Sony Playstation
September 9, 1995
A new player entered the video game console market in North America thirty years ago today.
I was 15 years old when Playstation first hit store shelves in North America. The Sega Saturn was already available in the United States for five months at the time. At first, I wanted to get a Saturn, but a few things changed my mind. The most important factor was seeing quickly they dropped support for the Sega CD and 32X. If the cartridge port on the Saturn allowed the system to play Genesis and 32X games and if the optical drive were backwards compatible to play Sega CD games, I probably would have saved up to buy a Saturn instead.
The hype leading up to the release of Playstation was massive to begin with, but that hype grew even larger four months before it was released. At the 1995 E3, Sega CEO Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn console was already being shipped to stores and would retail for $399. Moments later, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President Steve Race stole the show by revealing that the Playstation would be $100 cheaper in what is remembered as the ultimate mic drop moment in the industry.
The first piece of Sony Playstation media that I saw was a demo disc called "Hear It Now! Play It Later!". It was given to people who preordered a Playstation, and it was one of the discs that was packed in with the console on release day. I don't remember how I managed to get my hands on it because I didn't preorder the console. I'm guessing that it was probably given to me by a friend who did.
There were five songs from Sony recording artists that you could listen to in any CD player. Those songs were:
The video above is a playlist of all of the songs that were on this disc. They're not bad, but the real attraction was the tech demos on this disc that you had to wait until the Playstation console was released to see.
The interactive videos on this disc was the first look that many gamers got at what the Playstation could do. It may not seem too impressive by 2025 standards, but it absolutely blew my mind in 1995.
