PlayStation

"Nintendo's loss is Sony's gain."

-Introduction-
Playstatin owes its existance and popularity due to a few missteps by Nintendo. Read on to find out more.

-History-
Way back in the early 90's Nintendo approached Sony Inc on a project for a next generation system. This was during the time of the Super Nintendo's popularity was still at an all time high. So Sony and Nintendo start to develope this system when all of a sudden Nintendo gets cold feet and backs out of the project. Sony was seriously pissed at Nintendo and their relationship is still pretty bad because of this. So now Sony has this half done system, so instead of scrapping the work they had done, they made plans to release the system. Sure it was only 32 bits but Sony used CD format which would hold vast amounts of info for video games at a relatively nice low price. Sony also conviced a lot of video game developers to create games for this new system. So when Sony released the system to the public it had a huge backing of titles out or coming out soon after the release date.

What really contributed to Sonys success is Sega and Nintendo screwing up. Sega burn its customer base with the 32X and the Sega Saturn. Nintendo made the mistake of using the ancient cartridge base system which scared off producers and by releasing the system with two games at launch. Sony's bandwagon got bigger and bigger even to the point to bring long time Nintendo game producer Squaresoft to the team. When Square released Final Fantasy VII on the Playstation that pretty much ended the Nintendo/Sega/Sony battle. So Sega and Nintendo had a huge part in making Sony Playstation the undisputed king of 32 bits. It beat Nintendo's Nintendo64 (64bits) and Sega's Saturn and Dreamcast (256 bits).

Then came the news Sony was building a successor to Playstation the ''Playstation 2'' which had a huge amount of hype around launch time. Sony also re-made the Playstation and re-released the ''PS One'' which is like a portible Playstation. History will show us what will happen to the Playstation 2 soon enough, since its still to early to know what is going to happen to it.

-The Audio-
The Playstation is actually a video game machine/CD Player. Yes you can actually play CDs when your not playing video games. The audio quality is very good take Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Cross as an example.

-The Graphics-
Despite only being 32 bits, it kicked the crap out of N64. The early games were quite blocky (Final Fantasy VII) While the most recent games have reduced the ''Jaggies'' and things look rounder now (Chrono Cross). Really its up to the games to decide how they want to display things but Playstation is quite capible of many graphics and FMV.

-The Games-
A huge libaray exists from fighting to RPG to puzzle to just about every genre that exists.
RPGs
Chrono Cross
Final Fantasy 7,8,9,Chronicals, Anthology, Tactics.
Xenogears

Action/Adventure
Tomb Raider
Crash Bandicoot
Spyro the Dragon
Mega Man X4,X5,8

Racing
Crash Bandicoot Racing
Hydro Thunder
Too many to count really

Puzzle
Bust-A-Move 2,3,4,99

Sports
Way too many

Strategy
Civilization II
Command & Conquer + Sequals
Sim Theme Park
Worms
Worms Armageddon
Worms World Party

Fighting
Mortal Kombat II,3,4, Trilogy
Street Fighter Alpha,2,3
X-Men vs Street Fighter
X-Men Mutant Academy
X-Men Children of the Atom
Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi

Shooters
Metal Gear Solid

The Final Tally:
Audio: 10 (CD player quality)
Graphics: 7 (becoming ancient by today's standards, great back in the day)
Games: 8 (Some good, some bad, but a huge varity for everyone)
Extras: 5 (Most games really arent ment to be mulitplayer (3 & 4 Players) like N64. There really isnt much that came out for this that was ''Mindblowing'' and you just had to get it. Being able to play CD's is a nice touch though.)
The Final Score: 8 (Sony's learns from Nintendo's mistakes and even takes the covited ''#1 spot'' in the consul wars.)

Sidenote : I was a loyal Nintendo supporter up until Squaresoft jumped off Nintendo's ship. What really turned me to the playstation was Chrono Cross coming out. I am a big Chrono Trigger fan and I had to own the sequel. Nintendo has an up hill battle to get me back to their camp.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/01, Updated 10/09/01