PlayStation (console)

A photo of the only known SNES-based PlayStation prototype

The PlayStation was the brainchild of Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who managed one of the company's hardware engineering divisions and was later dubbed "The Father of the PlayStation".[12][13][14] Kutaragi's interest in working with video games stemmed from seeing his daughter play games on Nintendo's Famicom video game console.[15] The inception of what became the released PlayStation dates back to 1988 with a joint venture between Nintendo and Sony.[6] Nintendo had already produced floppy disk technology to complement cartridges, in the form of the Family Computer Disk System, and wanted to continue this complementary storage strategy for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).[15][16]

Kutaragi convinced Nintendo on using his SPC-700 sound processor for use in the SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.[17] Although Kutaragi was nearly sacked by Sony because he was originally working with Nintendo on the side without Sony's knowledge,[18] Sony president Norio Ohga recognised the potential in Kutaragi's chip and decided to keep him as a protégé.[15] Since Sony was already being contracted to produce the SPC-700 sound processor for the SNES,[6] Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "Play Station" or "SNES-CD".[19][20] A contract was signed, and work began.[15]

Sony was keen to obtain a foothold in the rapidly expanding video game market. Having been the primary manufacturer of the ill-fated MSX home computer format, Sony had wanted to use its experience in consumer electronics to produce its own video game hardware.[21][22] Although the initial agreement between Nintendo and Sony was for producing a CD-ROM add-on, Sony had also planned to develop a SNES-compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both SNES cartridges and a new CD format named the "Super Disc", which Sony would design.[6] Under the agreement, Sony would retain sole international rights to every Super Disc title sold, giving the company a large degree of control despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.[6][23][22] Furthermore, Sony would also be the sole benefactor of licensing related to music and film software that it had been aggressively pursuing as a secondary application.[24]

The product, under the name "Play Station", was to be announced at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.[25] Already wary of Sony's increasing leverage at this point, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi deemed the original 1988 contract unacceptable as he realised the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Wanting to protect Nintendo's existing licensing structure, Yamauchi secretly cancelled all plans for the joint Nintendo–Sony SNES CD attachment.[26][27][25] Also unbeknownst to Sony, Yamauchi sent Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa (his son-in-law) and chairman Howard Lincoln to Amsterdam to form a more favourable contract with Dutch conglomerate Philips, Sony's rival. This contract would give Nintendo total control over its licences on all Philips-produced machines.[28][22] As described by David Sheff in his book Game Over, "[The Philips deal] was meant to do two things at once: give Nintendo back its stranglehold on software and gracefully fuck Sony."[24]

At 9 am on the day of the CES, instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and publicly revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work they and Sony had accomplished.[15][29][30]

Incensed by Nintendo's renouncement, Ohga and Kutaragi decided that Sony foray into the market by developing its own console.[31] Sony briefly considered allying itself with Sega to produce a stand-alone console. Sega's CEO at the time, Tom Kalinske, took the proposal to Sega's Board of Directors in Tokyo, who promptly vetoed the idea. Kalinske, in a 2013 interview recalled them saying "that's a stupid idea, Sony doesn't know how to make hardware. They don't know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?".[32] This prompted Sony into halting their research, but ultimately the company decided to use what it had developed so far with both Nintendo and Sega to make it into a complete console based upon the SNES.[32]

Despite the tumultuous events at the 1991 CES, negotiations between Nintendo and Sony were still ongoing, culminating in another deal whereby the "Play Station" would still have a port for SNES games, on the condition that Nintendo would own the rights and receive the bulk of the profits from the games, and the machine in question would continue to use the audio chip Kutaragi designed. It is theorised that only two hundred of these prototype machines were created, and software for the system was being developed.[22][33] By May 1992 however, Kutaragi was adamant that such a deal would never work and decided to cut all ties with Nintendo.[15][28] According to a Sony engineer, all work on the console from the time of the partnership with Nintendo was eventually scrapped, and the PlayStation design was restarted from scratch.[34]

To determine the fate of the PlayStation project, Ohga chaired a meeting the following month, consisting of Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with immersive 3D graphics. Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo.[20] Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives whom saw Nintendo and Sega as "toy" manufacturers, Ohga shifted Kutaragi and his team from Sony's main headquarters to Sony Music, a completely separate financial entity, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD).[35]

The involvement of Sony Music proved crucial to the PlayStation's early development as the process of manufacturing games on CD-ROM format was similar to that used for audio CDs, to which Sony's music division had considerable experience with. While at Sony Music, Kutaragi worked with CEO Shigeo Maruyama and Akira Sato, both of whom would later become vice-presidents of the division that ran the PlayStation business.[23] Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) was then jointly established by Sony and its subsidiary Sony Music Entertainment Japan to handle the company's ventures into the video game industry.[36][37] By the beginning of 1994, Sony had publicly announced that it was entering the game console market with the PlayStation.[28] According to Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D sprite graphics or 3D polygon graphics. It was only after witnessing the success of Sega's Virtua Fighter in Japanese arcades that the direction of the PlayStation became "instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus.[38]

Wishing to distance the project from the failed enterprise with Nintendo, Sony initially branded the PlayStation as the "PlayStation X" (PSX).[28] Sony's North American division, known as Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), originally planned to market the new console under the alternative branding "PSX" following the negative feedback regarding "PlayStation" in focus group studies. Early advertising prior to the console's launch in North America referenced PSX, but the term was scrapped before launch.[39] The console was not marketed with Sony's name in contrast to Nintendo's consoles; according to Phil Harrison, much of Sony's upper management feared that the "Sony" brand would be tarnished by connecting it with the console which they considered to be a "toy".[40][23]

Since Sony had no experience in game development, the company turned to third-party game developers. Recently released consoles like the Atari Jaguar and 3DO suffered underwhelming sales due to a lack of developer support, prompting Sony to redouble their efforts in gaining the endorsement of arcade-savvy developers.[22] With initial support from Namco, Konami, and Williams Entertainment,[41] as well as 250 other development teams in Japan alone, the company secured the launch of influential new games such as Ridge Racer and Mortal Kombat 3.[22][5]

Despite securing the support of various Japanese studios, Sony had no developers working directly for them by the time they were developing the PlayStation. This changed in 1993 when Sony bought the Liverpudlian company Psygnosis (later renamed SCE Liverpool) for US$48 million, therefore securing their first in-house development team. While the purchase was controversial at the time, the acquisition meant that Sony could boost its launch title repertoire in time for the PlayStation's release in Europe and North America.[22][5][41] Ian Hetherington, Psygnosis' co-founder, was disappointed after receiving early builds of the PlayStation and later recalled that the console "was not fit for purpose" until his team got involved with it.[42] Hetherington frequently clashed with Sony executives over broader ideas; at one point it was suggested that a television variant of the console be produced.[43] In the months leading up to the PlayStation's launch, Psygnosis had around 500 full-time staff working on various games as well as assisting with software development.[44][42]

The purchase of Psygnosis also marked another turning point for the PlayStation as they played a vital role in creating the console's development kits. While Sony had provided MIPS R4000-based Sony NEWS workstations for PlayStation development, Psygnosis employees disliked the thought of developing on these expensive workstations and asked Bristol-based SN Systems to create an alternative PC-based development system.[23] Andy Beveridge and Martin Day, owners of SN Systems, had previous experience with supplying development hardware for other consoles such as the Mega Drive, Atari ST and the SNES.[45] When Psygnosis arranged an audience for SN Systems with Sony's Japanese executives at the January 1994 CES in Las Vegas, Beveridge and Day presented their prototype of the condensed development kit, which could run on an ordinary personal computer with two extension boards. Impressed, Sony decided to abandon their plans for a workstation-based development system in favour of SN Systems', thus securing a cheaper and more efficient method for designing software.[22] An order of over 600 systems followed, and the company supplied Sony with additional software such as an assembler, linker, and a debugger.[46]

Sony strived to make game production as streamlined and inclusive as possible – an ethos which contrasted with the relatively isolated approach of rivals Sega and Nintendo. Phil Harrison, the then-representative director of Sony Computer Entertainment in Europe, believed that Sony's emphasis on developer assistance reduced most time-consuming aspects of development. As well as providing programming libraries, SCE headquarters in London, California and Tokyo housed technical support teams that could work closely with third-party developers if needed.[37][47] Peter Molyneux, who owned Bullfrog Productions at the time, admired Sony's open-handed approach to software developers and lauded their decision to use PCs as a development platform, remarking that "[it was] like being released from jail in terms of the freedom you have".[48]

The PlayStation's architecture and interconnectability with PCs gave a boon to many software developers. The use of the programming language C proved useful during the early stages of development as it safeguarded future compatibility of the machine should developers decide to make further hardware revisions. Sony used the free software GNU C compiler, also known as GCC, to guarantee short debugging times as it was already familiar to many programmers.[44] Despite the inherent flexibility, some developers found themselves restricted due to the console's lack of RAM. While working on beta builds of the PlayStation, Molyneux observed that its MIPS processor was not "quite as bullish" compared to that of a fast PC and said that it took his team two weeks to port their PC code to the PlayStation development kits and another fortnight to achieve a four-fold speed increase.[49] An engineer from Ocean Software, one of Europe's largest game developers at the time, thought that allocating RAM was a challenging aspect given the 3.5 megabyte restriction.[50] Kutaragi said that while it would have been easy to double the amount of RAM for the PlayStation, the development team refrained from doing so to keep the retail cost down.[51]

Kutaragi saw the biggest challenge in developing the system to be balancing the conflicting goals of high performance, low cost, and being easy to program for, and felt he and his team were successful in this regard.[51]

Sony released the PlayStation in Japan on 3 December 1994, a week after the release of its rival Sega Saturn, at a price of ¥39,800 .[5][52] Sales in Japan began with a "stunning"[15] success with long queues in shops.[22] It sold 100,000 units on the first day[53] and then two million units after six months on the market.[54] Mostly fuelled by the success of Virtua Fighter, the Saturn had initially outsold the PlayStation in the first few weeks of launch.[5][55] By the end of 1994, 300,000 PlayStation units were sold in Japan compared to 500,000 Saturn units.[56] After a while, a grey market emerged for PlayStations, which were shipped from Japan to North America and Europe, with some buyers of such consoles paying large amounts of money in the range of £700.[53]

Before the release in North America, Sega and Sony presented their consoles at the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on 11 May 1995. At their keynote presentation, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske revealed that its Saturn console would be released at a price of $399. Immediately afterwards came Sony's turn: Olaf Olafsson, the head of the Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), summoned Steve Race, the head of development, to the conference stage, who said "$299" and left the audience with a round of applause.[58][59][60][61] The attention to the Sony conference was further bolstered by the surprise appearance of Michael Jackson and the showcase of highly anticipated games for the console: Wipeout, Ridge Racer and Tekken.[62][63][64] In addition, Sony announced that there would be no bundled games with the console as previously expected.[22][65]

Although the Saturn had released early in the United States to gain an advantage over the PlayStation,[66] the surprise launch upset many retailers who were not informed in time, harming sales.[67] Some retailers such as KB Toys responded by dropping the Saturn entirely.[68] The PlayStation went on sale in North America on 9 September 1995 at the undercutting price of $299. Within two days of its release the PlayStation sold more units than the Saturn had in the first five months following its surprise launch, with almost all of the initial shipment of 100,000 units being sold in advance, and shops across the country reportedly running out of consoles and accessories.[22] The well-received Ridge Racer contributed to the PlayStation's early success,[55][69] with some critics considering it superior to Sega's arcade counterpart Daytona USA.[70][71] There were over 100,000 pre-orders placed and 17 games available on the market by the time of its American launch,[22] in comparison to the Saturn's six launch titles.[72]

The PlayStation released in Europe on 29 September 1995[3] and in Australia on 15 November 1995.[4] By November it had already outsold the Saturn by a factor of three in the United Kingdom, where Sony had allocated a £20 million marketing budget during the Christmas season compared to Sega's £4 million.[73][74] Sony had found early success in the United Kingdom by securing listings with independent shop owners as well as prominent High Street chains such as Comet and Argos.[42] Within its first year, the PlayStation secured over 20% of the entire American video game market.[75] From September to the end of 1995 – sales of the console in the United States amounted to 800,000 units, giving the PlayStation a commanding lead over the other fifth generation consoles,[lower-alpha 2][77] though the SNES and Mega Drive from the fourth generation outsold it that year.[78] At the same time, according to the president of SCEA, the attach rate of sold games and consoles was four to one.[79] Sales in Europe totalled 2.2 million towards the end of 1996, of which 700,000 was represented in the UK market.[80] Approximately 400 games were being developed for the PlayStation, compared to approximately 200 and 60 games being developed for the Saturn and the Nintendo 64 respectively.[81]

The PlayStation was backed by a successful marketing campaign, allowing Sony to gain an early foothold in Europe and North America.[82] Initially, PlayStation demographics were skewed towards adults, but the audience broadened after the first price drop.[83] The PlayStation was marketed roughly, but not exclusively, towards 12- to 24-year-olds whilst the Sega Saturn targeted towards 18- to 34-year-olds.[84] Executives from both Sony and Sega reasoned that because younger players typically looked up to older, more experienced players, advertising targeted at teens and adults would draw them in too. Additionally, Sony found that adults reacted best to advertising aimed at teenagers; Lee Clow surmised that people who started to grow into adulthood regressed and became "17 again" when they played video games.[85] The console was marketed with advertising slogans stylised as "LIVE IN YUR WRLD. PLY IN URS" and "U R NOT E" (red E).[86][22] Clow thought that by invoking such provocative statements gamers would respond to the contrary and say "'Bullshit. Let me show you how ready I am.'"[87]

Shortly after the PlayStation's release in Europe, Sony tasked marketing manager Geoff Glendenning with assessing the desires of a new target audience. Sceptical over Nintendo and Sega's reliance on television campaigns, Glendenning theorised that young adults transitioning from fourth-generation consoles would feel neglected by marketing directed at children and teenagers.[88] Recognising the influence early 1990s underground clubbing and rave culture had on young people, especially in the United Kingdom, Glaendenning felt that the culture had become mainstream enough to help cultivate PlayStation's emerging identity. Sony partnered with prominent nightclub owners such as Ministry of Sound and festival promoters to organise dedicated PlayStation areas where demonstrations of select games could be tested.[89] Sheffield-based graphic design studio The Designers Republic was contracted by Sony to produce promotional materials aimed at a fashionable, club-going audience.[90] Psygnosis' Wipeout in particular became associated with nightclub culture as it was widely featured in venues.[89][91] By 1997, there were 52 nightclubs in the United Kingdom with dedicated PlayStation rooms. Glendenning recalled that he had discreetly used at least £100,000 a year in slush fund money to invest in impromptu marketing.[88]

In 1996, Sony expanded their CD production facilities in the United States due to the high demand for PlayStation games, increasing their monthly output from 4 million discs to 6.5 million discs.[92] This was necessary because PlayStation sales were running at twice the rate of Saturn sales, and their lead was dramatically increased when both the PlayStation and Saturn dropped in price to $199 that year.[93] The PlayStation also outsold the Saturn at a similar ratio in Europe during 1996,[94] with an accumulated 2.2 million consoles sold in the region by the end of the year.[95] Sales figures for PlayStation hardware and software only increased following the launch of the Nintendo 64.[96] Tokunaka speculated that the Nintendo 64 launch had actually helped PlayStation sales by raising public awareness of the gaming market through Nintendo's added marketing efforts.[97] Despite this, the PlayStation took longer to achieve dominance in Japan. SCE president Teruhisa Tokunaka said that, even after the PlayStation and Saturn had been on the market for nearly two years, the competition between them was still "very close", and neither console had led in sales for any meaningful length of time.[83]

GPU	PlayStation sound processor	R3000 CPU
The GPU (SCPH-9000 version)	PlayStation Custom Sound Processor	R3000 CPU
digital signal processor	SCPH-100 motherboard	PS One motherboard
Digital Signal Processor	An early SCPH-1000 motherboard	A PS One motherboard

The main microprocessor is a 32-bit LSI R3000 CPU with a clock rate of 33.86MHz and 30 MIPS.[98][99] The CPU relies heavily on the VLSI chip to provide the necessary speed to render complex 3D graphics.[22] Sony's custom 16-bit sound chip supports ADPCM sources with up to 24 sound channels and offers a sampling rate of up to 44.1 kHz and MIDI sequencing. The system features 2 MB of main RAM, with an additional 1 MB being allocated to video memory.[100][101] The PlayStation has a maximum colour depth of 16.7 million true colours[102] with 32 levels of transparency and unlimited colour look-up tables. Its video output, initially provided by a parallel I/O cable (and later a serial I/O used for the PlayStation Link Cable) displays resolutions from 256×224 to 640×480 pixels.[99]

The PlayStation utilises a proprietary video compression unit called MDEC, which is integrated into the CPU, allowing for the presentation of full motion video at a higher quality than other consoles of its generation.[103] Unusual for the time, the PlayStation lacks a dedicated 2D graphics processor; 2D elements are instead calculated as polygons by the Geometry Transfer Engine (GTE) so that they can be processed and displayed on screen by the GPU.[104] Whilst running, the GPU can also generate a total of 4,000 sprites and 180,000 polygons per second, in addition to 360,000 per second flat-shaded.[99][105]

Sony was aware that using CDs for game distribution could leave them vulnerable to piracy, due to the existence of the CD-R. In order to preclude illegal copying, a proprietary process for PlayStation game manufacturing was developed that, in conjunction with an augmented optical drive assembly, prevented burned copies of games from booting on an unmodified console. Specifically, all genuine PlayStation discs included a small section of deliberate physical irregularities, which the PlayStation's optical pick-up was capable of detecting and decoding. Consoles would not play game discs without the correct "wobble frequency." (The same system was also used to encode discs' regional lock-outs.)[106] The irregularities were within Red Book CD tolerances, so PlayStation discs' actual content could still be read by a computer or disc duplicator, but those devices could neither detect nor replicate the physical characteristics necessary to make a copied disc play.[107][108]

Sony erroneously asserted in advertisements that discs' unique black undersides played a role in copy protection. In reality, the black plastic used was transparent to any infrared laser and did not itself pose an obstacle to duplicators or computer CD drives, although it may have helped customers distinguish between unofficial and genuine copies.[107]

A comparison of the SCPH-1001 (bottom), SCPH-5001 (middle) and SCPH-9001 (top) models. The SCPH-900x revision saw the removal of the Parallel I/O port while the RCA jacks were removed in the SCPH-500x revision.

The PlayStation went through a number of variants during its production run. From an external perspective, the most notable change was the gradual reduction in the number of external connectors from the rear of the unit. This started early on with the original Japanese launch units; the SCPH-1000, released on 3 December 1994, was the only model that had an S-Video port, which was removed on the next release.[109] Subsequent models saw a reduction in number of parallel ports, with the PlayStation's final version only retaining one serial port.[110]

Sony marketed a development kit for amateur developers known as the Net Yaroze (meaning "Let's do it together" in Japanese[111]). It was launched in June 1996 in Japan,[112] and following public intrigue, was released the following year in other countries.[113] The Net Yaroze allowed hobbyists to create their own games and upload them via an online forum run by Sony.[114] The console was only available to buy through an ordering service and with the necessary documentation and software to program PlayStation games and applications through C programming compilers.[115][116]

On 7 July 2000, Sony released the PS One (stylised as PS one),[117] a smaller, redesigned version of the original PlayStation.[117][118] It was the highest-selling console through the end of the year, outselling all other consoles – including Sony's own PlayStation 2.[118] In 2002, Sony released a 5-inch (130 mm) LCD screen add-on for the PS One, referred to as the "Combo pack". It also included a car cigarette lighter adaptor which gave the console an extra layer of portability.[119][120] Production of the LCD "Combo Pack" ceased in 2004, when the popularity of the PlayStation began to wane in markets outside Japan.[121] A total of 28.15 million PS one units had been sold by the time it was discontinued in March 2006.[7][8]

Clockwise from top left: an original PlayStation controller, PlayStation Analog Joystick, Dual Analog, and the DualShock.

The PlayStation's controller was released in three different iterations over the console's lifespan. The first controller, named the PlayStation controller, was released alongside the PlayStation in December 1994. It features four individual directional buttons (as opposed to a conventional D-pad), a pair of shoulder buttons on both sides, Start and Select buttons in the centre, and four face buttons consisting of simple geometric shapes: a green triangle, red circle, blue cross, and a pink square (, , , ).[122] Rather than depicting traditionally used letters or numbers onto its buttons, the PlayStation controller established a trademark which would be incorporated heavily into the PlayStation brand. Teiyu Goto, the designer of the original PlayStation controller, said that the circle and cross represent "yes" and "no", respectively (though this layout is reversed in Western versions); the triangle symbolises a point of view and the square is equated to a sheet of paper to be used to access menus.[123][98] The European and North American models of the original PlayStation controller is roughly 10% larger than its Japanese variant, to account for the fact the average person in those regions have larger hands than the average Japanese person.[124]

Sony's first analogue gamepad, the PlayStation Analog Joystick (often erroneously referred to as the "Sony Flightstick"), was first released in Japan in April 1996. Featuring two parallel joysticks, it uses potentiometer technology previously used on consoles such as the Vectrex; instead of relying on binary eight-way switches, the controller detects minute angular changes through the entire range of motion. The stick also features a thumb-operated digital hat switch on the right joystick, corresponding to the traditional D-pad, and used for instances when simple digital movements were necessary. The Analog Joystick sold poorly in Japan, reportedly due to its high cost and cumbersome size.[125]

The increasing popularity of 3D games prompted Sony to add analogue sticks in their controller design to give users more freedom over their movements in virtual 3D environments.[126] The first official analogue controller, the Dual Analog Controller, was revealed to the public in a small glass booth at the 1996 PlayStation Expo in Japan,[125] and eventually released in April 1997, coincident with the Japanese releases of analogue-capable titles Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade.[127] In addition to the two new analogue sticks, the Dual Analog controller features an "Analog" button and LED beneath the "Start" and "Select" buttons which toggles analogue functionality on or off.[126] The controller also features rumble support, however before its release in the United States Sony decided that haptic feedback would be removed from all overseas iterations.[128] A Sony spokesman stated that the feature was removed for "manufacturing reasons", although rumours circulated that Nintendo had attempted to legally block the release of the controller outside Japan due to similarities with the Nintendo 64 controller's Rumble Pak. However, a Nintendo spokesman firmly denied that legal action was being taken and rather it was suggested that vibration feedback was dropped due to Sony wanting to keep the price of the controller down.[129]

In late 1997 Sony introduced the DualShock controller. Its name derives from its use of two (dual) vibration motors (shock).[130] Unlike its predecessor, its analogue sticks feature textured rubber grips, longer handles and slightly different shoulder buttons. It additionally introduces two new buttons mapped to clicking in the analogue sticks and has rumble feedback included as standard on all versions.[131] The DualShock later replaced its predecessors as the default controller, also being forward compatible with the PlayStation 2, as they use the same connector and protocol.

PlayStation Memory Card	PocketStation	Multiplayer Adaptor
PlayStation Memory Card	PocketStation	Multiplayer Adaptor
	Link Cables	GunCon
PlayStation Mouse	PlayStation Link Cable	GunCon

Sony released a series of peripherals to add extra layers of functionality to the PlayStation. Such peripherals include memory cards,[132] the PlayStation Mouse,[133][134] the PlayStation Analog Joystick,[135] the PlayStation Link Cable,[132] the Multiplayer Adapter (a four-player multitap),[132] the Memory Drive (a disk drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks),[136] the GunCon (a light gun), and the Glasstron (a monoscopic head-mounted display).[137]

Released late into the console's lifespan exclusively in Japan, the PocketStation is a memory card peripheral which acts as a miniature personal digital assistant. The device features a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), infrared communication capability, a real-time clock, built-in flash memory, and sound capability.[138] Sharing similarities with the Dreamcast's VMU peripheral, the PocketStation was typically distributed with certain PlayStation games, enhancing them with added features.[5] The PocketStation proved popular in Japan, immediately selling out all over the country. Sony planned to release the peripheral outside Japan but the release was cancelled despite engaging in promotional activity in Europe and North America.[139]

In addition to playing games, most PlayStation models are equipped to play audio CDs; the Asian model SCPH-5903 can also play Video CDs. Like most CD players, the PlayStation can play songs in a programmed order, shuffle the playback order of the disc and repeat one song or the entire disc. Later PlayStation models utilise a music visualisation function called SoundScope. This function, as well as a memory card manager, is accessed by starting the console without either inserting a game or closing the CD tray, thereby accessing a graphical user interface (GUI) for the PlayStation BIOS.[23]

The GUI for the PS one and PlayStation differ depending on the firmware version: the original PlayStation GUI had a dark blue background with rainbow graffiti used as buttons, while the early PAL PlayStation and PS one GUI had a grey blocked background with two icons in the middle.[140]

With the early PlayStation units, particularly early 1000 models, many gamers experience skipping full-motion video or physical "ticking" noises coming from their units. The problem seemingly comes from poorly placed vents leading to overheating in some environments. This causes the plastic mouldings inside the console to warp slightly and create knock-on effects with the laser assembly. The solution is to sit the console on a surface which dissipates heat efficiently in a well vented area or raise the unit up slightly from its resting surface.[141] Sony representatives also recommended unplugging the PlayStation when it is not in use, as the system draws in a small amount of power (and therefore heat) even when turned off.[142]

The first batch of PlayStations use a KSM-440AAM laser unit, whose case and movable parts are all built out of plastic. Over time, the plastic lens sled rail wears out—usually unevenly—due to friction. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerates wear, due to the additional heat, which makes the plastic more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, one side of the lens sled will become so worn that the laser can tilt, no longer pointing directly at the CD; after this, games will no longer load, due to data read errors. Sony eventually fixed the problem by making the sled out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit further away from the power supply on later PlayStation models.[141]

Due to an engineering oversight, the PlayStation does not produce a proper signal on several older models of televisions, causing the display to flicker or bounce around the screen. Sony decided not to change the console design, since only a small percentage of PlayStation owners used such televisions, and instead gave consumers the option of sending their PlayStation unit to a Sony service centre to have an official modchip installed, allowing it to play on older televisions.[143]

The success of the PlayStation is widely believed to have influenced the demise of the cartridge-based home console. While not the first system to utilise an optical disc format, it is the first highly successful one, and ended up going head-to-head with the last major console dedicated to home play to rely on proprietary cartridges—the Nintendo 64.[166] Sony Computer Entertainment president Teruhisa Tokunaka remarked in 1996:

Choosing CD-ROM is one of the most important decisions that we made. As I'm sure you understand, PlayStation could just as easily have worked with masked ROM [cartridges]. The 3D engine and everything – the whole PlayStation format – is independent of the media. But for various reasons (including the economies for the consumer, the ease of the manufacturing, inventory control for the trade, and also the software publishers) we deduced that CD-ROM would be the best media for PlayStation.[83]

Nintendo was very public about its scepticism toward using CDs and DVDs to store games, citing longer load times and durability problems.[172] It was widely speculated that the company was even more concerned with the proprietary cartridge format's ability to help enforce copy protection, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive titles for its revenue.[173] Indeed, in spite of Sony's innovative wobble frequency scheme, piracy eventually became relatively commonplace on the PlayStation because "modchips"—which bypassed the optical drive's verification entirely—were readily available and relatively trivial to install.

The increasing complexity of games (in content, graphics, and sound) pushed cartridges to their storage limits and this gradually turned off some third-party developers. Part of the CD format's appeal to publishers was that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more production flexibility to meet demand.[166] As a result, some third-party developers switched to the PlayStation, such as Square, whose Final Fantasy VII, and Enix (later merged with Square to form Square Enix), whose Dragon Quest VII titles were initially pre-planned for the N64;[174] while some who remained released fewer games to the Nintendo 64 (Konami, releasing only thirteen N64 games but over fifty on the PlayStation). While new games were coming out rapidly for the PlayStation, new Nintendo 64 game releases were less frequent and that system's biggest successes were developed by either Nintendo itself or by second-parties, such as Rare.[173] The lower production costs also allowed publishers an additional source of profit: budget-priced reissues of titles which had already recouped their development costs.[83]

The PlayStation Classic is a dedicated video game console by Sony Interactive Entertainment that emulates games released on the original PlayStation console. It was announced in September 2018 at the Tokyo Game Show, and released on December 3, 2018, the 24th anniversary of the release of the original.[175][176]

As a dedicated console, games are pre-installed to internal memory with 20 games included such as Tekken 3, Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, and Syhphon Filter; games run off the open source emulator PCSX.[177] The console is bundled with two replica wired PlayStation controllers (those without analogue sticks), an HDMI cable, and a USB-Type A cable.[178] Internally, the console utilises a MediaTek MT8167a Quad A35 system on a chip with four central processing cores clocked at @ 1.5 GHz and a Power VR GE8300 graphics processing unit. It includes 16 GB of eMMC flash storage and 1 GB of DDR3 SDRAM.[179] The PlayStation Classic is 45% smaller than the original console.[180]

The PlayStation Classic received mostly negative reviews from critics, with criticism directed at its weak game library, cumbersome user interface, and high retail price; though the console's design did attract some praise.[181]