We all like to think Nintendo is the platform holder that pushes novel, somewhat gimmicky hardware onto us gamers. But they're not the only ones. PlayStation also has a history of unique hardware and gimmicks. Some have succeeded and revolutionized gaming, others... Not so much.

PlayStation:

CD-ROM
Beastly Audio Chip
DualShock
PocketStation

PlayStation 2:

Emotion Engine and it's Vector Units
Pressure Sensitive buttons
DVD-Rom and DVD-Video playback
EyeToy
SingStar

PlayStation Portable:

UMD
XMB features
Remote Play

PlayStation 3:

CELL and its eight SPEs
Blu-Ray
Sixaxsis
Eye of Judgement
PlayStation Move
Wonderbook

PlayStation Vita:

Back touchpad
OLED
Near

PlayStation 4:

Share Button and Gameplay Recording
Touchpad
Speaker
Lightbar
VR
PlayLink

PlayStation 5:

SSD I/O
DualSense
3D Audio 
PlayStation Portal

Which of these PlayStation innovations do you consider the best, and which are the worst?

Best: CD-ROM

Though the load times kinda sucked, the extra storage space allowed for a lot of things that were difficult to impossible to replicate on a cartridge. I don't know if I'd call this a "PS gimmick" though as the PS1 was far from the first console to use CDs, just the most successful.

Worst: PS Portal

Sounds like a cool idea on paper, but in practise the lag can make fast paced games a nightmare.

It wasn't, but being one of the first 3D-focused systems, the PlayStation was the first console that felt like it was powerful enough to actually do anything useful with the format, compared to the rather lame implementations on Sega CD and such. It also helped that Sony co-created and co-owns the CD format with Philips, so they had some vertical integration with their CD pressing plants.

Technically the Saturn beat the PS1 to market, and was quite powerful for its time. PS1 was just more popular.

Vita backpad. i get the idea behind it, but they should've just gone with 2 back buttons instead.

It got regulated to just being like L2 and R2, but harder to use.

I pick Playstation Move. It literally looks like a light up sex toy and it was an obvious and awkward attempt to cash in on the motion craze (that Nintendo realized had already gone bust). I remember being at the E3 when it was revealed and the cringe in the room where it was unveiled was palpable. It didn’t help that they really didn’t have a good presentation planned for it either.

Suckassis was the worst, imo. Man, did I hate that controller. Still get chills whenever I hear Bentley's voice, Ready for some HACKING, SLY?!?!

Shudder.

Best: Dual Analog by far (More a ground breaking feature than a gimmick though).

Worst: Sixaxis.

Best: PSVR, but I wouldn't call it a gimmick though and it didn't attract much attention...

Wost: Wonderbook, It only has one paragraph explanation on Wikipedia. It quickly disappeared again and unless you want to see it as a precursor to QR codes, it didn't lead to anything.




Best gimmick: DVD playback. It's not anything essential to a console, but it sure attracted attention and got a lot more people to buy PS2.

Presentation was bad, but Sports champions gladiator duel worked real 1:1, blocking and sword fighting worked perfectly. Pixeljunk 3AM was a great way to make music with Move, table tennis felt like real table tennis, moving back and forth to the 'table', Tumble was awesome and using Move with KillZone 3 was quite fun.

Plus it led to PSVR and allowed many like myself to jump into VR without having to buy a camera and new controllers.

Was it to cash in on the motion craze? Maybe. Eye Toy was long out on PS2 and plans for Move existed since 2003 or so
https://web.archive.org/web/20080106230108/http://www.joystiq.com/2005/10/03/sony-has-its-own-magic-wand-in-the-works/

December 2004 Sony filed a patent for Move.

But sure the release in 2010 was likely because of the success of the Wii Mote.