The origin of the Playstation(PSX)was originally a joint project by Nintendo and Sony to create a CD-ROM drive for the Super Nintendo.Playstation made it's announcement at the consumer electronics show in June 1991,however a day later,Nintendo announced that it would be breaking it's ties with Sony and went with Phillips to create the same technology for it.After this humiliation , Sony then decided to create it's own game console to rival Nintendo.Two key partners for the success of the PSX, was Electronic Arts and Namco, which liked that a disc system is cheaper to manufacture than a cartridge system.
The PSX , heralded the decline of cartridge based systems such as the Nintendo 64 and disc based systems became the norm from then on.
The key consoles it released in europe were-
- Playstation (PSX) in 1994
- Playstation (Ps One) in 2000
- Playstation 2 in 2000
- Playstation Portable (PSP) in 2005
- Playstation 3 Console in 2007
- Playstation 'PSP Go' in 2009
- Playstation Vita (PSP renamed/upgraded) is due to be released in 2012
The PSX launched and it and the PSone sold a combined total of 102.49 million units,making it the first video game console to sell 100 million units.
The playstation 2 was similar to the PSX and was a simply upgraded system,a perk of it,was that it allowed you to play PSX games on the system, but required a original memory card to save games.
Similarly launched 'Slimline' models were produced ,one model featured a ethernet port,another had internal parts changed to make the overall model lighter and slimmer.Although no graphics/hardware upgrades, it was just a way to milk more money out of players.
The Playstation 3 was launched in 2006 and is the current model.It features a blu ray disc player, HD graphics and comes in huge different harddrive sizes.
As the move me software is a part of the consoles I will not be going through the handheld systems of playstation.
Software
Sony uses XrossMediaBar on it's playstation units and other Sony devices.It was created by Sony Computer Entertainment,the system is the navigational moves across the Playstation screens to other areas.The background colour changes throughout the year and also the brightness changes throughout the day. It also has it's own 'theme' format so it can be customized.
Another system Sony Playstation uses, or at least did use was the OtherOS, this enabled people to place another operating system on the Playstation, Linux was the most popular choice,originally Sony supported this and even advertised a 'PS2 Linux Kit',which was soon discontinued.Upon the release of the Playstation 3 , it also appeared on that system.
But when the Ps3 Slim was released they stated it would no longer support the OTherOS feature and that the OtherOS on the older devices would also be removed due to security concerns.More than likey, pressure from developers and the ever increasing pirating activity.Obviously people have still managed to crack it back open and make it usable seen below.
Sony do not open their systems up to anyone to develop and keep a very tight control on their products,they are continually filing law suits against people who jailbreak the system and throwing the book at them, instead of using their skills to make it more secure, or even opening the system up for solo developers.
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