The launch of the PlayStation back in 1995
This is an article published on Zeta (Italian magazine) in March 1995. I have translated it into English. It is a memo of the January 19 and 20 1995 London's meeting. Hope you like it!
"Whatever you're thinking... it's not enough," was the motto with which Sony presented its latest creation, the PlayStation, at the Technical Workshop held in a London hotel last January 19 and 20. If the message sounds a bit exaggerated to you, it means you haven't had a chance to try Ridge Racer or Toh Shin Den.
The conference began with a nervous Phil Harrison, director of software development at Sony Electronic Publishing, entertaining the many visitors with a long speech; incredibly, the entire interactive entertainment industry was present at the meeting. The atmosphere that had been created after only a few minutes was the usual one for this kind of event: an immense "egg carpet" on which everyone measured their steps, and no one brave enough to be the first to say a word out of place.
From the very beginning of the conference there was a lack of enthusiasm among the participants, and the same feeling persisted even when it came to the action, with a "live" demonstration of the machine's real capabilities: thousands of sprites bounced across the screen at 60 frames per second without, according to Harrison's statements, the PlayStation reaching its limits. A group of cubes demonstrated that the dedicated 3D hardware could handle thousands of polygons, lit from different directions, with effects of fog, transparency, Gouraud shading and texture mapping, all combined to create a remarkable three-dimensional effect.
This is only a relatively theoretical demonstration because what really matters is how all these effects will be used in the games and how much they will affect their absolute quality (having said that, it must be remembered, though, that Ridge Racer for PSX is really Ridge Racer. And that dinosaur? Yes that dinosaur. How many other machines would be able to animate, in real time. such a marvel?
At the end of the demonstration, the floor was turned over to lan Hetherinoton. former Psygnosis boss and current Managing Director of Sony Electronic Publishing who spoke about the end of the Sega-Nintendo duopoly in the console field, the public's anticipation of a new machine, the qualitative growth of hardware (especially in terms of speed) and the beginning of a new generation of video games.
Hetherington also proudly asserted that Sony does not carry the baggage of the 8- and 6-bit console audience of Sega and Nintendo, but that it has to worry about a new user base, being able to focus on the new PSX standard without having to keep an eye on the past.
"No. Sony is not too big,"
argued Hetherinaton.
"Sony is taking the Playstation project seriously; all possible research has been done and Sony has foreseen all possible risks. Sony arrogant? Sony is too smart to be arrogant."
A short movie then condensed the history of computers and video games into five minutes (too bad most of the images did not refer to the original arcade versions but to their transposition to Atari VCS...). It was interesting to note the trend in playability over the years: the simple interaction of Pong became much more complex with the release of newer machines such as Spectrum and Commodore 64, then diminished with more modern titles such as Shadow of the Beast and Microcosm (which, in the intentions of the organizers, were supposed to represent the top, but rather brought a smile to the lips of those who tried them at less than one time).
A chorus of subdued chuckles greeted at jest with which Hetherington began to talk about competitors. According to Sony's Managing Director, the 32X will "dilute" Saturn sales, dividing Sega's "aficionados," while for Nintendo's new console there is no chance of seeing anything concrete, and in any case the house's approach with outside developers is narrower than before. The 3DO? When Hetherington began to talk about it his eyes betrayed relative carelessness and the topic was quickly dropped, sparing of participants the useless and rhetorical talk about the failures of Hawkin's "creature."
What about the PC? Hetherinaton noted that, in his opinion. PlayStation owners may be attracted to the idea of buying a PC, and not vice versa. There was also a reference. quite cryptic about possible future compatibility between the two machines.
When Phil Harrison took the floor again, he persuaded Ocean President David Ward and former Sega Managing Director Nick Alexander to take part in a mini-tournament featuring one of Sony's platform's iconic games, Takara's fighting game Toh Shin Den. This provided an opportunity to see the PlayStation at work, with a game that proves the validity of Hetherington's claims that the full potential of the Sony machine can be exploited right from the start. For the record, Ward won the tournament and was repaid for his trouble with a PlayStation.
According to Shaunichi Fujishima, general manager of Sony Computer Entertainment, PlayStation should help developers expand the world of video games. He defended the switch from the use of cartridges to CDs, comparing the optical media to McDonald's: cartridges require high production time and costs (and when sales do not yield the desired results, the financial burden becomes heavier), while compact discs are cheap and quick to produce. Sony, in this regard, said it can print up to 10 million CDs per month.
It was then the turn of Ken Kutaragi, designer of the PlayStation, said his conclusions in rather stunted English: the 1980s were characterized by digitization and sound processing, the 1990s by digitization and image processing, and the beginning of the next millennium will be characterized--hear, hear--by digitization and idea processing. At least his message was clear: the Playstation was created for games and serves both gamers and programmers.
The inevitable space reserved for questions from the audience in attendance was one of the less interesting moments of the event. Jez San, president of Argonaut Software, raised the issue of more affordable development kits, but to answer was vague.
Then it was to vote on the design of the machine and controller that was the focus of criticism: Phil Harrison defended the machine as well as he could, keeping quiet about his own considerations, but the most he could do was express his own (unbiased, of course) preferences. The aesthetics of the controller may not please everyone, but there is no denying the exemplary practicality of use, certainly superior to most other joypads; in any case, the long-awaited analog control device dedicated to driving games should prove to be a success.
The philosophy behind the Playstation project is clarity. The machine was developed exclusively as a gaming machine, and not as a multimedia "black box." Traditionally, developers have spent years trying to discover the machine's capabilities, without much help from hardware manufacturers. What is really new about the Playstation is that all of its capabilities are evident right away.
As one of the programmers who spoke observed:
"I believe that in two or three years, the PSX games that are released now will always remain technically impressive, while those for Saturn will make the current ones look very poor and retrograde. The fact is that with the PSX you can do everything from day one, and it's hard to unearth hidden things and programming tricks like it is with other machines. It is an optimal development environment that, instead of forcing the programmer to look for "shortcuts," allows him to focus on the game and the actual possibilities of the machine. Also, consider that a year from now it will be possible to do all this with a PC. It seems that a well-designed PSX program can easily be ported to a PC, as Sony has made clear."
Another reputable programmer added,
"The Saturn encapsulates arcade technology and is very fast in handling two-dimensional environments. In terms of 3D graphics, Sega's machine will only be able to achieve the PlayStation's results with an immense programming effort. Ironically, in terms of development, the PSX is the most two-dimensional machine." Sony's creature, moreover, has several points in common with the 3DO in that everything available from the start can be used to produce games, without grasping at straws with complex routines. Don't get me wrong. the PSX will go a lot further than the 3DO, and clarity about hardware possibilities is a good thing: you will always know what you can achieve and won't have to waste time looking for little tricks in terms of programming.The only problem I see with this is that soon people will have already seen what the machine can offer. Of course, you will always be able to look for ways to speed up certain operations (look for example at the demos shown: they use hardware and no extra routines...you will definitely be able to do more...), but in general what you see is as much or as little as can be achieved. A new era is about to begin, and games have a new way to go: we can now do things that until recently could only be seen in the arcade."
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Sony criticized the software licensing policy adopted by Sega and Nintendo (it is interesting to note, in this regard, that over the years Sega's approach became more and more "hardcore" and more in line with Nintendo's...but that and the price of success). Effectively, however, Sony is in the same boat: Nintendo's concept of buying a "bracket" in which to release its title has been replaced by a less rigid system called the "release window," which avoids a market meltdown by the release games. To develop a game for PSX, one must be a "paid licensee": one must rent a development kit at a price of about 12,000 pounds (or about 30 million lire in Italy). Sony has to approve the work and holds the cards when you have to duplicate the game and publish it.
Despite a few sporadic instances of dissatisfaction by a small group of developers, the entire industry is looking up to the PlayStation and betting on its future. Programmers are understandably keeping their lips tight on the PSX topic since they have signed on not to reveal anything about it. One knowledgeable developer commented on the demos shown thus,
"It smells a little fishy to me. The three thousand sprites bouncing around on the screen actually look like a thousand. If they had to do something more in one frame, the machine would start sweating; however, a thousand sprites is still a lot. I heard that moving dinosaur uses some undocumented techniques, but still, I don't think much more could be done. Basically, the PlayStation is a very fast computer that lends itself perfectly to drawing triangles and covering them with textures. The demo in which texture-mapped cubes rotate on them uses a technique called texture cache, in which the same mapping is used to speed up the calculations.
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Obviously this is not like in a real 3D rendered world, where the textures are all different. On the PlayStation it's easy to program games to run at 50 frames per second, and you can achieve some amazing things at 25 fps, below this threshold Sony reserves the right to reject the game, a limitation that I find unacceptable: in Ridge Racer it occasionally drops below 25 fps, but thanks to excellent programming it's impossible to notice."
Little was said at the meeting about the European launch of the PSX and details were scarce; this is because Sony does not want to let competing companies know too much. It is thought, however, that it should come out in September and should cost around $200 or $300. Ridge Racer will certainly be among the first titles available, but the rest (and the price according to the latest rumors about $40, or a little over sixty thousand liras) are just guesses. Only one thing is certain: each international version will be translated into the local language, and the work will be easier thanks to the optical media.
Unfortunately, the Japanese version of the machine will only be able to run Japanese software; oddly enough, in response to the question of whether games would be coded according to nationality, Sony said no. Officials have Sony clarified that the software will be compatible within three main areas: Japan, America, and Europe.
Surely o PlayStation is a great machine, but it should not be forgotten that for years high arcade technology has not always been synonymous with playability. It is always the same story: what matters is not so much what the PSX can do, but what the programmers will be able to get out of the machine.
Sony knows 'hardware well and has experience, but remember Betamax? Despite its superior quality to VHS it disappeared in a short time without a trace.... II 3DO, the supposed VHS of electronic entertainment, has yet to establish itself, while some say it never will (surely Sony thinks so). Sony believes that PlayStation will dominate the industry, taking a slice of the market of about 45 percent, but will others stand by and watch?
This is a three-way race in which it is necessary to cross the finish line before Nintendo and Sega; there is no doubt about the absolute quality of the PlayStation, but some developers have said with certainty that the Ultra 64, Nintendo's new machine, will make all its competitors eat the dust. No one at this point, however, dares to make bets because what matters is not the power of the hardware but the quality of the software, and that is precisely Nintendo's strength. As one deep industry insider rightly said, "Other machines may surpass the PlayStation hardware, but software will decide the winner. The battle has yet to begin."
