Why Were Playstation 1 and 2 So Popular?

[MW7]

I'm an extremely ignorant Nintendo fanboy; I'll admit that. I can understand how people can choose one console over another, but in the case of Playstation 1 and 2 I just can't comprehend the extent of their popularity. Playstation 1 outsold the Nintendo 64 by more than three to one, and Playstation 2 outsold the Nintendo Gamecube by nearly eight to one. Can someone explain why this happened?

My point of view is that people buy systems for the games that you know or expect to be released. Nintendo already had multiple immensely popular series before the release of the Nintendo 64. The highest selling game of all time (non-bundled) at that point was Super Mario Bros. 3 iirc with 18 million. The three console Zelda games had combined for over 15 million in sales. Now if you played any of those games, wouldn't you be eagerly anticipating the new 3d Mario and Zelda games? Once Goldeneye 007 was released wouldn't the word of mouth on how awesome it was make you want to buy a N64? The N64 ended up selling under 33 million consoles. What was it about Playstation 1 that made it sell 102 million consoles? It had the immense disadvantage of being new to the market so it didn't have loyal customers as Nintendo probably had. Did the Playstation 1 just appeal to a whole new market of people kind of like how the Nintendo Wii appealed to a wider range of customers?

Playstation 2 doesn't confuse me as much because at that point Sony had fans of its predecessor who awaited the new console. However, the huge sales numbers are still a little baffling to me- it has sold 156 million consoles compared to less than 22 million for the Gamecube (I even bought 3 of them myself). Can someone shed some light on how this happened? Was it third party support or something else?

I guess part of mystery to me is also how it seems like everyone had a Nintendo 64. Everywhere I turn I hear about how great Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and Goldeneye 007 were. Where are all these fans of Sony hiding? It's just not because I'm on a Zelda fansite either, I hear it out in the real world all the time. Out of all my friends and acquantices, I knew many (double digits) people with a N64 but only two who had a Playstation. The same thing happened with Playstation 2; I knew five people with a Gamecube and we all made fun of the kid who bought the PS2 so that he could play a rugby game. Is this all just a weird coincidence or some conspiracy? I never even met a person who had played a Final Fantasy game until I was 18 (three years ago).

 

[A Link In Time]

Playstation 1 and 2 were so popular because they were some of the most affordable CD and DVD players on the market, respectively. Also, Sony had immense third party support and was dedicated in supporting its own consoles for a decade. After the success of the PS1, fans naturally swooped in for a second helping. Pricing, however, is derailing Son currently although the PS3 and PSP have shifted impressive amounts just not as much as the company's previous videogame endeavors.

 

[zack125]

I know for sure that the GameCube didn't exactly bring anything new when it was first released so I think that's why it ended up in third.

 

[Onilink89]

Fist of all, Nintendo was actually the cause of the playstation's excistence. Nintendo gave rights to Sony and Philips.
During the SNES's life, Nintendo contracted with two different companies to develop a CD-ROM-based peripheral for the console to compete with Sega's CD-ROM based addon, Mega-CD. Ultimately, negotiations with both Sony and Philips fell through, and Sony went on to develop its own console based on its initial dealings with Nintendo (the PlayStation), with Philips gaining the right to release a series of titles based on Nintendo franchises for its CD-i multimedia player.

Indeed third party developers played a huge factor with the playstation. Most third party developers wanted to move to CD technoligy, but nintendo refused to build a console with CD technoligy with the N64. So playstation simply grabbed that chance.

 

[Emma]

You answered your own question. Third party support. Nintendo was terrible, TERRIBLE at this. Nintendo had stubbornly refused to convert to the CD format. But the Playstation comes out with that format. It can hold far more, and is considerably cheaper. The third parties absolutely loved it. Not only that, Sony treated them way better than Nintendo ever did. And then, in the next generation, Playstation 2 is now on the DVD format, but Nintendo has yet again rather stubbornly refused to go with the flow and instead of using the DVD format, they made their own, smaller, inferior format that was more expensive to produce on and had less space on it. Add onto that that Nintendo yet again didn't treat third parties well. Sony never had that problem because they treated them far better. So the Sony platforms had far more games, whereas the only notable games on Nintendo platforms usually are first party games. Playstation 1 and 2 were far more open to the industry and didn't try to tell third parties so much what they could and couldn't do, unlike Nintendo. So they very quickly took their place in the market. In addition, Microsoft did the same thing as Sony and treated third parties respectfully, though they weren't as good as Sony at keeping up with the storage formats.

 

[Poe]

Personally, I loved the PSone more than I did the N64.

Jade Cocoon. Pandemonium. Rayman. Crash Bandicoot. Tomb Raider.

All games I can remember spending hours playing. I tend to think that the first console gained a lot of consumers, at least in terms of the UK, due to the latter franchise. There was a female heroine and there was a game actually developed in the UK which seemed to lose part of it's charm upon switching developers.

The PS2 I never really got into, I was still using the PSone, but it has a decent enough library. A few Crash games and Rayman games spring to mind. As you stated yourself though, by that point there was an established fan base.

 

[MW7]

Thanks everyone. I was skeptical that third party support and choice of software medium could play such a huge role and end up leading to a difference of billions of dollars for one company over another. It makes perfect sense though.

Also it's kind of funny how most of my friends are massive Nintendo fanboys so I've basically been completely sheltered from the Playstation brand and its strengths.

 

[StarBound]

The PS was the first "3-D" console. I put that in quotes because StarFox on the SNES was kinda like 3-D and also the Virtual Boy came out but that system failed. From what I have heard, people haven't seen anything like it. It made survival horror famous with a game called Resident Evil and made the stealth genre more popular with Metal Gear Solid. Final Fantasy 7 made a stop to fanboy city(there are so many FF7 fanboys) . Pretty much, the PlayStation was revolutionary. Back then there were good Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games( In my opinion, these 2 franchises are kinda dead right now). Now with the PS2, I don't really know why. The GameCube and the original XBox were much more powerful systems graphics and hardware wise. Even the Sega Dreamcast in some cases was superior to the PS2. Everybody at my school had a PS2. Games like GTA and God of War pretty much made the system. And lets not forget about Sony fanboys. Sony fanboys are probably the worst type of fanboys on the face of the planet.

 

[A Link In Time]

The PS was the first "3-D" console. I put that in quotes because StarFox on the SNES was kinda like 3-D and also the Virtual Boy came out but that system failed. From what I have heard, people haven't seen anything like it. It made survival horror famous with a game called Resident Evil and made the stealth genre more popular with Metal Gear Solid. Final Fantasy 7 made a stop to fanboy city(there are so many FF7 fanboys) . Pretty much, the PlayStation was revolutionary. Back then there were good Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games( In my opinion, these 2 franchises are kinda dead right now). Now with the PS2, I don't really know why. The GameCube and the original XBox were much more powerful systems graphics and hardware wise. Even the Sega Dreamcast in some cases was superior to the PS2. Everybody at my school had a PS2. Games like GTA and God of War pretty much made the system. And lets not forget about Sony fanboys. Sony fanboys are probably the worst type of fanboys on the face of the planet.

I would say the N64 was the first true "3-D" system. PS1 tried and failed.

 

[Ventus]

I don't know why huge groups of people loved PS1/PS2, but I know why I flocked to PS1 and PS2. It wasn't disc space, it wasn't "this is better than that". It was simply another console with which to play awesome games. Back in the days of PS1, there were no wars I was aware of. All of my friends would play any console that was available, because games of all kinds were available on pretty much any. Shooting games weren't exactly on the N64 (barring Goldeneye and PD), so we went to PS1 for that. Mario and Zelda weren't on the PS1, so we went to N64 for that.

Come PS2, I went to it for big games. The graphics were amazing. LAN support was awesome (for the few games that supported it). Games were huge. Gameplay was great. The GameCube didn't offer the same experience as the PS2 as far as quality titles in my honest opinion. That's not to say one is worse than the other (GC has better shaders iirc), but I definitely didn't play the same kinds of titles on GC as I did PS2.

 

[guapo2003]

It's because it was something that wasn't Nintendo and PS were able to make games for their systems that I'm sure Nintendo wouldn't allow. Plus the fact they were disks and that was the beginning of the trend, which Nintendo figured that out with the Gamecube. Pus being able to use a memory card and take it with you was alot easier than bringing a cartridge over to your friends house. Plus you can't forget about the graphics alteast for the PS2.

 

[A Link In Time]

I don't know why huge groups of people loved PS1/PS2, but I know why I flocked to PS1 and PS2. It wasn't disc space, it wasn't "this is better than that". It was simply another console with which to play awesome games. Back in the days of PS1, there were no wars I was aware of. All of my friends would play any console that was available, because games of all kinds were available on pretty much any. Shooting games weren't exactly on the N64 (barring Goldeneye and PD), so we went to PS1 for that. Mario and Zelda weren't on the PS1, so we went to N64 for that.

Come PS2, I went to it for big games. The graphics were amazing. LAN support was awesome (for the few games that supported it). Games were huge. Gameplay was great. The GameCube didn't offer the same experience as the PS2 as far as quality titles in my honest opinion. That's not to say one is worse than the other (GC has better shaders iirc), but I definitely didn't play the same kinds of titles on GC as I did PS2.

I noticed a common misconception in your post. The Cube had a stronger GPU than the PS2.

 

[Emma]

I noticed a common misconception in your post. The Cube had a stronger GPU than the PS2.

This is true. The PS2 was forced to use rather limiting triangles. The GameCube could use full polygons. Games ported to both systems, such as Star Wars Bounty Hunter, had a higher graphical quality on the GameCube.

HOWEVER, this is not enough to save the system from the rest of its faults. Nintendo kept up the bad attitude towards third parties and was lagging behind in the storage formats.

 

[Onilink89]

Well this time Nintendo is admitting their own mistakes and will try to bring more third party support with the Wii U and 3DS.

Yeah there was a time that the third party developers asked Nintendo, but now nintendo is asking the third party developers.

 

[Reaca]

Many people moved from Nintendo consoles to Sony ones because of Final Fantasy. That's one reason why the N64 didn't do as well as the PS1. Plus, the PS1 and 2 had really strong third party support.