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[RetroGamingUK]

It’s remarkable just how many thing Sony got right from the bat with PlayStation…

- Hardware design
- Software support
- Controller ergonomics
- Aesthetics
- Marketing
- Focus on UK and Europe

Nintendo and Sega had their heads up their arses and Sony made the companies that had worked in the industry for over a decade look like total amateurs.

 

[Sojiro]

That 95 to 2005 run, nobody was touching that hardware team in terms of how they design their devices back then, everything looked premium. The shit they put out now looks terrible man.

The OG PS1 and PS2 phat models are just god damn sexy machines, even their later redesigns (PS one and PS2 Slim) looked good as well. I absolutely love the OG PS1 design, probably my favorite console design of them all.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

It’s not just the console design, the controller design was something they nailed too.

Nintendo added some cool features and the analogue stick was revolutionary, but the design was a monstrosity, did no one there suggest they go back to the drawing board?

Sega just put out another dated 80s MegaDrive controller with zero ergonomics and poorly designed triggers that had to be pressed in a certain area. D-pad was the only redeeming feature.

Sony got pretty much everything right, comfortable design with handles, 4 face buttons (Saturn’s 6 could be awkward when needing to press 2 buttons) and 4 shoulder buttons. Just look at the DualShock, it’s a design that has persisted to this day.

 

[Rocco Schiavone]

Ken Kutaragi speech starts at 12:47

 

[Fahdis]

Nintendo's supposed "+30 Years of PTSD":

A curiosity:
As March 1995 (PS1 was launched in December 1994 in Japan) NES + GB + SNES had sold in total 141.49 million units therefore since the introduction of the PlayStation brand of consoles Nintendo has sold around 100 million dedicated video game systems more than what Sony did in the same timeframe.

* Note:
I considered only standalone consoles with interchangeable software (devices like Color TV Game, Game & Watch, Nintendo plug & play retro consoles, PlayStation Classic, PocketStation and add-ons in general were excluded; also eduteintment systems like Sega Pico were excluded).

I love pretentious posts like these when people come to defend their prefered brands "lOoK at ThE sALEs"

 

[RetroGamingUK]

I love pretentious posts like these when people come to defend their prefered brands "lOoK at ThE sALEs"

Nintendo and Sony deserve their success and I’ve been quite happy with their gaming products for decades.

There’s a reason no other company (barring Microsoft for a short time) has challenged them.

 

[cartman414]

I thought that its a known knowledge that Kutaragi fought really hard for PS to get approved, he wanted to whoop that Ninty ass so damn hard! And he did just that spectacularly to the point that we have Miyamoto yesterday cowering off any competition and asking to be left alone lmao.

Edit: Kutaragi gave Nintendo a +30 Years of PTSD .. what a Legend

When Nintendo pulled the trigger during a show where Sony introduced a CD ad-on for a Nintendo console and Nintendo dumping Sony, and went for a CD ad-on from Phillips was the final trigger for Sony.
That was the birth of Playstation. Sony was so pissed over that backstabbing from Nintendo that Sony gave the fiat to Ken Kutaragi to build the Playstation. The rest is history

Ken and the rest of Sony made an extremely unfavorable deal to Nintendo. They shot first.

But in the end, Nintendo will have their revenge when Switch surpasses PS2 as all time champ.

This was known. G4 tv used to air an excellent documentary about the history of playstation

G4's stuff was hacky.

 

[cartman414]

This is a pretty well known story

PlayStation (console) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Read the History section

There's a bit that needs correcting, that Chris Kohler went into here:

taku.com/the-weird-history-of-the-super-nes-cd-rom-nintendos-mo-1828860861

 

[SweetTooth]

Ken and the rest of Sony made an extremely unfavorable deal to Nintendo. They too were bastards.

That's not how men close deals, if you find a deal not favorable then don't agree to it in the first place! Not wait until biggest gaming convention then you stab them in the back!

But nothing is strange, Nintendo acting like kids and not honoring a mans deal!

But in the end, Nintendo will have their revenge when Switch surpasses PS2 as all time champ.

Wow Switch sold 160m or 200m .. Sony is crumbling/s lol.

On a non sarcastic note, next gen won't be easy on both Nintendo or Sony due to various reasons. But its fun to wait and see

 

[cartman414]

That's not how men close deals, if you find a deal not favorable then don't agree to it in the first place! Not wait until biggest gaming convention then you stab them in the back!

But nothing is strange, Nintendo acting like kids and not honoring a mans deal!

Perhaps, but according to the article I linked to, Sony's people agreed that they wouldn't use the CD-ROM for games when making the deal after Nintendo . Trouble is, they didn't put it in writing.

Three months later, Sony opened Sony Imagesoft. On top of that were Sony's recent acquisitions of Columbia Pictures and CBS Records.

It took a little while for Nintendo to figure out Sony's true intentions, but Nintendo made the mistake of not reviewing the contract, so there was no clean backing out.

Sure, what they did to Sony was scummy, but to say Sony didn't strike first is utterly biased.

 

[Kerotan]

He did his best to prove them right.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

He did his best to prove them right.

30 years later and they’re still going strong.

 

[Kerotan]

30 years later and they’re still going strong.

I just meant with the ps3.

 

[SportsFan581]

Seems perfectly reasonable for that time. All the other tech/hardware companies that tried jumping into the console space in the early 90s failed.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

It’s not just the console design, the controller design was something they nailed too.

Nintendo added some cool features and the analogue stick was revolutionary, but the design was a monstrosity, did no one there suggest they go back to the drawing board?

Sega just put out another dated 80s MegaDrive controller with zero ergonomics and poorly designed triggers that had to be pressed in a certain area. D-pad was the only redeeming feature.

Sony got pretty much everything right, comfortable design with handles, 4 face buttons (Saturn’s 6 could be awkward when needing to press 2 buttons) and 4 shoulder buttons. Just look at the DualShock, it’s a design that has persisted to this day.

I personally think the original NES controller is still the best device in my hand. The only device that is almost as good to me in my hand is a smartphone. When I'm using software on these other devices I'm having to go around the engineers like having to claw to play my games, it's just clunky.

 

[cartman414]

It’s remarkable just how many thing Sony got right from the bat with PlayStation…

- Hardware design
- Software support
- Controller ergonomics
- Aesthetics
- Marketing
- Focus on UK and Europe

Nintendo and Sega had their heads up their arses and Sony made the companies that had worked in the industry for over a decade look like total amateurs.

It’s not just the console design, the controller design was something they nailed too.

Nintendo added some cool features and the analogue stick was revolutionary, but the design was a monstrosity, did no one there suggest they go back to the drawing board?

Sega just put out another dated 80s MegaDrive controller with zero ergonomics and poorly designed triggers that had to be pressed in a certain area. D-pad was the only redeeming feature.

Sony got pretty much everything right, comfortable design with handles, 4 face buttons (Saturn’s 6 could be awkward when needing to press 2 buttons) and 4 shoulder buttons. Just look at the DualShock, it’s a design that has persisted to this day.

You cannot honestly say the Dual Shock had better ergonomics than the Saturn pad. The Saturn's d-pad in particular was infinitely superior to that thumbsore of a split cross on the DualShock, and the grips on the DS were made for baby hands, and forced hand cramping.

The DualShock sucked until the PS4 version came along and finally made the grips a decent length.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

You cannot honestly say the Dual Shock had better ergonomics than the Saturn pad. The Saturn's d-pad in particular was infinitely superior to that thumbsore of a split cross on the DualShock, and the grips on the DS were made for baby hands, and forced hand cramping.

The DualShock sucked until the PS4 version came along and finally made the grips a decent length.

Not to mention that people are still using Saturn controllers nearly 30 years later...ain't nobody using the OG PSX controller.

The PSX controller was really just an evolution of the SNES controller, which made sense because that was what the original use case for the PSX was (SNES CD). It wasn't bad for what it was, and it gave Sony a good base for evolution, but it was no JP Saturn goodness.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

That 95 to 2005 run, nobody was touching that hardware team in terms of how they design their devices back then, everything looked premium. The shit they put out now looks terrible man.

Ps5 is miles ahead of anything PS3 and PS4. Going from a ps5 to a ps4 is a slog. The dual sense alone feels premium as fuck.

Sony is clearly adopting the Apple model and it’s clearly working for them. Not sure what you mean with your post.

 

[snapdragon]

They would have failed if sega and nintendo weren't ran by morons

 

[RetroGamingUK]

They would have failed if sega and nintendo weren't ran by morons

Yeah both Sega and Nintendo had their heads up their arses while Sony seemed far more ambitious

The main differentor was Mario 64, it was THE best game by far, there was nothing like it and you HAD to buy an N64 to play it.

Saturn had good games (mainly arcade ports), but nothing that wowed people like Mario 64

 

[drganon]

They would have failed if sega and nintendo weren't ran by morons

Sega and Nintendo really did hand the generation to Sony on a silver platter.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Sega and Nintendo really did hand the generation to Sony on a silver platter.

That's really hindsight.

Sony iterated and revolutionized the SNES. It was a natural successor, whereas the N64 was experimental and a departure. Nintendo had also made things really difficult for 3rd party publishers to the point where many ran to Sony and to a lesser degree Sega. Then you had Sony's partnership with Namco which was huge due to the popularity of arcades. The Namco 246 assured that Sony would get Namco games ported from Arcade to PS2, so you had kind of an alliance against Sega and their Naomi board.

Even Capcom was putting games on the 246.

Part of the reason for Sony's decline in Japan is due to the decline in arcades.

I think it's something Sony should take another stab at with VR, but who knows. I know I wouldn't want to put on a mass used VR headset.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Do you have a link to that video by chance? I've probably seen it already but if it's a recent vid there's a chance I haven't, and I like watching these deep retrospectives.

I believe it's this video. NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt posted it earlier in the thread.

 

[FreeY$L]

Nintendo's operating margin is literally four times that of Sony. Nintendo does not want to do what Sony does even if Sony disappeared tomorrow.

Of course Sony still deserves props for humbling Nintendo's pretentious ass in the 90s.

Ofc you’ll get higher margins if you build the least innovative, least risky most busted hardware in your history. The switch is running off 500BC technology, that thing costs probably 15$ to produce, yet is sold for 300$.

 

[cartman414]

Sega and Nintendo really did hand the generation to Sony on a silver platter.

The only thing Nintendo seriously did wrong, 3rd party rates aside, was go with carts again.

 

[leonokarin]

It’s actually a sinking ship now

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

Ps5 is miles ahead of anything PS3 and PS4. Going from a ps5 to a ps4 is a slog. The dual sense alone feels premium as fuck.

Sony is clearly adopting the Apple model and it’s clearly working for them. Not sure what you mean with your post.

Lol Tiago Rodrigues why would you respond to me when you already know that I believe you work for Sony.

This guy is on this forum pretending you can have a whole opinion with him about Sony’s catalog, dude is straight crazy lol.

 

[BlackTron]

Ofc you’ll get higher margins if you build the least innovative, least risky most busted hardware in your history. The switch is running off 500BC technology, that thing costs probably 15$ to produce, yet is sold for 300$.

When your supposedly least innovative thing ever is still the most innovative thing on the market, what a flex.

"Of course you'll get higher margins if you build busted hardware" is a false statement. You have to actually sell it to complete the formula.

There is no law that states making hardware and software with X strategy means people have to buy it. Nintendo figured out how to give people what they want while making money. With the logic presented Ouya should have the highest operating margin of all time.

Operating margin looks at what is left after deducting all expenses not your accumulated margin on all sales added up. It points to a brilliantly run business.

When Switch OLED came out it was discovered that they make a smaller margin on the 350 OLED than a 300 Switch. They also come with joycons and docks. Throwing 15/300 out there is just bad faith arguing. If Nintendo was so legitimately bad you wouldn't have to exaggerate like that.

Edit: Hold on you also called Switch the least risky thing they've ever released? I shouldn't even have replied to this I take jokes way too seriously...

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I believe it's this video. NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt posted it earlier in the thread.

Ah okay. Yeah, I've already seen that one a while back, but it's a very good one.

It's PS2, but this one's a pretty great doc on that system from Sakharu Baguette...



Also been watching some channels doing documentary-style reviews on the entire PS1's catalog from Japanese launch to EOL. If I can find one of them I'll edit this post. Needless to say, they aren't finished yet (so many games to cover). Sean Seanson does awesome videos on obscure and Japan-only PS1 titles, too.

Not to mention that people are still using Saturn controllers nearly 30 years later...ain't nobody using the OG PSX controller.

The PSX controller was really just an evolution of the SNES controller, which made sense because that was what the original use case for the PSX was (SNES CD). It wasn't bad for what it was, and it gave Sony a good base for evolution, but it was no JP Saturn goodness.

Tell that to Luffy

TBH, main reason people use the Saturn controller (JP) is because of nostalgia, and because it was SEGA's best-designed controller combined with SEGA not making hardware or even peripherals anymore. If they stayed making consoles and iterated with future controller designs to this day, the Saturn controller wouldn't have the nostalgia factor going for it, and would be considered about in line with pre-Dualshock PS1 controller or the N64 pad.

AKA still a solid controller, great for certain games even, but not some "OMG godliest controller ever!" type of thing.

 

[SkylineRKR]

This is well known. He had to fight to get the project green lit in the first place.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Ken Kutagari is everything modern Playstation isn't. He's an innovator, a risktaker, a daredevil and a visionary. The fucking GOAT when it comes to everything Playstation. Please Ken come back and sack everyone currently in charge on the way in.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Kutaragi has some thick thighs that don't lie and save lives. Clearly.

 

[cartman414]

Ah okay. Yeah, I've already seen that one a while back, but it's a very good one.

It's PS2, but this one's a pretty great doc on that system from Sakharu Baguette...



Also been watching some channels doing documentary-style reviews on the entire PS1's catalog from Japanese launch to EOL. If I can find one of them I'll edit this post. Needless to say, they aren't finished yet (so many games to cover). Sean Seanson does awesome videos on obscure and Japan-only PS1 titles, too.





Tell that to Luffy

TBH, main reason people use the Saturn controller (JP) is because of nostalgia, and because it was SEGA's best-designed controller combined with SEGA not making hardware or even peripherals anymore. If they stayed making consoles and iterated with future controller designs to this day, the Saturn controller wouldn't have the nostalgia factor going for it, and would be considered about in line with pre-Dualshock PS1 controller or the N64 pad.

AKA still a solid controller, great for certain games even, but not some "OMG godliest controller ever!" type of thing.

Nostalgia factor nothing. The Saturn controller's only shortcoming was that it was more niche. It's all but undisputed when it comes to pure 2d pads.

 

[A.Romero]

It's like the most known anecdote ever ? Sony is a high tech brand, they didn't want to make "toys for children".

Kutaragi showed them. And now Sony is surviving only thanks to PlayStation.

Sony didn't care but Kutaragi did. He pushed Ohga to develop playstation.

Sony didn't feel it was worth it, they were willing to lose whatever they spent so far (it wasn't a lot).

 

[simpatico]

Damn it man. Old school Sony could see Concord coming from that far away. Impressive chops. They used to make the coolest shit.

 

[Celine]

Yes I will double down on my original point, Nintendo will never have their luxurious handlheld market for them, now how about sharing the numbers of the "console space" that they competed directly with Sony in? Numbers wont be pretty at all.

So yes, they are So PTSDed to the point that they just recently mentioned that they want nothing with "competition"

So even Mayamoto doesn't agree with your conclusion

If that makes you sleep at night go on.
But it doesn't change reality.

For Nintendo's philosophy being compared to Sony or Microsoft or really be classified like just any other console manfuacturer would be a insult because they have the ambition to be a unique and a trendsetter, not a follower.

 

[SweetTooth]

If that makes you sleep at night go on.
But it doesn't change reality.

For Nintendo's philosophy being compared to Sony or Microsoft or really be classified like just any other console manfuacturer would be a disappointment because they have the ambition to be a trendsetter, not a follower.

The bolded is the funniest statement I have ever seen in Neogaf !!!

 

[Celine]

The bolded is the funniest statement I have ever seen in Neogaf !!!

And I bet you live on Neogaf.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Nostalgia factor nothing. The Saturn controller's only shortcoming was that it was more niche. It's all but undisputed when it comes to pure 2d pads.

IIRC the Neo Geo AES's controller was really good for 2D games as well, so it's at least in the running.

If that makes you sleep at night go on.
But it doesn't change reality.

For Nintendo's philosophy being compared to Sony or Microsoft or really be classified like just any other console manfuacturer would be a insult because they have the ambition to be a unique and a trendsetter, not a follower.

Nintendo definitely cribbed from SEGA at several points in the past (Shining Force a major influence on Fire Emblem, the iQue copying the "console-multimedia" features of SEGA Saturn variants from JVC, Hitachi & Samsung, etc.).

They also eventually followed Sony's lead in using CD/DVD-based technology as a storage medium.

I get what you are trying to say and it's very true in the area of core game design principals which are at the heart of Nintendo. But you shouldn't make such definitive, blanket statements when examples can be pulled up showing the opposite.

Even if those examples are the rare exceptions.