Happy 15th Birthday Playstation!

[Rob_Merritt]

December 3rd 1994 the original Playstation launched in Japan. I remember first seeing the import in early 1995. I was visiting my local Video Game Exchange to search for 3Do titles and everyone was glued to the large projection screen in the back. The shop owner was playing Ridge Racer which at that time blew every other arcade racer in home and at the arcade away. I was in awe. One of the few times in my life where I saw a game running and couldn't wrap my head around that technology existed to produce it. It would be several years before I bought one but I always remember the first time I saw it.

[Dave Long]

Daytona USA, released in 1993, was a lot more sophisticated technically than Ridge Racer was in 1994.

Also, for those of us in the US, we didn't see the PlayStation until a year later unless you were an importer.

[Charles]

Amazing how much you can ruin in 15 years.

[Rob_Merritt]

Dave, you are probably right. I haven't played Daytona in 10 years. I remember seeing VR Racing, Need For Speed 3DO, Ridge Racer, and then Daytona. In my mind at the time, nothing came close.

[Dave Long]

I was still very much an arcade rat in 1994, and I remember being super impressed by an eight-player Daytona USA setup at Disney World around that time. Virtua Fighter 2 was hitting arcades in November of that year as well.

Ridge Racer looked great for a home console game, without a doubt. The PlayStation being a machine designed for 3D really excelled at providing slick 3D visuals for that era, but nothing could touch SEGA arcade hardware. They were the pinnacle and what everyone else was copying, including NAMCO with Ridge Racer and Tekken.

[Matthew Gallant]

Daytona USA, released in 1993, was a lot more sophisticated technically than Ridge Racer was in 1994.

Musically, too.

Way ay ee.

[unbongwah]

Yeesh, leave it to Dave and Charles to bring a little whine to a cheese party.

I can still dimly remember being blown away by Toshinden and the Final Fantasy VII demo at an anime con in `95, I think.

Obviously, I've had ample time to reconsider my initial euphoria about both titles. Still, insofar as that little gray box heralded in a new era of 3D home gaming, I salute it.

[Fussbett]

It's been so long since I had a good Model 2 versus System 11 argument. Let's do this!

[Dave Long]

Ha!

I'm not arguing so much as just pointing out the facts... that what Rob said wasn't really true. Model 2 was way more sophisticated graphically than what PlayStation and System 11 were doing.

...and even if you go Saturn vs. PlayStation, there are plusses and minuses with each of them. Panzer Dragoon was a very impressive launch game in 3D and on par with the 3D titles on PlayStation IMO. We played that in May of 1995.

Still, Happy 15th to PlayStation. I bought one on September 9, 1995 (US Launch). Warhawk was astounding. Battle Arena Toshinden was good fun. Rayman was awesome. Raiden Project still holds up, and of course Ridge Racer made running the same track a zillion times way more exciting than it probably ever should've been. When Wipeout hit a little while after launch, I played that for days.

Good times, and I miss those days when games based on arcade titles were the primary drivers of home consoles.

[checker]

Anybody else remember the first E3 with the PS1 games in the open? It was things like that 3D platformer with the jumping rabbit, Jumping Flash, I think. And then, of course, there was Tomb Raider, which owned everything else at the show (it looked best on PC 3Dfx, natch'), if I'm recalling correctly.

But, the game I'm always referring to from that E3 was one where there was a spider walking around a room with a rocket launcher strapped to its back. Does anybody remember that one? I don't think it ever shipped, or at least it disappeared instantly if it did, but I'd love to find a screenshot of it, or the name.

Chris

Edit: Hmm, wait, I forgot mobygames could constrain by platform, I think this might have been it: http://www.mobygames.com/game/playstation/spider

Edit^2: http://psx.ign.com/objects/000/000614.html

[Dave Long]

Yup, Spider was released in the year after the console shipped IIRC. It wasn't super well received though.

[honestgamer]

I think it was X-Games that made me want a PlayStation... and buy one shortly thereafter. Graphics were very much the thing that made me get that system, but I've had a lot of fun with PlayStation platforms since then. Ironically, I'm liking the PS3 more than any PS system before it, so of course it's now the underdog. Kind of like how the first system from SEGA that I really liked was the Dreamcast. I tend to root for underdogs, I guess. It's not even a conscious choice.

[checker]

Yup, Spider was released in the year after the console shipped IIRC. It wasn't super well received though.

It's very useful in casual industry conversation, not to mention on stage at conferences, as an example of how you can take an inherently interesting and novel (at the time, since 3D was new) concept (controlling a 3D spider in a familiar environment), and then people feel like they have to hit it with the "video game stick" so it grows rocket launchers. I'm very glad somebody made it, if even just as a conversation piece. :)

Chris

[Dave Long]

Yeah, it took a lot longer for someone to make a game where you were "just a spider" and that didn't ignite people's imaginations all that well either when Deadly Creatures came out earlier this year on Wii.

Boss Game Studios sure did produce some nice looking games, though.

[FoRmaT]

I loved Need for Speed on my PlayStation (with music by Tommy Tallarico studios).

[Linoleum]

I still recall picking up my retail box on the US launch (having already been exposed to the import) and marveling at how thoroughly Sony hit it out of the park. They executed the hardware launch with the experience of a consumer electronics company firing on all cylinders and managed a solid software lineup.