Sony PlayStation

...games machine. The famous 32bit Sony Playstation console.

How was the Sony Playstation conceived? Well according to legend Nintendo of Japan wanted to develop a CD drive add-on for their 16bit Super Nintendo console to compete with the Sega Mega Drive's CD add-on. They decided to work with Sony and have them create the CD drive for Nintendo's console. But for some cosmic reason Nintendo defaulted on their contract with Sony and asked ...
...and thus we have the Sony Playstation.

Released a year after the Sega Saturn, it was one of the first 32bit consoles ever to be made available to the public, but it beat the Saturn (despite it having a head start) having more software support and being a better looking console. However as time goes on, it started to lose it's appeal with newer more powerful consoles being released so Sony introduced the PSOne. The PSOne is a smaller ... more

It's a darn shame that I am writing this review in this day and age - when next generation consoles are already out and chewing up the masses with their amazing graphics and sound capabilities. But before they came to fruitation there was the console that set the standards of how to be a winning games machine. The famous 32bit Sony Playstation console.

How was the Sony Playstation conceived? Well according to legend Nintendo of Japan wanted to develop a CD drive add-on for their 16bit Super Nintendo console to compete with the Sega Mega Drive's CD add-on. They decided to work with Sony and have them create the CD drive for Nintendo's console. But for some cosmic reason Nintendo defaulted on their contract with Sony and asked Philips to do it instead. The CD drive was never finished as Nintendo decided again to go with their Optical Cartridge Drive but that was a huge flop. Sony, now left with a console-less CD drive, decided to release it anyway with a few extra bits added and thus we have the Sony Playstation.

Released a year after the Sega Saturn, it was one of the first 32bit consoles ever to be made available to the public, but it beat the Saturn (despite it having a head start) having more software support and being a better looking console. However as time goes on, it started to lose it's appeal with newer more powerful consoles being released so Sony introduced the PSOne. The PSOne is a smaller sexier version of the Playstation but has exactly the same hardware. This boosted sales just before the arrival of the Playstation 2, thus it kept Sony's name fresh in people's minds beckoning them to buy the Playstation 2 console.

There hasn't been a more noble console than Sony's Playstation; it had many enemies in it's time including the Sega Saturn. After defeating it's 32bit rival, it had to contend with the Neo Geo console. The Neo Geo was classed as the Rolls Royce of home gaming, bringing the arcade into the home properly for the first time with games such as King of Fighters etc. But with it not only came the quality of the arcade, but also the crazy extortionate pricing because it was cartridge based. A lot of people never owned it preferring the miles cheaper Playstation so Neo Geo released a CD version instead with a much lower price, but it was too late - the damage had already been done. When that was over, Atari's Jaguar (it claimed to be 64bit but in actual fact was a 32bit console) came into the scene only to be defeated amazingly early due to it having poor games. The next contender was Nintendo - they introduced the true 64bit Nintendo 64 gaming system to compete with the Playstation. However the Playstation with its better popularity, having a CDROM drive and software support allowed it to defeat the Nintendo 64 and its cartridge based games easily as well. But that wasn't the end of it either. Sega returned to the battle with the 128bit Dreamcast boasting better graphics and sound. PSOne still out lived it just long enough for the Playstation 2 to come onto the scene. There were also the Philips CDi, the 3DO and the 3DO M2 but these were more of a little irritation for the Playstation to be any sort of real competition. It has survived the never ending onslaughts to allow its child to take over. Never before has any console been able to repeat the same feats this console has done in the history of video gaming.

This review will be based on the PSOne because it's so pretty (and also because it's the picture at the top left hand side of this window). At first glance it is pearly white - about the size of a small book and has curved edges. The lid opens from the top and there are 2 controller ports with memory card slots above each port. Being very small and light it made this console very portable meaning those trips over to your mates for some vintage gaming won't be hindered by a sack dragging you to your knees. This console is very pleasing to look at and according to many owners is very cute (I think so to!).

So what kind of hardware is inside this console that allowed it to win the title of 'The Most Popular Video Games Console'? I stripped it naked and bared it all for it's secrets... oh yes you console nerds out there better stop dribbling, these specs aren't all that...

Processor: R3000A 33.8688MHz
Despite having a such a slow speed, this processor had the necessary power at the time to defeat all it's enemies until it's successor could take over. It has the 3D graphics engine and the special video MDEC (Motion JPEG Hardware Decompression Engine) built into it. The graphics - although 3D - are now very dated as it is glitchy, it isn't powerful enough to give 3D models more than a few hundred polygons each and the textures on it look very blocky. But for its time it has done very well, progressing from being revolutionary to just being acceptably good. The Video MDEC engine is what allows the Playstation to playback it's amazingly high quality video clips for it's games i.e. the cut scenes for Final Fantasy 7 and 8. This was one of the major selling points of the console at the time.

RAM: 2MB
The 2MB of RAM is helping in showing this console's age immensely as everything on-screen is covered in a mist before being drawn in when the main character is within view of it. This was one of the limitations of this console that weren't thought about before the arrival of the next generation consoles - there wasn't enough RAM to put everything onto it so it was constantly being streamed from CD and the old data on the RAM was being purged. This also resulted in slow loading times, but developers still managed to make do with what they had and created some of the greatest games on it whilst side stepping this little problem.

Graphics: Graphics Processing Unit
This only handles what is seen on-screen and has 1MB to load the necessary images onto the television very quickly, as to create a sense of movement. It was capable of displaying up to a resolution of 740 x 480 pixels max which wasn't too bad, but this may use up too much RAM so lower resolutions may be used.

Audio: Sony 16bit DSP
Sony's own sound chip for their gaming device. It supported 24 channels, digital effects i.e. digital reverb and pitch modulation, load up to 512KB of waveforms (musical instruments and the such) onto it's sound RAM and supported midi instruments. It didn't support Dolby Surround but reproduced stereo sound exceptional well at 44.1KHz (CD quality in other words).

CD Drive: 1x - 2x
Being only able to spin at dual speed maximum the accessing of CDs was rather slow and this increased loading times. Many gamers have managed to live with the 'loading' screens on many games but if it wasn't for this drive there would be no amazingly rendered video cut scenes for games.

Control Pad: Dual Shock
This is an analogue control pad that has 4 shoulder buttons, 4 buttons on the right hand side in a diamond configuration, start and select in the centre, 2 joysticks just below the start and select buttons, a dual shock on/off button in the middle and standard directional keys on the left hand side. This control pad is one of the best ever designed as it fits comfortably into your hands and the buttons are all within reach of all the fingers. Ergonomically sound this pad is! This pad also has built-in rumble function that gives games more kick back and enhances the experience altogether.

Well the console is definitely old with the specification thus far. Very limited memory and slow processor capability, yet it does have a certain type of charisma that makes it shine above the other consoles in it's lifetime. I bet you're just itching to find out how it does in practice with the games aren't you?

There will be two games I will be using to test this machine. Final Fantasy 7 and Tekken as because they both possess some functions the other game does not have, and they both have great game play even today.

Setting up this console is very easy, as with other consoles is merely about finding where the cables plug into by it's customized cable ports, no need for the manual (although the manual is very easy to follow). The last cable to be plugged in is the control pad before the games are placed into the PSOne's CD drive to load.

Game 1: Final Fantasy 7
It takes time to load into the game, but when it's does it is smooth sailing from there as this game is very good in masking loading times with story elements kicking in. The graphics for the game's fights are good, although compared to today's standard they are rather daunting to behold. The characters are fully proportionate in battle, with the animation for their movements being very slick and lifelike. The battle environments though are quite claustrophobic due to the limited system RAM. The graphics do not have any textures on them, preferring the models to be simply coloured and the polygons be blended in this manner to keep the speed up. The graphics also glitches a lot, overlapping each other and becoming see-through or turning into a jagged edge nightmare making most objects hard to distinguish from each other. In the explorative screens, the characters are all midget versions of themselves because there's more on-screen and will cause slow down if not made midgety. The smaller models use fewer polygons so it is less taxing on the processor and graphics.

The audio is also rather dated. It uses the Playstation's midi music to play all the music in the game and although it is catchy with some tunes - with others it just plain annoys. There's only so much beeping a man can take before he goes red eye and put on his personal music player. The sound effects for the game though are of rather high quality. Although it isn't really 100% accurate and rather muffled, it still represents the object it is trying to reproduce very well giving it a more exaggerative feel i.e. fireball on collision goes BOOOM!!!! Sword slicing goes SWWWUUUIIIING!!

Game 2: Tekken
Loading times are a lot more obvious in this game than in the previous one. There are literally 'loading please wait' screens available as the game loads up the data for the characters that are fighting and for the fighting arena. Tekken is different from Final Fantasy 7 because there's only 2 characters on-screen at any one time so each model has a hell of a lot more polygons, making them more formed and also gifting them with textures so that they look more lifelike i.e. leather jacket has the skin effect, hair has strandy effect. The fighters move very smoothly and are very slick, the animation for their actions are recreated extremely well in this game. Again the environment feels claustrophobic - although it looks like there is a landscape - it is really a picture that's been stretched around the fighting area to give it a long distance look, it is blatantly obvious at first look. Tekken also suffers from the same graphics glitches as FF7 but it is less severe as the textures help mask it slightly from view.

The audio for this game is amazing, since there isn't need for many sounds as on FF7, this game can have higher quality sound effects, speech and music for the characters. This shows as each connected punch there can be heard a POW sound, the characters going 'ARGH!' when they lose, the CD quality music playing in the background as the fight commences, it is all a step above FF7.

As the games show, the Playstation's limitations are evidently there but games developers try to compromise between speed and quality of the sound and graphics to find the best sort of combination. This has resulted in the Playstation surviving for so long since developers can create games on it while trying to find this balance (and they have to because the Playstation was so popular that creating games without the Playstation in mind was almost like signing a death warrant, thus making the Playstation more popular and starting the cycle all over again).

At the current pricing of this console it's hard to find any disadvantages for it. It's unfair to say it has lamer graphics than the other consoles since it has been around for a long time - nor is it fair to say that you can't save games onto a hard drive and you require a memory card either since that concept wasn't even thought of until the XBOX. So the only thing I can really mention about this console as a disadvantage is that software developers stopped supporting it in favour of the Playstation 2 instead. But this is the normal progression of things so really is that a disadvantage? Hmm...

The current cost of these consoles is around £20 on EBAY. It may cost more or less depending how the bidding goes and is one of the few places left you have of getting your hands on one. Games go in the range of £2 for the oldest to £50 for the import games. Yes I know it's expensive but imports are harder to get so the prices are still up there with the new next generation console games. Stick with the console and the older games and you will have yourself one of the best value for money consoles with it's massive library of quality cheap games.

This is definitely a console to own. The PSOne is a classic machine that has left a legacy which is hard to ignore and has a lot of great games on it such as the best racing game ever Gran Turismo, the best RPG game ever Final Fantasy 7 and the best action game ever Metal Gear Solid. Sure the graphics are dated and there are rather long loading times, but it is still a console with an amazing supply of charisma and games that could keep a gamer happy for ages! Besides, the PSOne will look good in your living room, so why wait now? Buy now before they are no longer sold!

Bonus:
Did you know that the arcade games for Tekken, Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 were based on the Playstation hardware (also called System 11)? This allowed the port from arcade machine over to the home console to be a very easy task and gamers didn't have to wait as long for their version being available in game stores nationwide.

There's a LCD screen add-on for the PSOne that allows the console to be truly portable as you can play games on it while on the move.

The popularity of the PSOne also meant that it was the prime target of software pirates everywhere. Games were copied by the bucket load. The PSOne was modified with special chips to play these copied games. Certain games developers added extra code into their games to detect this chip and stop working altogether, so the new stealth mod-chip was created and piracy started all over again. 

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