Specs:

• Analog Joystick
• Memory Card
• Processor: 32 bit RISC processor
• Clock- 33.8688MHz

Who hasn’t played the Sony Playstation, or at least heard about the Sony Playstation? Not a damn person on this planet! (Unless you’re in a coma or just plain retarded).  This extremely popular gaming system based on a CD-ROM system really revolutionized the gaming industry.  Interestingly it supposedly started out as collaboration between Nintendo and Sony as an update to the Nintendo SNES system. Licensing disagreements interfered with the business relationships between these two heavy weights, resulting in Sony going solo with their project.  The Playstation was successful in every market imaginable.  It did extremely well in the North American, Latin American, European and the Asian market.  It was an outright successful system unsurpassed in its marketing diversity.  It probably didn’t hurt that it cost less than its competitor of the time (the Sega Saturn).

An interesting feature about this system (at least to me) is the naming nomenclature of this system.  There have been many revisions and many “models” of the Playstation that it would be useful to elaborate a little on this fact.

The last digit of the Playstation number tells you what country the system is from

• 0 – Japan   (Japanese bios and NTSC and Region 2 )
• 1 – USA/ Canada  ( English bios and NTSC,  Region 1)
• 2 – Europe  (English bios and PAL region)
•  3 – Asia  (English bios, NTSC and J region)

One of the strengths of the Sony Playstation is the vast amount of video games available for this system.  There can be found literally thousands of games from the North American, European, and Asian markets. All genres are well represented and the game are very easily obtained and at a low cost.  A modified Playstation that uses a mod-chip will allow you to play “back-up” disks as well as games from another restricted region. Obviously the problem with these mod-chips is that it allows you to circumvent the copyright and the region restrictions of the software.  This is extremely problematic to the programming and developing companies which code for the Sony Playstation.  People use this modification for bootlegging the software games. Today you can basically get every single Sony Playstation game off the internet and play to your hearts desire, both on the actual console as well as the emulating programs which are widely available. It’s incredible to see how easily available the gaming software can be obtained off of the internet. Some of the emulators can’t play the games at the same speed and there are subtle differences that add up.  This will probably change with advancing technology, such as dual processors and upscale memory on PC’s.  Newer versions of emulation programs continue to be released to take advantage of these upgrades, and will soon be close to flawless in a few years.

 

The accessories available for the Playstation are quite remarkable too.  You will find a heap of third party accessories available for this system. The controllers are ergonomically adapted to fit in your hand comfortably.  There are some differences in the controllers that one should be educated on. The earlier versions of the Playstation came out without analog joysticks and no rumble capacity.  You will notice that the later versions have 2 little control sticks incorporated into the joystick and that they have a rumble pack built into the controller. Finally there is an uncommon version of the controller which has analog support (with the two little control sticks) but no rumble pack.  The later generation controllers are called the dual shock controller.  Obviously these are more advanced than the plain stick-less controllers. You have the capacity to toggle analog on the Playstation controllers as well, so the later versions are by far the ones to purchase, since some of the newer games require analog and will try to detect the presence of an analog controller. There are some really quirky controllers and innovative controllers for this system as well.  One of my favorites is made by a third party and is called the FANATAC SPEEDSTER controller.  It allows the unit to rotate within a specified axis to help with the precision of moves and easier use for button depression and release.  It’s pretty cool.  You can pick one up off of EBAY if you’re interested in checking it out.

The earliest models of the Playstation seemed to have a design flaw.  Longevity of these units is compromised.  The laser reader would eventually go off track and no longer be able to read the disks.  This was probably because of the heat generated by the unit and the friction caused by the unit reading the disk.  Over a long period of time this friction caused significant wear that the unit could not read the tracks correctly on the CDs.  Sony changed the over all design in the later units.  The smaller and more compact PS Ones have really been durable for me.  My original Playstation 1 – SCPH 1001, eventually died on me for the above reasons. I love the Playstation.  I still play it today.  I did get my unit modified and it provides me countless hours of entertainment.

Accessories:

• Dance Dance  Revolution controllers
• Beat Mania controllers
• Dual Shock controllers
• Pro shock arcade controller
• Pelican Big controller
• Playstation game pad performance controller
• Logitech action game controller
• Namco arcade controller
• Big Deal pack controller (with game)
• PS Arcade controller
• Barbie controller
• Piranha pad controller
• Hais Playstation mini controller
• Omega 2 controller
• PS One Ultra performance racer controller
• Intec digital controller
• PS turbo controller
• Blaze 3d viper controller
• Blaze Cyber shock controller
• Playstation thrust master  freestyler controller
• Barracuda controller

Are you looking to purchase Sony Playstation 1 Games?

 

 

Good Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation

http://www.whatconsole.co.uk/psone.php

http://www.consoledatabase.com/consoleinfo/sonyplaystation/index.html