play Station (its name was two words at the time) at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, before Nintendo pulled the plug just a day later. That reportedly enraged the president of Sony, who launched the project to develop the PlayStation as a standalone console in what would become an incredibly consequential act of corporate pettiness.

Despite pouring resources into the project, Sony leadership wasn’t certain that getting into game consoles at all was a good idea. Because of that, the PlayStation was moved away from Sony proper and under the umbrella of Sony Music before the team involved in making it spun off Sony Computer Entertainment to manage the company’s new interest in gaming.

Even if Sony wasn’t yet convinced that the PlayStation was a good idea, players soon proved them wrong. The PlayStation launched in Japan on December 3, 1994 and was an instant success. At the time, the PlayStation’s main competitor was the Sega Saturn, which launched almost two weeks earlier. At first, the two were locked in a close race, with the Saturn initially outselling the PlayStation by the end of the year, despite the latter’s unexpected level of success. Before long, though, the PlayStation caught up, selling two million units in just six months.

Then came the console’s North American release. By this time, it was clear to everyone that the PlayStation would be providing stiff competition to the Saturn, and in some ways, it was Sega itself that ensured PlayStation would come out on top. Both Sony and Sega presented their new consoles at E3 in the summer of 1995, where Sega announced a $399 price tag for the Saturn, along with the surprising reveal that it was going on sale immediately, intended to get the console into homes before the PlayStation could launch. However, only some stores received shipments of the new console, turning the Saturn’s launch into a confusing mess. Sony followed Sega’s announcement by simply revealing on stage that the PlayStation would retail for $100 less than the Saturn and showcasing some of the games the console would launch with. When it finally arrived in September, the PlayStation sold out of nearly its entire stock through preorders alone.

The PlayStation’s early success was partially the product of circumstance, but it’s the console’s library that sealed its continued popularity. Launch titles like Ridge Racer and Tekken did extremely well, giving players their first taste of how a fully 3D console could innovate even with familiar genres. The sheer technological leap from older consoles like the Super Nintendo to the PlayStation and the rest of its generation was impressive enough to get players on board, and later experiments showed that there was much more to the PlayStation than impressive hardware alone. Along with redefining genres, developers invented entirely new experiences on the PlayStation, with offbeat titles like Ape Escape and PaRappa the Rapper.

It’s impossible to imagine the games industry today without PlayStation, which makes it all the more remarkable that its inception looks like a series of fortunate accidents in retrospect. Had Nintendo not backed out of its deal with Sony at the last minute, it’s possible the console would never have existed, with Sony consigned to just a peripheral maker for what’s now one of its biggest competitors. Gaming history is built on the back of surprising turns of fate, and the birth of the PlayStation is one of the strangest and most consequential.