This is my first documentary.
The subject is the history & significance of the Sony Playstation, and how it revolutionized gaming.
It's hard to believe I started working on this over a year ago, and it made me question my work-ethic, technique, and ability to be a content-creator.
Finishing it is a relief, but also terrifying at the same time.
There's always the possibility that I publish it, and hardly anyone sees it or cares. That happens with some of my videos for whatever reason.
The central thesis is that Playstation marked the beginning of modern video-games, and changed the way they would be made forever.
The 5th generation of home consoles is a threshold of it's own because it is also the beginning of modern 3D graphics.
Playstation marks a very brief period where home consoles outperformed personal computers for gaming.
And while this is a Playstation documentary, I also go into detail on the entire period of 5th generation consoles.
Including: Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo-64.
I acknowledge my bias, but a few things are undeniable:
- PlayStation was Sony's first video-game console.
- Many companies have attempted to enter the home console market, and failed.
- The 5th-gen consoles faced the challenge of how to bring 3D to games.
- Playstation vastly outsold Atari, Sega, and Nintendo.
- It's sales made video-games a new and very-lucrative market.
Please watch the documentary:
I'll give a little bit of a rundown here, but it's nothing compared to the months of research and work I put into the documentary.
- The origins of the Playstation, including:
- The failed deal with Nintendo
- Ken Kutragi the father of the Playstation
- The companies that chose to partner with Sony
- Nintendo & Sega's power in the game market
- The 3D Revolution:
- The impact of Silicon Graphics Inc.(SGI)
- SGI's state-of-the-art hardware
- Hardware of PS1, Saturn, and N64
- How developers & dev-kits made a difference
- The home console market becoming big business
- Record budgets & advertising investment in games
A detailed look at the hardware specifications, and capabilities.
The alliances Sony made with major players like Squaresoft, and a look at the state of games before Playstation.
Sony had little experience with games, but was already a giant in entertainment media and electronics. So it's not surprise that Sony chose to give the Playstation accelerated media functions for audio and video.
This enabled developers to place emphasis on extending the story-telling experience of games with media, and not just graphics and mechanics.
Perhaps most important to Playstation's success was developers.
Sony cultivated relationships with many major names in video-games, and prioritized making development of games on Playstation as pleasant as possible.
The move to 3D was challenging from a developer's standpoint on the Sega Saturn & the Ninetendo-64 because of differing approaches to hardware and software.
Sony made a wide-range of tools for Playstation development; rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Studios could buy different kits for different jobs, and this meant more people working while also increasing the efficiency of budgets.
Initially, PS1 development was limited to Sony NEWS Workstations.
NEWS workstations ran NEWS OS: Sony's own flavor of UNIX.
They were expensive, and only provided to early Sony partners.
This was a similar approach to the Silicon Graphics Inc(SGI) workstation's that were required for N64 development.
Before being renamed to Nintendo-64, Project Reality was developed entirely by SGI. Because of this, SGI Onyx or Indigo workstations were required to develop for the console, and the standard pricing for these machines was over $100k & $40k, respectively.
Early Sony game partner Psygnosis suggested developing cheaper hardware, and Sony, S/N Systems, and Psygnosis came up with software & hardware kits that could be purchased to develop for Playstation on cheaper Windows machines via 2 PCI-board slots that included the entire Playstation chipset & architecture:
Separate kits were also made available for artists and audio-designers, and an even simpler solution for developers that would also require attaching a Net-Yaroze PS1 debugging unit.
The State Of Games Pre-Playstation:
The late-1980's were an interesting time for computers and games.
In 1985 the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga personal computers were introduced, and both of them used blitter co-processors to accelerate graphics. Interesting games were being made for computers, but PC's were so expensive that it wasn't a large enough market.
The most popular games at the time were either found in powerful arcade machines, or on the Super Nintendo & Sega Genesis.
Nintendo was king of home consoles, but Sega had given them a real challenger in the Genesis. Sega also pioneered 3D with their Model 1 arcade machine games like Virtua-Racing and Virtua-Fighter.
Sega made some daring attempts at pushing games in new directions with the Genesis CD add-on and the 32x expansion that added new processors and capabilities.
But Super Nintendo also added new tricks, and did it with enhancement chips built into the specific game cartridges. Such as the Super FX which could render 3D polygons.
And of course there was Apple's Macintosh line, and the new growing market of IBM-PC clones from Dell, HP, and the like.
All of these ran Microsoft's MS-DOS or Windows, and games were being pushed further there as well.
But the 5th generation of home consoles would be the last time where the cutting edge wasn't confined to the PC.
Games
What would a Playstation documentary be without games?
There are so many important games for the Playstation, but I dedicated entire segments to about 15 that I am personally very familiar with.
- Crash Bandicoot
- Gran Turismo
- Resident Evil 1,2,3
- Tomb Raider
- Heart Of Darkness
- Oddworld: Abe's Odysee
- Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and IX
- Silent Hill
- Vagrant Story
- Metal Gear Solid
- Parasite Eve 1&2