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[RetroGamingUK]

As we're coming up to the 30th anniversary of PlayStation, I've been thinking about how the culture of gaming has completely changed since my childhood where by gaming was purely a children's hobby, something you'd play after watching your Saturday morning cartoons and soon grow out of once you'd left school. In the early 90s I never thought gaming would be something I'd continue to enjoy as I approached 40 along with so many of my peers.

So what changed? For me, I put it all down to a little grey box called PlayStation back in 1995.




Games

I'd grown up with the likes of Mario and Sonic and loved them during my primary school days, but entering my teens I started to feel that I was growing out of them a little along with gaming in general, but around the mid 90s gaming was starting to grow up with me. I got a PlayStation in 1996 and it was goodbye Donkey Kong and Kirby, hello WipEout and Resident Evil.

We saw an explosion of the survival horror genre starting with Resident Evil and continuing with Alone in the Dark and Silent Hill. Driving sims went mainstream with the likes of Gran Turismo, TOCA and Colin McRae.





Music

Many games from the late 80s and early 90s had some excellent melodies, Streets of Rage's being a great example, but those early sound chips were incredibly limiting and mainly resulted in plinky plonky soundtracks. PlayStation launched with WipEout and leaned heavily on rave culture with its Designer's Republic aesthetic and soundtrack featuring the likes of The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Orbital. Gran Turismo would feature the likes of Garbage, The Cardigans and Manic Street Preachers. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater featured Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy, and FIFA would also make use of popular music with Blur's Song 2 playing over the intro of FIFA 98.

Television

Gaming's representation on television was at the time aimed squarely at children where it was either being relegated to slots on Live & Kicking or had short running shows like CBBC's Reactive or CITV's Bad Influence. GamesMaster, which also started of purely aimed at children, came back in September 1995 with a newly shaven-headed Dominic Diamon along with a more adult theme laden with sexual innuendo. We'd later see 4Later's Bits and Thumb Bandits presented by Iain Lee aimed squarely at student's coming back from the pub on a Friday night.





Marketing

Sony made a conscious decision to market the console to people in their late teens and early 20s, leaving Nintendo and Sega to continue to battle it out for 12 year olds. While the competition were busy promoting their consoles in toy shops, Sony set up demo pods in nightclubs and at concerts. Sony's first published game, WipEout, also appeared to convey a drug overdose, which at the time was bought up in the House of Commons and led to a ban, Sony knew what they were doing and the controversy only helped with their "edgy" image.





Magazines

In the early 90s the vast majority of gaming magazines were aimed a children complete with cartoon character laden covers, overly coloured pages, poo jokes and cartoon mascots (remember Mean Machine's "Mean Yob"). The PlayStation era completely changed this, starting with EDGE the visual style and writing became a little more sensible along with more coverage of adult oriented material such as music, movies, tech and fashion, of course the worst of these would replicate the "lads mags" of the time complete with slutty imagery.

 

[64bitmodels]

I think an argument can be made that the Playstation was the first console to truly make gaming mainstream

100m sold. No console had ever done that before the release of that system. Sony's contributions to the industry will never be forgotten

 

[poppabk]

Whoever created that "..and conquered worlds" ad was a fucking genius. I would say that it did more for the perception of gaming in UK/Europe than any game.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Not a fan of The Guardian, but Keith Stuart has some excellent articles, here's one covering the impact of PlayStation on youth culture in the UK

Level up: how PlayStation infiltrated youth culture

Twenty years ago, an exciting new games console began appearing in nightclub chillout rooms, subversive TV ads and cutting-edge style magazines. Keith Stuart and Steve Boxer on how Sony raided the underground to create the PlayStation generation

www.theguardian.com

Thanks to the likes of WipEout, Tomb Raider series, Gran Turismo (featuring UK bands) the PlayStation was probably the first console that really felt British, despite being Japanese.

The collaboration with Ministry of Sound and other nightclubs was a masterstroke, I still remember the PlayStation demo pod at my local club having F1 97 on it.

 

[bitbydeath]

They made one of, if not the best ad ever.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Incredible legacy and greatest consoles ever x3. PLAYSTATION 3, that’s when they peaked and now they’re spent and turned into a middle aged lesbian auntie. Shame.

 

[The Cockatrice]

They have indeed. Nowadays tho?

 

[SHA]

Without Playstation I think PC will be the only choice left but I acknowledge them both, non the less.

 

[Caio]

I think an argument can be made that the Playstation was the first console to truly make gaming mainstream

100m sold. No console had ever done that before the release of that system. Sony's contributions to the industry will never be forgotten

Yep Indeed, when the PlayStation was released, I was blown away by the generational leap—the transition from 2D to 3D games, and the superb quality of the software. Games like Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer Revolution, Tekken, Tekken 2, Tekken 3, Wipeout, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Gran Turismo (WOW), Final Fantasy VII, Onimusha, Rayman, Crash Bandicoot, Destruction Derby, and many more... I can't even stop listing the titles you all know. I truly loved the first PlayStation. It still stirs up strong emotions in me, just from hearing that iconic startup sound. I LOVED that box, with passion.

 

[Gaiff]

I think an argument can be made that the Playstation was the first console to truly make gaming mainstream

100m sold. No console had ever done that before the release of that system. Sony's contributions to the industry will never be forgotten

There a reason we’re arbitrarily drawing the line at 100 million? Furthermore, the PS2 didn’t hit those numbers until like a decade after it was released and by that time, the PS360 and Wii were already on the market. Prior to those massive price cuts, the PS2 didn’t have those numbers.

Edit: You were talking about the PS2, but the point still stands. 197 million units were sold between the SNES, Mega Drive/Genesis, and Game Boy. That’s mainstream.

If anyone deserves that distinction, it’s the NES or at the latest, the SNES. Hundreds of millions of systems sold with the 5th gen of consoles.

I like the PS, but let’s not credit it for making gaming mainstream. Nintendo did that.

 

[SweetTooth]

Playstation truly accelerated taking gaming mainstream and also targeted more mature audiences. I still remember Nintendo refusing to add blood to their games and targeted younger audiences (they still do somehow)

 

[GametimeUK]

Playstation definitely slapped over here in the UK in terms of lad culture for all the reasons you mentioned.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Sonys mindset is video games but they’re more than happy to take risks (eye toy, six axis)

 

[nkarafo]

They say the Wii was the console that created "casual gaming" but that's not true. It was the Playstation. That was the console that brought many non-gamers into gaming. I even knew people who used to mock gamers as "nerds" at school and later bought a Playstation. It made games trendy.

 

[SweetTooth]

There a reason we’re arbitrarily drawing the line at 100 million? Furthermore, the PS2 didn’t hit those numbers until like a decade after it was released and by that time, the PS360 and Wii were already on the market. Prior to those massive price cuts, the PS2 didn’t have those numbers.

If anyone deserves that distinction, it’s the NES or at the latest, the SNES. Hundreds of millions of systems sold with the 5th gen of consoles.

I like the PS2, but let’s not credit it for making gaming mainstream. Nintendo did that.

He was talking about PS1, which was the first console to exceed the 100m mark. It was revolutionary beyond anything before it worldwide.

Leave emotions out of numbers talk.

Switch will soon dethrone PS2 160m number and Im sure it will resonate more to the 2010s generation more than anything before it.

That doesn't take away from how Sony managed to revolutionize gaming in 1994 with PS1

 

[RetroGamingUK]

I think another overlooked aspect is the design of the console and just how futuristic it looked at the time.

While Sega and Nintendo went with black curves (which was ubiquitous with early 90s tech), Sony went with a light grey angular look to match their new WEGA TV sets (WEGA CRTs were the first TV sets that had a flat screen)

Apparently these TVs were grey/silver so that, when viewed at an angle, the flat edge of the screen would stand out. Eventually the rest of the industry would follow and light grey/silver would become synonymous with the "Y2K aesthetic", not just for televisions, but for consumer tech in general.

This resulted in PlayStation looking cool and modern while N64 and Saturn looked dated (oddly enough the Japanese Saturn was light grey and didn't date like the western version)

 

[edbrat]

I was there, the way PlayStation was actually cool and not just for nerds was quite revolutionary. And Double Life is a strong contender for best video games ad of all time.

 

[Gaiff]

was revolutionary beyond anything before it worldwide.

It wasn’t. The medium further expanded. PlayStation revolutionized nothing. The CD-player was revolutionary, but last I checked, this didn’t come to PlayStation first.

Leave emotions out of numbers talk.

Right back at you.

Switch will soon dethrone PS2 160m number and Im sure it will resonate more to the 2010s generation more than anything before it.

That doesn't take away from how Sony managed to revolutionize gaming in 1994 with PS1

Irrelevant. A system selling 50 million units is most definitely mainstream. So is 60 million. Gaming was a worldwide phenomenon before the PS1 hit the scene.

Nearly 200 million units sold between the 5th generation systems. Not mainstream enough for you?

 

[Topher]

It wasn’t. The medium further expanded. PlayStation revolutionized nothing. The CD-player was revolutionary, but last I checked, this didn’t come to PlayStation first.

Right back at you.

Irrelevant. A system selling 50 million units is most definitely mainstream. Gaming was a worldwide phenomenon before the PS1 hit the scene.

NES and SNES were definitely mainstream. They were sold everywhere, had massive marketing and Nintendo became a name recognized even by non-gamers. Same for Mario.

Having said that, I'd say Atari 2600 was the first mainstream console. Nintendo obviously became a bigger hit, but I think Atari breaking open the home console market helped pave the way for Nintendo.

 

[RoboFu]

Yeah it brought all the dude bros off the couch watching sports to intensify console warring.

Thanks PlayStation marketing team!!

One thing to think about is if Sony wouldn't have started PlayStation then either some series would have taken a different rout and sega Saturn may have been huge.

 

[Gaiff]

NES and SNES were definitely mainstream. They were sold everywhere, had massive marketing and Nintendo became a name recognized even by non-gamers. Same for Mario.

Having said that, I'd say Atari 2600 was the first mainstream console. Nintendo obviously became a bigger hit, but I think Atari breaking open the home console market helped pave the way for Nintendo.

The 2600 was mainstream but only in the US as far as I’m aware. Plus, there was the video game crash a few years later.

The SNES and Mega Drive/Master System had a more global outreach and there was also the Game Boy that sold over 118 million units. No one can say gaming wasn’t mainstream with the 5th gen when they sold nearly 200 million units together.

 

[SenkiDala]

They have indeed. Nowadays tho?

Well I kinda agree.

The PS1 is my favorite console ever (followed closely by the Dreamcast and the SNES, that says a lot about what I think of fanboyism).

But I've to agree that the 3 Kutaragi PlayStations were the wildest ones, the revolutionary ones. I play on all machines but to me, and I even think that it is being objective, Kutaragi and the PlayStation made what the gaming industry is today. There was the prehistory of gaming, then the "birth of humanity" of gaming with the Atari 2600, then the Nintendo Era that added a "quality standard" to game releases, but PlayStation made it global, universal. Sony made everybody want to play video games, any typology of person.

As a French person for exemple I can tell you that the arrival of PlayStation in France was a blessing.

Before them, we very rarely had JRPGs in Europe, and when it happened they were almost never translated in something else than English. While it made me learn that language, it was annoying and of course prevented it to become global.

Imagine that we didn't have any Final Fantasy here before the VII. We didn't have a Dragon Quest before the VIII on PS2.

Sony immediately thought "wait wtf how do you want to sell games decently if you don't at least adapt them and translate them to the language of the country where you sell them", which sound... Pretty obvious right ?

Then we got FFVII translated in French (and other EU languages) and it all started to grow, and grow more, then other JRPGs, and by the PS2 we basically got almost every release in France, 95% of them translated in French, which made them advertisable.

Sony from the beginning treated their customers with deep respect. They made mistakes (PS3 first years, etc) but most of them time they always tried to address everyone, with respect, making the effort to adapt to everyone.

They are not the leaders for nothing. They built their legacy stone by stone, and people remember this, they know that when they buy a PlayStation, even today, they'll end up satisfied.

Sure the PS4/5 lost the "craziness and innovation" that had the 1/2/3, but everybody isn't Kutaragi and anyway letting the direction of a company to this man will make it sink.

But the "gloomy" state of the gaming industry recently isn't the fault of Sony... AAAA games costs too much, they need literally TOO MUCH return on investment, even selling your games 80 or 100$ won't change this, so here goes MTX here and there... Maybe we should go to a more "creative" gaming industry and less "graphic whore" one... Stop trying to add stupid graphic features that end up being useless... Make nice looking games, with nice art style and very good game mechanics, you'll end up having a game that costs 100 times less and sell MORE THAN enough to get a big profit.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

The 2600 was mainstream but only in the US as far as I’m aware. Plus, there was the video game crash a few years later.

The SNES and Mega Drive/Master System had a more global outreach and there was also the Game Boy that sold over 118 million units. No one can say gaming wasn’t mainstream with the 5th gen when they sold nearly 200 million units together.

Dude chill!

Sony and Nintendo came at things from the opposite end of the market and both deserve their huge successes, there's no need to be competitive here, they compliment each other well and long may it continue.

Put it this way, you won't see PlayStation having theme parks, and you won't see Nintendo in nightclubs being played by youths high on drugs.

 

[Sooner]

I wonder how thankful Sony is that Nintendo bailed on them with the original PlayStation/SNES-CD.

If not for that, Sony may have never attempted becoming their own console manufacturer and who knows where Sony as a company would be today.

 

[Gaiff]

Dude chill!

Sony and Nintendo came at things from the opposite end of the market and both deserve their huge successes, there's no need to be competitive here, they compliment each other well and long may it continue.

Which is fine. I just find the notion that Playstation made gaming mainstream is false.

Put it this way, you won't see PlayStation having theme parks, and you won't see Nintendo in nightclubs being played by youths high on drugs.

Nah, Mario Kart or Party are the go-to party games for drunk and high people.

 

[Topher]

The 2600 was mainstream but only in the US as far as I’m aware. Plus, there was the video game crash a few years later.

The SNES and Mega Drive/Master System had a more global outreach and there was also the Game Boy that sold over 118 million units. No one can say gaming wasn’t mainstream with the 5th gen when they sold nearly 200 million units together.

Yeah, Nintendo emerged as the big dog in the post-crash era. Not really sure how successful Atari was in other regions, but you are right, it was a big hit in the US. The biggest problem it faced was the fact that the arcades had better games and Atari games looked like trash in comparison. Still, for kids like me, it was better than nothing.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Down here in Argentina we used to say "Vamos a jugar al family?" (Let's go play family?) because the Famicom clones were everywhere and were synonymous of gaming above Atari or anything else. Then it was "Let's go play Sega" because the Genesis/Megadrive and its clones were mostly everywhere (but not family level). And since 25 years ago it's "Let's go play Play" (sounds dumb in English, I guess) so the impact has been massive. It was the first console you could pirate easily, internet was just appearing and you were able to download ISOs, burn them and play them in your console. If you didn't have internet you could buy 10 games for USD 1 at train stations.

Down here PS gave people the idea that gaming is a "right" and therefore it's completely fine to pirate games. Nothing else has ever come close to literally making gaming a "right".

Sony made a conscious decision to market the console to people in their late teens and early 20s, leaving Nintendo and Sega to continue to battle it out for 12 year olds.

Wait, that's ridiculous. Sega was the first one to go after the late teens and early 20s.

 

[Gaiff]

Yeah, Nintendo emerged as the big dog in the post-crash era. Not really sure how successful Atari was in other regions, but you are right, it was a big hit in the US. The biggest problem it faced was the fact that the arcades had better games and Atari games looked like trash in comparison. Still, for kids like me, it was better than nothing.

Arcade is another thing I forgot. Thanks.

I know when I talk to Europeans who were kids in the 80s and 90s, a lot of them owned Sega. Apparently, the Mega Drive was bigger in the UK than the SNES? Not sure, but that's what I've heard.

 

[Esppiral]

They were in the right place at the right time.

 

[lh032]

towards world domination.

 

[Wildebeest]

Rose tinted spectacles. Edge didn't have especially "mature" writing or articles compared to some other gaming magazines that were older than it. Likewise there were many games that were not childish. You really have to have been a kid at the time, experiencing whiplash of going from Nintendo and official console mags to something different.

 

[Angelcurio]

They continue to impress with their innovations. Just recently the gave us robots with pronouns, which is a first in the industry.

Down here in Argentina we used to say "Vamos a jugar al family?" (Let's go play family?) because the Famicom clones were everywhere and were synonymous of gaming above Atari or anything else. Then it was "Let's go play Sega" because the Genesis/Megadrive and its clones were mostly everywhere (but not family level). And since 25 years ago it's "Let's go play Play" (sounds dumb in English, I guess) so the impact has been massive. It was the first console you could pirate easily, internet was just appearing and you were able to download ISOs, burn them and play them in your console.

The situation was almost similar in DR, except that Nintendo was King during the 8 bit era, to the point where it became sinonimous to videogames. No one even mentioned the name of the console, it was simply a "Nintendo". Up to this Day, some of our older relatives still refer to any videogames console as a Nintendo. For gamers during the 16 bit era, the Genesis would be called a "Sega".

And as you said, everything changed with the release of the first PlayStation, up to. this day some people still say "Let's go play Play" to refer to any PS consoles. It was the start of gaming being seen as something other than Kids toys. I remember my parents being really impressed when they saw Gran Turismo 2 for the first time. Still in this days and age, my Mother that knows nothing about gaming, still knows that I liked to play a car game called Gran Turismo.

 

[Damigos]

As we're coming up to the 30th anniversary of PlayStation, I've been thinking about how the culture of gaming has completely changed since my childhood where by gaming was purely a children's hobby, something you'd play after watching your Saturday morning cartoons and soon grow out of once you'd left school. In the early 90s I never thought gaming would be something I'd continue to enjoy as I approached 40 along with so many of my peers.

So what changed? For me, I put it all down to a little grey box called PlayStation back in 1995.




Games

I'd grown up with the likes of Mario and Sonic and loved them during my primary school days, but entering my teens I started to feel that I was growing out of them a little along with gaming in general, but around the mid 90s gaming was starting to grow up with me. I got a PlayStation in 1996 and it was goodbye Donkey Kong and Kirby, hello WipEout and Resident Evil.

We saw an explosion of the survival horror genre starting with Resident Evil and continuing with Alone in the Dark and Silent Hill. Driving sims went mainstream with the likes of Gran Turismo, TOCA and Colin McRae.





Music

Many games from the late 80s and early 90s had some excellent melodies, Streets of Rage's being a great example, but those early sound chips were incredibly limiting and mainly resulted in plinky plonky soundtracks. PlayStation launched with WipEout and leaned heavily on rave culture with its Designer's Republic aesthetic and soundtrack featuring the likes of The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Orbital. Gran Turismo would feature the likes of Garbage, The Cardigans and Manic Street Preachers. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater featured Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy, and FIFA would also make use of popular music with Blur's Song 2 playing over the intro of FIFA 98.

Television

Gaming's representation on television was at the time aimed squarely at children where it was either being relegated to slots on Live & Kicking or had short running shows like CBBC's Reactive or CITV's Bad Influence. GamesMaster, which also started of purely aimed at children, came back in September 1995 with a newly shaven-headed Dominic Diamon along with a more adult theme laden with sexual innuendo. We'd later see 4Later's Bits and Thumb Bandits presented by Iain Lee aimed squarely at student's coming back from the pub on a Friday night.





Marketing

Sony made a conscious decision to market the console to people in their late teens and early 20s, leaving Nintendo and Sega to continue to battle it out for 12 year olds. While the competition were busy promoting their consoles in toy shops, Sony set up demo pods in nightclubs and at concerts. Sony's first published game, WipEout, also appeared to convey a drug overdose, which at the time was bought up in the House of Commons and led to a ban, Sony knew what they were doing and the controversy only helped with their "edgy" image.





Magazines

In the early 90s the vast majority of gaming magazines were aimed a children complete with cartoon character laden covers, overly coloured pages, poo jokes and cartoon mascots (remember Mean Machine's "Mean Yob"). The PlayStation era completely changed this, starting with EDGE the visual style and writing became a little more sensible along with more coverage of adult oriented material such as music, movies, tech and fashion, of course the worst of these would replicate the "lads mags" of the time complete with slutty imagery.

I have to agree OP. PS changed my life too and being born in '85 and having my first PS at 10 i was there from the very beginning.
Its also quite disappointing for me that the brand is experimenting with F2P and always online shooters. I think it doesnt represent the company's heritage and therefore its failing dramatically (with the exception of Helldivers).
I am waiting for Sony to get back on exclusively having the big narrative experiences its know for and, and also for me personally, the return of the arcade racer. Driveclub, Wipeout, Motorstorm and so many other IPs just sitting there as the years pass by is a crime.
I also want to say that the recent experiment of PS with Astrobot has worked wonders and i loved both the concept and the execution

 

[RodriGames40]

Finally a good thread. Had a PS2 and played games on it for years straight, then a PS3.

 

[bobone]

Definitely true. Playstation totally changed the industry. Basically forcing it to mature along with the generation of kids that loved the SNES and Genesis.

One of my close friends got a PS1 launch year. But I wasnt immediately impressed with it like I was with the N64 and Mario.

For me at least, the PS1 was kind of a slow burn. Nothing in 1995 or 1996 convinced me I needed one.

But by 1998 the PS1 was a monster. In my opinion it was a perfect compliment to the N64 for several years.

 

[IntentionalPun]

It definitely did but it was a bit of just making what had been happening on PC for years more mainstream.

 

[ToneyJ]

Nice OP. I miss how cool and edgy Playstation used to be. Unfortunately they've lost that and make mainstream slop now.

 

[adamsapple]

One Concord at a time.

I kid, I kid. Don't shoot me.

But yes, it's very easy to give them credit cause without them we might have been stuck in cartridge-land.

 

[cireza]

Thank you so much Sony !

But yes, it's very easy to give them credit cause without them we might have been stuck in cartridge-land.

SEGA had already moved to CD in the West. SEGA were already targeting adults as well.

Then we got FFVII translated in French (and other EU languages)

SEGA were translating RPGs in several languages back on the MegaDrive. Story of Thor, Landstalker, Soleil, Light Crusader were all in several European languages. SEGA-CD games were also in several languages, FMV games (at least 4 of them are dubbed in French) and Dune for example.

SNES also had several translated games, such as Secret of Mana/Evermore, Zelda III, Illusion of Time or Terranigma.

 

[nial]

They have indeed. Nowadays tho?

Still the case nowadays, there's a reason Gran Turismo keeps selling great all those years later.

 

[Badlucktroll]

What would have happened if n64 used cds?

 

[bundylove]

Anyone drove their parents crazy with blasting fire starter in wipeout?
I sure as shit did lol

 

[ithilion]

i agree. PlayStation changed things. they saved the industry of Nintendo stupidity. cant forget valkaryie profile. resident evil, or final fantasy and lots of others great games that shaped the industry that are on ps1

 

[DaGwaphics]

I think the jump to 3d revolutionized the culture and perception for the most part. Sony just did the right things to come out on top in a pivotal moment.

Can't question the popularity though, seemed like everyone had one back then. Probably my most played console of all time, I used that thing for an unhealthy number of hours. LOL

 

[ReBurn]

U R NOT E

 

[K' Dash]

 

[Trelane]

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

It was an amazing 25 year run, then they took the proverbial golf to the head to it and it's sucked ever since.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I think a lot of people never got over the fact that they were stuck with a N64.

 

[Spooky Scary Skeleton]

And at some point, Sony decided to play catch up with Nintendo for some reason and everything was a downhill. Their third party hardware support has been pitiful to the point where it's a meme now.