PlayStation

PlayStation is a Japanese-American video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a US-based division of Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists of handhelds, online services, magazines, and other forms of media.

The brand began with the first PlayStation home console released in Japan in 1994 and worldwide the following year, which became the first console of any type to ship over 100 million units, which made PlayStation a globally recognized brand. Since then there have been numerous newer consoles—the most recent being the PlayStation 5 released in 2020—while there have also been a series of handheld consoles and a number of other electronics such as a media center and a smartphone. The main series of controllers utilized by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, a line of vibration-feedback gamepads. SIE also operate numerous online services like PlayStation Network, the PlayStation Store, and the subscription-based PlayStation Plus, which may also offer non-gaming entertainment services; the PlayStation Network has over 103 million active users monthly as of December 2019.

The series also has a strong line-up of first-party games due to PlayStation Studios, a group of many studios owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment that exclusively developed them for PlayStation consoles. In addition, the series features various budget re-releases of games by Sony with different names for each region; these include the Greatest Hits, Platinum, Essentials, and The Best selection of games. It is also known for the four iconic PlayStation face buttons (, , , ) and has been known for its numerous marketing campaigns, the latest of which being the "Greatness Awaits" and eventually, "Play Has No Limits" commercials in the United States.

PlayStation was the brainchild of Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who managed one of the company's hardware engineering divisions and was later dubbed "The Father of the PlayStation".

Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as the sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo, and operated a video game studio, Sony Imagesoft. As part of a joint project between Nintendo and Sony that began as early as 1988, the two companies worked to create a CD-ROM version of the Super Famicom, though Nintendo denied the existence of the Sony deal as late as March 1991. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed a Super Famicom with a built-in CD-ROM drive that incorporated Green Book technology or CD-i, called "Play Station" (also known as SNES-CD). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between the two companies. The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga, who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo.

At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended in May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to the board. Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music, a completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD).

According to SCE's producer Ryoji Akagawa and chairman Shigeo Maruyama, there was uncertainty over whether the console should primarily focus on 2D sprite graphics or 3D polygon graphics. Eventually, after witnessing the success of Sega's Virtua Fighter in Japanese arcades, that Sony realized "the direction of the PlayStation became instantly clear" and 3D polygon graphics became the console's primary focus.

The PlayStation logo was designed by Manabu Sakamoto. He wanted the logo to capture the 3D support of the console, but instead of just adding apparent depth to the letters "P" and "S", he created an optical illusion that suggested the letters in depth of space. Sakamoto also stuck with four bright principal colors, red, yellow, green, and blue, only having to tune the green color for better harmony across the logo. Sakamoto also designed the black and white logo based on the same design, reserved for times where colors could not be used.