Sony Computer Entertainment of America debuts PlayStation, the next-generation video game system; advanced capabilities of CD-based system plus superb software selection make PlayStation an awesome achievement

Business Wire, May 11, 1995

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 1995--The $5.2 billion video game industry changes forever Thursday as Sony makes its formal debut with detailed announcements about plans for the PlayStation, a new CD-based game system already saluted by enthusiast magazines as the next-generation video game system for the North American marketplace.

The PlayStation is being introduced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), a video game industry trade show held in Los Angeles this week. The ship date for the PlayStation is confirmed for Saturday, Sept. 9. The video game system will be priced between $300-350.

The PlayStation delivers more than 500 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) of power, before now only available on $50,000 workstations, resulting in games with three-dimensional realism, CD-quality sound and motion picture-quality special effects that in some cases exceed the graphic quality of arcade versions.

"Our entry into the video game industry is a `good news/bad news' situation," said Steve Race, president of SCEA. "It's good news for anyone interested in video games that, for the first time, make the suspension of disbelief automatic -- it will be a graphically realistic dinosaur who attacks you -- not a brown blob with feet. For the people selling those other systems, PlayStation creates a bad news situation -- period."

In an industry so competitive it could inspire its own video game, SCEA enters with advantages that make this company the contender to beat. With annual worldwide sales of more than $40 billion, Sony is an international corporate, research and development heavyweight with the marketing muscle and savvy to enter and establish itself quickly in the field.

And as part of the nation's largest total entertainment companies, SCEA will be able to count on the cooperation of its sister companies to impact the industry the very first day that the PlayStation becomes available.

For example, beginning day one, the PlayStation's CD-based games will be pressed by the same domestic state-of-the-art plants that churn out millions of audio CDs for Sony's music companies, Epic and Columbia.

"The PlayStation represents the single largest launch for Sony as a corporation since the launch of the audio CD," said Olaf Olafsson, president of Sony Electronic Publishing Co., SCEA's parent company. "The dedication to developing a superior product, aligning with the best game developers and publishers, and our proven marketing abilities as a corporation are a positive sign for what can be expected."

If the PlayStation's reception in the United States is anything similar to what was experienced in Japan -- another video game-hungry country -- the system can only be judged an unqualified hit in its rookie year.

Following its early December 1994 debut, more than 300,000 PlayStation units were sold through to consumers during the first month, helping to make the PlayStation the No. 1-selling next-generation system in Japan. After just five months on the market, Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan will achieve its preliminary target of 1 million units by the end of May.

Helping propel the system to prominence in Japan is the selection of outstanding software which, on average, is selling at an impressive four-to-one ratio to the hardware system. Hit titles in Japan include the chart toppers "Ridge Racer" and "Tekken" from Namco; "Toh Shin Den" by Takara; "Parodius" by Konami; "Kileak the Blood" from Sony Music Entertainment (Japan); and Sony Computer Entertainment's own title, "Jumping Flash."

Stateside, the company's substantial marketing efforts will reflect a diversified approach targeting the retail trade and consumers, including national broadcast and print advertising campaigns, trial-based promotions, public relations, and the use of emerging media such as the Internet.

"Sony's proven track record in marketing consumer electronics and entertainment, our domestic infrastructure, combined with the proven power behind the PlayStation, gives us tremendous mileage with game developers, retailers, analysts and other decision makers in this business," said Race.

"Overwhelming support from the retail community in addition to more than 160 third-party software developers and publishers, such as Acclaim, Electronic Arts, Namco Hometek, Crystal Dynamics and Virgin Interactive, ensure an ongoing stream of great games in a wide variety of genres."

The PlayStation delivers radically enhanced gameplay via custom chip technology developed exclusively for Sony Computer Entertainment, and high-speed parallel processing, resulting in massive incremental power over video game systems with single processors.

Working in tandem, the PlayStation's multiple main processors deliver such special effects as 3-D polygon graphics; shading, fogging, digital lighting and texture-mapping; rotating and scaling; multiple camera angles; 24-channel CD-quality sound; "stream through video"; and 16 million colors that create the most realistic, most in-depth games ever available.