49 Fun Facts About PlayStation

Which Sony executive, later dubbed 'The Father of the PlayStation', conceived the console?

Ken Kutaragi had designed a console sound chip without his bosses' approval, and when senior executives turned against his PlayStation project it was moved out of Sony headquarters to keep it alive.

The PlayStation project grew out of a broken partnership with which company to build a CD-ROM add-on?

A day after Sony showed the 'Play Station' SNES-CD at CES 1991, Nintendo announced it was going with Philips instead.

Which Sega arcade hit convinced Sony to focus the PlayStation on 3D polygons rather than 2D sprites?

Virtua Fighter settled Sony's debate over sprites or polygons: producer Ryoji Akagawa said that without Sega's 1993 hit the PlayStation 'probably would have had a completely different hardware concept'.

Which rival console reached Japanese shops eleven days before the original PlayStation in late 1994?

The Sega Saturn went on sale on November 22, 1994, eleven days ahead of the PlayStation's December 3 debut, yet Sony's machine went on to sell over 100 million against fewer than 10 million Saturns.

Which character, built to rival Mario and Sonic, became the original PlayStation's unofficial mascot in 1996?

Crash Bandicoot was built by Naughty Dog because Sony had no mascot to set against Mario and Sonic; for much of production the team still called him Willie the Wombat.

What two words did Sony's Steve Race say on stage at E3 1995 to reveal the PlayStation's US price?

'Two ninety-nine' was all Steve Race said before walking off to applause; it undercut by $100 the price a rival console maker had announced earlier at the same show.

Which PlayStation series, begun on the PS2 in 2005, has Kratos as its hero?

God of War began in 2005 with Kratos, a Spartan warrior who had pledged himself to Ares and then set out to kill him; later games moved their hero from Greek myth to Norse.

Which Namco arcade hit was the flagship launch game for the original PlayStation in Japan?

Ridge Racer loaded the whole race into memory while players shot through a round of Galaxian on the loading screen, so the disc could then be swapped for an audio CD.

Which racing game, at 10.85 million copies, was the original PlayStation's best seller?

Gran Turismo took Kazunori Yamauchi's team five years to build, then sold 10.85 million copies, more than any other game on the original PlayStation.

Which 1997 role-playing game, sold on three discs, was the original PlayStation's best-selling RPG?

Final Fantasy VII needed three CDs for its cinematic scenes, which is why its makers moved the series off cartridge consoles to the PlayStation, where it sold over ten million copies.

The original PlayStation 3 logo borrowed its typeface from which Sony Pictures film series?

Spider-Man's film typeface went on the PS3 at the insistence of PlayStation's chief, its designer said; Sony dropped it for the 2009 Slim because the long logo shrank too small on billboards.

The PlayStation company, SCEI, was formed in 1993 as a joint venture between Sony and which of its divisions?

Music was the natural partner: the console team had been moved to Sony Music after senior executives opposed the project, and the label already knew how to press and sell discs.

What was the Net Yaroze, a black PlayStation sold by mail order from 1996?

A hobbyist programming kit, the Net Yaroze plugged into a home computer so that owners could write their own PlayStation games in C and share them with other members online.

Which tiny Sony gadget of 1999 was a PlayStation memory card with its own screen and buttons for minigames?

The PocketStation sold out in Japan, and Sony scrapped its overseas launch because it could not meet demand at home, though Final Fantasy VIII kept its PocketStation minigame abroad.

The smaller redesign of the original PlayStation, released in July 2000, was called what?

The PS one outsold every other console, including the brand-new PlayStation 2, for the rest of 2000, and Sony later sold a clip-on 5-inch LCD screen for it.

Which of these was the first PlayStation controller to include a pair of thumbsticks?

The Dual Analog went on sale in Japan in April 1997, and only seven months later, that November, the DualShock superseded it there.

On a PlayStation controller, pressing the two thumbsticks in like buttons triggers which pair of inputs?

L3 and R3 are the clicks of the left and right sticks; the pad that launched with the console in 1994 had no sticks at all, so the pair arrived only with Sony's twin-stick pads of 1997.

Which of the four PlayStation face-button symbols is pink on the original control pad?

Square was pink, with Triangle green, Circle red and Cross blue; designer Teiyu Goto meant the square to suggest a sheet of paper for menus and documents.

Sega stopped making consoles in 2001, months after the PlayStation 2 arrived, ending production of which machine?

The Dreamcast launched strongly, but once the PlayStation 2 arrived its sales soured; in January 2001 Sega announced it would quit hardware and make games for its former rivals.

The PlayStation 2's custom central processor, co-developed with Toshiba, was called what?

The Emotion Engine was designed with Toshiba, and Sony later built the same chip into the first PlayStation 3 models so that they could run PS2 games.

What non-game was the PlayStation 2's best-selling launch-period title in Japan?

A DVD of The Matrix outsold every game in the launch period because the console's built-in DVD drive was cheaper than most standalone players, and many early buyers used it mainly for films.

Roughly how many units did the PlayStation 2 sell over its lifetime?

About 160 million PlayStation 2 units were sold, nearly triple its three rival consoles combined, and demand lasted so long that Sony kept building it until January 2013.

The best-selling PlayStation 2 game was which 2004 title?

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sold about 17.3 million copies on the PS2, even though its hidden 'Hot Coffee' scenes got it re-rated Adults Only and recalled in 2005.

A hacker intrusion in April 2011 forced Sony to switch off which online service for more than three weeks?

PlayStation Network went dark on April 20, 2011 after intruders reached the details of about 77 million accounts; Sony took almost a week to warn users, drawing criticism from governments.

The slimmer PlayStation 2 of 2004 built in which connection that the original console needed an add-on adaptor for?

Ethernet moved inside the Slimline because the thinner case had no room for the expansion bay that held the old network adaptor; for the same reason it could not take the internal hard drive.

What was the EyeToy, released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003?

The EyeToy was a USB camera for motion-controlled games, conceived when researcher Richard Marks saw a PlayStation 2 demo in 1999 and wondered what it could do with a cheap webcam; it sold over ten million.

The PlayStation 3's Cell processor was co-developed by Sony, Toshiba and which third company?

IBM designed the Cell with Sony and Toshiba at a joint centre in Austin, Texas, then adapted the chip's main core for Microsoft's rival Xbox 360 processor.

The PS3 was the first console to use which disc format as its primary storage medium?

Blu-ray won its format war with HD DVD in 2008, helped by the millions of PS3s that doubled as players; Toshiba gave up on its rival format that February.

The 60 GB PlayStation 3 launched in the US at what infamous price?

At $599 the 60 GB PlayStation 3 still sold at a loss: analysts at iSuppli put the cost of building each one at about $840.

The PS3's first official controller, which had motion sensing but no rumble, was called what?

The Sixaxis, named for its six-axis motion sensing, dropped rumble during a patent dispute with Immersion; the DualShock 3 restored vibration in 2007 after a settlement.

Life with PlayStation let PS3 owners donate processing power to whose Folding@home project?

Stanford University's Folding@home used idle PS3s to simulate protein folding for disease research, and in 2007 the consoles helped it become the first computing system to pass a petaflop.

Which lead system architect designed both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5?

Mark Cerny joined Atari at 17, where he designed the arcade hit Marble Madness, and he led both consoles' design as an independent consultant through his own firm, Cerny Games.

The PlayStation 4 dropped the PS3's Cell for a PC-style x86 chip built by which company?

AMD supplied the PS4's processor, an x86 design like a PC's, which made the console far easier to write games for than the PS3 and its one-of-a-kind Cell chip.

What is the name of the DualShock 4's front LED strip that changes colour?

The light bar was added so a camera could track the controller, with Sony's VR headset in mind, and it also glows a different colour for each player.

Before its September 2016 reveal, the PlayStation 4 Pro was known by which codename?

Neo was the working name until the September 2016 reveal; the PS4 Pro's 4.2-teraflop GPU targeted 4K gaming, though the console could not play Ultra HD discs.

The PlayStation 5 reached its first shops in November 2020, two days after which rival console?

Xbox Series X launched on November 10, 2020 and the PS5 followed on November 12 in seven countries, reaching the rest of the world a week later; chip shortages kept it scarce into 2023.

What is the name of the PS5 controller with adaptive triggers and haptic feedback?

The DualSense was built around touch, a sense Sony felt games had neglected: haptics replace rumble, and the triggers can tighten like a bowstring as you draw an arrow.

Which game comes preinstalled on every PS5 to show off its controller?

Astro's Playroom, built by Team Asobi as a showcase for the new controller, ships on every PS5's storage; its hero went on to star in the full 2024 release Astro Bot.

The PS5's hardware-accelerated 3D audio system is known as what?

The Tempest Engine, a repurposed GPU compute unit, handles hundreds of simultaneous sounds, compared with about 50 on the PS4.

Before it was named, the PlayStation Vita was known by which codename?

Next Generation Portable, or NGP, was the name at the January 2011 reveal; despite that billing, the Vita got no direct successor after Sony ended production in 2019.

The Japan-only PSX of 2003 combined a PlayStation 2 with what?

A DVR was built into the PSX alongside a PlayStation 2; its first 100,000 units sold out within a week, yet the machine went on to flop.

The 2018 PlayStation Classic mini console was sold without which item in the box?

A power adapter was left out: the PlayStation Classic takes its power through the bundled USB cable, and the AC adapter to plug that cable into was sold separately.

The PlayStation Portal was announced as 'Project' plus which single letter?

Project Q became the PlayStation Portal, a handheld that runs no games of its own: it streams them from a PS5 over Wi-Fi using Remote Play.

Sony paid $380 million for cloud firm Gaikai in 2012 to build which game-streaming service?

PlayStation Now was announced in 2014 on Gaikai's technology, streaming older PlayStation games on demand; in 2022 Sony folded it into the top tier of PlayStation Plus.

What was the name of the fictional PlayStation vice president in the 'It Only Does Everything' ads?

Kevin Butler, played by actor Jerry Lambert, fronted the campaign from 2009; one early spot drew a complaint from the Nigerian government over a scam-email joke, and Sony re-cut it.

In the 1995 US slogan 'eNoS Lives', what did the letters of ENOS stand for?

Ready, Ninth of September was the decoded message: the red 'E' stood for 'ready', as in the companion slogan 'U R Not E', and NOS for the launch date.

Which row-of-icons menu, first seen on Sony's 2003 PSX, became the home screen of the PSP and PS3?

XrossMediaBar, or XMB, lays its categories in a horizontal row with each one's items in a column; after the PSX it spread to the PSP, the PS3 and Sony's Bravia TVs.

Which 2009 handheld dropped the UMD drive in favour of 16 GB of internal flash memory?

The PSP Go took games only as downloads, so it could not play the UMD discs owners already had; buyers stayed away and Sony announced its end in April 2011.

Between 2016 and 2022, PlayStation sponsored which college football postseason game?

The Fiesta Bowl took PlayStation's name in November 2016, after obstacle-race firm BattleFrog's sponsorship had lasted a single game, and kept it until Vrbo took over in 2022.