HOME HOME CONSOLES COMPARISON HANDHELD SYSTEM OTHER HARDWARE LAST OF US CONTACT
INTRODUCTION:
The PlayStation is a series of video game consoles created and
developed by
Sony Computer Entertainment with consoles in the fifth to eighth generations.
The brand was first introduced on
December 3, 1994 in Japan with the launch
of the original PlayStation console. It now
consists of a total of four core home
consoles, as well as a media center, an
online service, a line of controllers,
two handhelds and a phone, as well as
multiple magazines.
The first console in the series, the
PlayStation, was the first video game console to ship 100 million units, 9
years and
6 months after its initial launch. Its
successor, the PlayStation 2, was released
in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is the
best-selling home console to date,
having reached over 155 million units sold as of December 28, 2012. Sony's next
console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold
over 80 million consoles worldwide as of November 2013.
Sony's latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling 1
million consoles in its first 24 hours on sale,
becoming the fastest selling console in
history.
The first handheld
game console in the PlayStation series, the PlayStation
Portable or PSP, has sold a total of 80 million
units worldwide as of November 2013.
Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, which launched in Japan on
December 17, 2011
and in most other major territories in
February 2012 has sold 4 million units as of January 2013. Other hardware
released
as part of the PlayStation series
includes the PSX, a digital
video recorder which was integrated with the PlayStation and
PlayStation 2, though it was short
lived due to its high price and was never released outside Japan, as well as a
Sony Bravia television set which has an
integrated PlayStation 2. The main series of controllers utilized by the
PlayStation
series is the DualShock, which is a line of vibration-feedback gamepad having sold 28 million controllers as
of June 28, 2008.