Alternate history: Sony don't join the console race

[zorg1000]

SvennoJ said:

zorg1000 said:

I really think the whole “PlayStation made gaming cool for older gamers” is overplayed. That’s just a side effect of 80s kids becoming teens/young adults & graphics becoming more realistic in the mid-late 90s.

For example, let’s say you were born in 1980 and got an NES with Super Mario Bros in 1986, then got a Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991. That kid is now 16-18 when games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy & Metal Gear Solid released on PS1. Kids who play games become teens & adults who play games.

As for graphics playing a part, a bunch of games in the late 80s wouldn’t have been viewed as kids games if graphics weren’t so primitive, some examples are Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Castlevania, Splatterhouse, Metal Gear, Altered Beast, etc.

In 92/93 we started to see games like Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, Wolfenstein & Doom make waves for their depictions of violence, not because games all of a sudden became violent but because advancements in technology made the violence more realistic.

PlayStation became the “cool” console for teens & adults but they didn’t create that market, the industry was already trending in that direction and would have continued to with or without PS, what Sony did do was capitalize on the mistakes that Sega & Nintendo were making with their hardware in that time period and became the go-to console for those games.

I lived through it (born in the mid 70s), gaming wasn't cool. I got bullied for it in high school and firmly put in the nerd category...

NES and SNES had the stigma they were for young kids. And even us playing on Amiga 500/PC was not cool. We though Wolfenstein and Doom were revolutionary, but the rest of the school, the popular kids had zero interest. Gaming had the same 'stigma' as AD&D and board games. 

Our exposure to PS1 came from Night clubs, going out to drink/dance and then finding PS1s playing Gran Turismo in the chill out area. So we got hooked on playing GT after the clubs closed.

Yes Sony created that market, and thanks to the exposure to PS1 which became accepted to be played by 16+, N64 faced a lot less resistance. But PS1 was the cool games machine we took to work to play in the break room, next to playing PC in Lan after work at work.

I’m sorry but your anecdotal evidence of getting bullied in high school for being a gamer then playing PS1 with your work buddies as an adult doesn’t convince me.

It’s just simple math, 80s kids grew up in the 90s and the market grew up with them. What Sony does deserve credit for was making a well-rounded piece of hardware that was developer friendly while Nintendo made the mistake of going with cartridges and Sega was doing everything in their power to self-destruct which led to PS1 becoming the primary console for this demographic.