I think the biggest factor was Sony being such a gigantic conglomerate at the time. They had their hands in music, movies, electronics, television. They had the marketing dollars, clout, and a distribution network that permeated a huge chunk of the globe. I think having such a huge global presence also helped persuade 3rd parties.

But still, at this point in time Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Atari, Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, etc, have all had experience in gaming before, but it is still hard to imagine that any of them would release a full-on gaming console next year and it would manage to outsell the others out of the gate.

Sony hadn’t made a home console prior to the PS1, so yeah, Sony was a newcomer to the home console market.

You are not understanding what is being said but then again probably just wanting to argue again so meh.

This. Playstation was completely out of my mind until I learned that one of my favorite series was going to appear exclusively on PS1. I rented the console and FFVII for a weekend, played like a madman during those two days and the deal was done. I needed to buy a Playstation ASAP!

Playstation was successful for three key reasons:

1. Pricing competitiveness. When Sega Saturn announced their price of $399, Playstation undercut them by selling it at $299 (despite them initially planning for a $399 launch). Before Nintendo entered the scene they dropped the price again to $199. The cost of games was also very minimal. Many games cost $40-$50 new. Some even cost $30, and prices dropped more significantly. Meanwhile, N64 game prices were at least $60 and some as high as $80 or $90. Playstation was cheap for all consumers.

2. Ease for developers. Not only was the Playstation hardware easier to develop for than both the N64 and Saturn, but Playstation had little restriction for publishers on their console. This was much different than years previous where Nintendo had very high restrictions and limited/censored content for audiences.

3. Marketing. Playstation was a marketing beast. There were many different slogans, mascots, etc. The image was both kid friendly and "mature". They were edgy and casual, it was a perfect balance. Hundreds of millions went into marketing the Playstation. In just the UK a hundred thousand was used just in impromptu marketing each year...that's in one small region for specific marketing...every year. I don't have data for the entirety of the Playstation era, but I'd be willing to bet it was upwards of $500 million dollars on the very low end.

I understand that when the OP mentions “first foray into the game industry”, he means it as a console maker. This is made obvious by what he elaborates afterwards.

I had a Sega Megadrive and I sold it along with my Sega games to pick up a PS1. The reason I did this was because my buddy had a PS1 and he had Digimon World, and I wanted that too. That's all there was to it for me.

I didn't know which company made what console at the time, I didn't think about things like that. Similarly the entire concept of a console generation was alien to me.

Because of price and games

1) cheaper to produce games for.
2) 3D graphics.
3) money hatting publishers.
4) developers and publishers freedom to do what they wanted.