Happy birthday PlayStation: 25 years ago the Sony console arrived in Italy

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26 September 2020It has been 25 years since the first PlayStation arrived in Italy.

Sony's console arrived in European stores on September 29, 1995, marking a turning point in the video game industry.

The Italian and European players were finally getting their hands on the first video game console of the Japanese giant which, in a sector where the word revolution is used all too often and inappropriately, has really changed the video games sector forever.

Released in December 1994 in Japan, PlayStation made an unprecedented impact on the gaming world.

Not a small result for a product that, in the intentions of its creators, had to be very different from what was later seen.

PlayStation was born as a simple peripheral to be added to the then ruler of the console sector, the Super Nintendo, to allow the cartridge console to also read CD-Roms, a very large support and much cheaper to play.

The agreement between Nintendo and Sony jumps when the two companies ignite a war over who has control over the games published on the CD media.

Nintendo then decides to rely on Philips to develop a platform to read CD-Roms (later the unfortunate Philips CD-i console will be born), while Sony, after considering the hypothesis of giving up the sector, decides to launch with a console completely his own.

This is how PlayStation was born.

To understand the success of PlayStation it is necessary to remember the context in which it developed.

In the mid-nineties the home video game industry was dominated by Nintendo with its Snes (or Super Nintendo), closely followed by rival Sega with its MegaDrive and Saturn.

Sony enters this market with a very aggressive marketing strategy that immediately seeks to position the console as a product no longer for children, but for young people and adults.

All thanks to a series of important sponsorships (in Europe for example PlayStation was supporter of the Champions League), to the idea of ​​promoting the console also as a music CD player (the first example of the media-center concept that in the following years will be increasingly important) and to a playground that abandons the traditional mascots of those years much loved by children (Super Mario by Nintendo, Sonic by Sega) to touch on more adult themes (the horror of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, the espionage of Metal Gear Solid, the sex symbol Lara Croft in Tomb Raider).

The plan proves to be a success, particularly in the North American markets (the most important in numerical terms) and in the European one.

In total over the span of its life, the first PlayStation sells over 70 million pieces worldwide, beating the Super Nintendo at 50 million and the Nintendo 64 (about 30 million) and the Sega Saturn under 10 million.

The success of the first PlayStation and its effects on mass culture, including the ability to clear the videogame medium on large audiences, give rise to a dynasty of products for Sony that, with many ups and downs, dominates the sector of home consoles for 25 years.

PlayStation 2, marketed in 2000, exceeds the record figure of 150 million pieces, PlayStation 3 sells about 90 million and PlayStation 4, currently on the market, to date has totaled over 110 million pieces sold.

The portable family is less fortunate, with the first PlayStation Portable and the subsequent Ps Vita failing to outdo Nintendo's Gameboy, Ds and 3Ds rivals in the industry.

The spotlight is now on PlayStation 5, an exponent of the new generation of consoles coming next November which, in addition to challenging rivals Microsoft and Nintendo, will have to contend with streaming gaming platforms.