Successors
Sony's successor to the PlayStation is the PlayStation 2, which is backward compatible with its predecessor in that it can play almost every PlayStation game. This was done by embedding the most important parts of the PS one inside the PlayStation 2 design. Unlike emulators that run on a PC, the PlayStation 2 actually contains the original PlayStation processor, allowing games to run exactly as they do on the PlayStation. For PlayStation 2 games this processor, called the IOP, is used for input and output (memory cards, DVD drive, network, and hard drive). Like its predecessor, the PlayStation 2 is based on hardware developed by Sony itself.
The third generation of the PlayStation known as the PlayStation 3 (abbreviated PS3), was launched on November 11, 2006 in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe. The PlayStation 3 was initially backward compatible with all games that were originally made for PlayStation 1, but due to the removal of the PlayStation 2 chipset after the introduction of the 40 GB version, that capability is limited now to emulation. While PS3 games are not region-locked, PlayStation 1 games still only play on a PS3 console from the same territory.
The PlayStation Portable (officially PSP) is a handheld game console first released in late 2004. The PSP is capable of playing Playstation games downloaded via Sony's online store, and can also play any Playstation game by using the Playstation 3's remote play feature while the disc in the Playstation 3. Sony hopes to release nearly all PlayStation 1 games on a gradual basis. It is also possible to convert your original Playstation CDs into Eboot files using freely available software. These Eboots are then playable on PSPs that have been modified to run unsigned code.Legacy
The success of the PlayStation is widely believed to have influenced the demise of the cartridge-based home console. While not the first system to utilize an optical disc format, it was the first success story, and ended up going head-to-head with the last major home console to rely on proprietary cartridges—the Nintendo 64.
Nintendo was very public about its skepticism toward using CDs and DVDs to store games, citing longer load times and durability issues. It was widely speculated that the company was even more concerned with copyright infringement, given its substantial reliance on licensing and exclusive titles for its revenue.
The increasing complexity of games (in content, graphics, and sound) pushed cartridges to their storage limits and this fact began to turn off third party developers. Also, CDs were appealing to publishers due to the fact that they could be produced at a significantly lower cost and offered more flexibility (it was easy to change production to meet demand). In turn, they were able to pass the lower costs onto consumers. One major industry disadvantage of CDs was illegal copying due to the advent of CD burners and mod chips.[citation needed] The PlayStation's production was discontinued on March 23, 2006.
This article or section may require restructuring to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.Please discuss this issue on the talk page. (December 2006)
Advertisement controversy
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the PlayStation in 2005, Sony Italy released an advertisement portraying a young man wearing a crown of thorns (the thorns being made of 
, 
, 
, and 
symbols, the labels on the buttons of PlayStation controllers), on his head. The ad was captioned with "Dieci anni di passione" (in English, this translates to "Ten years of passion"). The ad, assumed to be a takeoff of Mel Gibson's 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ, was met with outrage from the Vatican. Sony apologized and removed the advertisement.
Quality of construction
The first batch of PlayStations used a KSM-440AAM laser unit whose case and all movable parts were completely made out of plastic. Over time, friction caused the plastic tray to wear out—usually unevenly. The placement of the laser unit close to the power supply accelerated wear because of the additional heat, which made the plastic even more vulnerable to friction. Eventually, the tray would become so worn that the laser no longer pointed directly at the CD and games would no longer load. Sony eventually fixed the problem by making the tray out of die-cast metal and placing the laser unit farther away from the power supply on later models of the PlayStation.
Some units, particularly the early 100x models, would be unable to play FMV or music correctly, resulting in skipping or freezing. In more extreme cases the PlayStation would only work correctly when turned onto its side or upside down.
Technical specifications
- Central processing unit
MIPS R3000A-compatible (R3051) 32bit RISC chip running at 33.8688 MHz
The chip is manufactured by LSI Logic Corp. with technology licensed from SGI. The chip also contains the Geometry Transformation Engine and the Data Decompression Engine.
- Operating performance of 30 MIPS
- Bus bandwidth 132 MB/s
- 4 KB Instruction Cache
- 1 KB non-associative SRAM Data Cache
- Geometry transformation engine
This engine is inside the main CPU chip. It gives it additional vector math instructions used for the 3D graphics.
Features:
- Operating performance of 66 MIPS
- 360,000 flat-shaded polygons per second
- 180,000 texture mapped and light-sourced polygons per second
Sony originally gave the polygon count as:
- 1 million flat-shaded polygons per second;
- 500,000 texture mapped and light-sourced polygons per second.
These figures were given as a ballpark figure for performance under optimal circumstances, and so are unrealistic under normal usage.
- Data decompression engine
This engine is also inside the main CPU. It is responsible for decompressing images and video. Documented device mode is to read three RLE-encoded 16×16 macroblocks, run IDCT and assemble a single 16×16 RGB macroblock. Output data may be transferred directly to GPU via DMA. It is possible to overwrite IDCT matrix and some additional parameters, however MDEC internal instruction set was never documented.
Features:
- Graphics processing unit
This chip is separate to the CPU and handles all the 2D graphics processing, which includes the transformed 3D polygons.
Features:
- Maximum of 16.7 million colors (24-bit color depth)
- Resolutions from 256×224 to 640×480
- Adjustable frame buffer
- Unlimited color lookup tables Maximum of 4000 8×8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation
- Emulation of simultaneous backgrounds (for parallax scrolling)
- Flat or Gouraud shading, and texture mapping
- Sound processing unit
Features:
- Memory
- Main RAM: 2 MB
- Video RAM: 1 MB
- Sound RAM: 512 KB CD-ROM Buffer: 32 KB
- Operating System ROM: 512 KB
- PlayStation Memory Cards have 128 KB of space in an EEPROM
- CD-ROM drive
Features:
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