1995 was a simpler time. Before ray tracing and 4K, before every game required you to have an internet connection for some reason, the PS1 was just… the PlayStation. Originally an ill-starred collaboration with Nintendo, Sony’s first foray into console gaming launched in North America in September 1995, and it was a resounding success soon after. Though the Sega Saturn beat it to market by five months, the PlayStation eclipsed its rival’s sales in the U.S. in only two days.
Like many consumer electronics of the late ’90s and early ’00s, the PlayStation console had a lot of personality. The Discman-inspired gray aesthetic with intermittent pops of color was instantly iconic, in a way the PS5’s popped-collar vibes could never hope to emulate. The symbols on the buttons (triangle, square, etc.) became a shorthand for all things PlayStation, much like mushrooms and coin blocks are metonymous with Mario.
PlayStation wasn’t the first CD-driven console to boast 3D graphics — there were actually quite a few of them! But it was the one that made the format mainstream and affordable for the masses. Sony dropped the price of its hardware from $299 to $199 a year after launch, which further supercharged sales. (Remember when hardware prices got lower over the course of a generation? A simpler time.) The PS1 was the launch pad for dozens of blockbuster franchises that are still huge today, like Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Gran Turismo, and Tekken. It was also a fertile garden for experimental and just plain weird games, in a way that the PlayStation 5 simply is not.
One of the weirdest was actually the system’s second-best selling game, and you’ve undoubtedly heard of it: Final Fantasy 7. In it, you join an explicitly anti-capitalist eco-terrorism group and repeatedly beat up the executives of a public utility firm. There is an extensive quest about cross-dressing set in a sexy nightclub, wherein you obtain a pair of bikini briefs from a man named Muuki who invites you to join his “young Bubbys group” and later laments that “Daddy’s so lonely.” Also, one of your party members clearly abuses his domestic partner, but it’s played for laughs. In contrast, 2023’s Final Fantasy 16 (a PS5 timed exclusive) sees your protagonist opposing slavery and having tasteful heterosexual coitus on a deserted island. It’s a rousing adventure, but I wouldn’t call a fantasy inspired by Game of Thrones “weird.”
The PlayStation 4 and 5 eras have largely prioritized tentpole blockbusters: Think The Last of Us, Spider-Man, God of War, and Elden Ring. (This era also has Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which is wonderful in many ways, but eliminates much of the weirdo jank or the original.) These are polished, cinematic experiences intended to produce eight-figure sales numbers, and maybe even spinoff TV shows and movies. And many, if not all of these Big Modern Games are fantastic. They’re beautiful, they’re fun to play, they’ve driven the medium forward. But they do share a common flavor, and sometimes you want to change things up.
First- and third-party devs for the PS1 weren’t as consistently concerned with “pushing” Sony’s hardware in the way we think of it today. There was room for a paper cutout rhythm game like PaRappa the Rapper alongside cinematic action-thrillers like Metal Gear Solid and pixel-art turn-based RPGs like Suikoden. For every Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or Resident Evil, there was the Boku no Natsuyasumi series about a kid’s summer vacation in rural Japan, the cowboy RPG series Wild Arms, or LSD Dream Emulator, a conceptual exploration game where anything you touch transports you to a new location and every run ends after 10 minutes.
None of this is meant to imply that indie, lo-fi, AA, or plain ol’ weird games have gone away since the PS1’s heyday. On the contrary, there are more of them than ever, and that’s indisputably a good thing! Just this year, we’ve had off-the-wall gems like Promise Mascot Agency, Blue Prince, and Despelote. But, for the moment anyway, they’re not endemic to any one platform — and if they are, it’s probably Steam or Nintendo Switch. There are recent exceptions, of course: Helldivers 2 has a distinctly AA feel (complimentary), while Astro Bot is a AAA game that’s endearingly besotted with Sony’s AA past. Even today, there remains a scrappy, unpolished charm to the PS1 library, and Astro Bot’s eagerness to revisit and revel in that aspect of Sony’s history is a big part of its appeal.
In an interview earlier this year with Forbes, former PlayStation VP of third-party relations Adam Boyes made the analogy that “PlayStation is HBO, Microsoft is Netflix, and Nintendo is Disney.” It’s a fitting comparison, even beyond the obvious The Last of Us of it all. Even so, I can’t help but be nostalgic for the years when Sony’s programming felt more like the loopy stew of Adult Swim.
