And who says that Sony needed to save anything back in the 90s? The game industry was growing well on its own before Sony stepped in. People like to forget but there were others who were there who could have just as easily took it if it wasn't for Sony. 3DO, Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar all could have taken a solid share. The industry would have grown and thrived the same if Sony was or was not there.

Really.  I mean we could use the same excuse for Nintendo and Sega.  Nintendo got lucky that the video game market crashed before they decided to jump in.  That way there was little serious competition when people were ready to game, again.  Sega got luck that Nintendo screwed up by restricting 3rd parties, that all they had to do was give them more freedom to get great support.

I almost never see people talk about PS1 games anymore, only exceptions are Crash, Spyro and FF VII.

SM64 was light years ahead of Crash Bandicoot trilogy, so was Banjo-Kazooie. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are still talked about a lot these days and are considered to be some of the best games ever made. Goldeneye OO7 is often considered to be the first good FPS on consoles, and rightfully so. Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing were better than Crash Team Racing (which was a Mario Kart rip off). The N64 also gave birth to the most succesful fighting game franchise ever: Super Smash Bros. To this day people can't seem to shut up about the greatness that was Star Fox 64. In JRPGs the PS1 had a huge advantage, but Paper Mario is still considered one of the best JRPGs ever made. The N64 even hade some pretty awesopme Star Wars games.

And PS1 games definitely don't look better than N64 games. The funny thing is, a lot of PS1 games were pretty small in scope despite CDs being superior to cartridges. Examples include Metal Gear Solid 1 which you can easily beat in a couple of hours (not including cutscenes) and the Crash Bandicoot trilogy which has incredibly linear and straight level design. It's practically a 2D platformer tbh.

I guess most of the memory of PS1 games was filled up with cheesy voice acting and FMV. Things that might have been selling points at the time, but they have aged horribly.

I can say with full confidence that the PS1 didn't have games that aged as well as Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask or SM64 (that camera aged terribly though, lol).

And this is coming from a guy who grew up with the PS1, I never even heard of the N64 in my childhood. Syphon Filter, Crash Bandicoot trilogy, Crash Team Racing, Soul Blade, Metal Gear Solid 1, Gran Turismo I've all played and finished.

Yes, Sony just got lucky...Lol

OT.

One could say that someone else would have just filled their spot, a very reasonable possibility, but I hope people think the same way about any of the other console makers when they say something like that.

Nintendo didn't save anything.  They were just in the right place at the right time.  If it wasn't them, then someone else would have come in, instead.  Or so I've been told.

I think without the PS brand, the game industry would carry on as usual. A lot of other things could have happened, like Ninten leading in the industry, or doing better in sales without Sony as a rival, or things would have continued between Ninten and Sega. MS I think was going to enter the industry even without Sony present, as they seemed to have interest in entering the business. Maybe it would have been MS vs Sega vs Ninten. MS would have been a big influence with online gaming, which would have prompted the move to online anyways. Ninten did experiment too with online, so that would have happened naturally with time. Another option is that someone else could have filled in Sony`s place as another competitor in the industry. Although the industry would have moved slower, it would have carried on without Sony.

No. The industry is currently facing a quality crisis BECAUSE of playstation and, to a lesser extent, xbox. without it, we would probably be getting much more games like the ones from the 90's and before.

"Without Sony and MS, the industry would be much weaker with just Nintendo and Sega, a 3rd console manufacturer could enter but I doubt they'd be as serious as Sony and MS. I can imagine a few companies trying like NEC etc"

Why would it be weaker? two is only behind a single company as the best number.

"So my conclusion is, without Sony targeting the young adults and +30 age groups"

This myth should be forgotten. video games didn't change with playstation. we got the same games as before + the ones made possible with polygons. Sony didn't target adults, they simply liked the games, games that would be on other consoles if playstation wasn't a thing.

That's not how things work. if nintendo hadn't saved the industry, things would have gone way differently. Probably for the worse.

Wrong my friend. This industry is a pile of trash now, and thats thanks to Sony and Microsoft.

Luck was part of it. Sony was able to easily take the market because of mistakes with other platforms.

With Saturn and Dreamcast, Sega didn't cater to 3rd parties and that's what consumers desired. The Saturn was also over priced and that gave an edge to Playstation. By the time N64 hit the market Playstation was already gaining great support while the N64 had few games.

The success of Xbox 360 was also luck, MS got lucky Sony made a machine that was too expensive for the average consumer.