The PlayStation (abbreviated PS, PSone, PS1, or PSX due to its internal code name PlayStation Experimental ) is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December vgy: 1994. The name "PlayStation" is the opposite of the existent word "workstation".

The PlayStation was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation series of console and handheld game devices. which was first created and released in Japan. Successor consoles and upgrades include the Net Yaroze, PS one, PSX, PocketStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and the PlayStation 3. On March 31 2005, the PlayStation and PS one reached a combined total of 102.49 million units shipped, becoming the first video game console to reach the 100 million mark. As of July 20, 2008, the PlayStation has sold 102 million units. Sony ceased production of the PlayStation on March 23, 2006, over 11 years after it was first produced.

History

The second conceptions of the PlayStation date back to 1986 in Japan where it was created. Nintendo had been attempting to work with disc technology since the Famicom, but the medium had problems. Its rewritable magnetic nature could be easily erased (thus leading to a lack of durability), and the discs were a copyright infringement danger. Consequently, when details of CDROM/XA (an extension of the CD-ROM format that combines compressed audio, visual and computer data, allowing all to be accessed simultaneously) came out, Nintendo was interested. CD-ROM/XA was being simultaneously developed by Sony and Philips. Nintendo approached Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on, tentatively titled the "SNES-CD". A contract was signed, and work began. Nintendo's choice of Sony was due to a prior dealing: Ken Kutaragi, the person who would later be dubbed "The Father of PlayStation", was the individual who had sold Nintendo on using the Sony SPC-700 processor for use as the eight-channel ADPCM sound synthesis set in the Super Famicom/SNES console through an impressive demonstration of the processor's capabilities.

Sony also planned to develop another, Atari compatible, Sony-branded console, but one which would be more of a home entertainment system playing both Super Nintendo cartridges and a new CD format which Sony would design. This was also to be the format used in SNES-CD discs, giving a large degree of control to Sony despite Nintendo's leading position in the video gaming market.

The SNES-CD was to be announced at the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, when Hiroshi Yamauchi read the original 1988 contract between Sony and Nintendo, he realized that the earlier agreement essentially handed Sony complete control over any and all titles written on the SNES CD-ROM format. Yamauchi decided that the contract was totally unacceptable and he secretly canceled all plans for the joint Nintendo-Sony SNES CD attachment. Instead of announcing a partnership between Sony and Nintendo, at 9 a.m. the day of the CES, Nintendo chairman Howard Lincoln stepped onto the stage and revealed that Nintendo was now allied with Philips, and Nintendo was planning on abandoning all the previous work Nintendo and Sony had accomplished. Lincoln and Minoru Arakawa had, unbeknown to Sony, flown to Philips headquarters in Europe and formed an alliance of a decidedly different nature—one that would give Nintendo total control over its licenses on Philips machines.