| attaboy said: I see that a lot. Sony and the PS1 are what expanded the gaming industry, made it something that was more than just for kids, released the mature games, etc. I got a PS1 back in 1997 and enjoyed it. It was a great console but really, what did Sony do? Mature games? Nothing new. Mortal Kombat, Chiller, Shadowgate, etc. were available long before Sony entered the market. Great IPs? Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Mega Man, Street Fighter etc. were already available elsewhere. Sports games? Madden, NHL, WWE, FIFA, MLB, etc. were staples of gaming since the 80's. CD Roms? Tons of consoles already released CD Rom games. Even some of the bigger PS1 titles (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil) were available on Sega Saturn. So, what was it about the PS1 that made the industry explode the way it did? I experienced it and I still don't get it! Did everyone just fuck up so much that Sony won by default? Were Sony such masters of gaming and marketing right out of the gate? Enlighten me. |
Nintendo and to a lesser amount Sega had problems to get into the european market. Ghosts (and lawyers) of Atari, different languages, different market barriers and so on. Don't forget, back then it wasn't the european union, the countries had different currencies, different taxes, different customs duties. Sony already had established contacts into europe with their other products. That and marketing (the ads for champions league, football(soccer for you americans) is much more important here in europe) made the Playstation successful here and grew the market. I don't have numbers, I'm interested how much of the market for Playstation was in europe and how much in the US and Japan.
