Originally Posted by
WelcomeToTheNextLevel
Full disclosure: this is how I understand the time period, I was still only 2 years old when the PlayStation launched.
The PlayStation was the only piece of hardware of its generation that did pretty much everything right, everyone else made some major mistake somewhere.
Let's look at what was available on September 9, 1995:
-The 16-bit leaders, SNES and Sega Genesis/CD. These are aging, people might still be buying them as first systems (for kids or other new entrants to video gaming) or replacement systems, but their heyday is past.
-The 3DO. It's been out for two years, it has a significant software library, and it's the same price as the PlayStation at $299 by this point. Its two-year-old hardware design is showing, it's underpowered compared to the PlayStation and Saturn.
-The Atari Jaguar. It's dying by 1995, it couldn't even compete with the 3DO. The raft of games launched in late '95 make it look like a pathetic joke next to the PlayStation and Saturn. The Jag CD launched two days later, this was an obvious last-ditch attempt by Atari just to stay in the market.
-The Sega 32X. It was dying almost on arrival, seen as pointless next to the Saturn, Sega's true 32-bit system.
-The Sega Saturn. This was the best 32-bit system out at the time. It's $399, so you pay for the privilege, and the software library is still small. Sega made a major mistake launching this thing early, it didn't make a good first impression with consumers, and with limited supply, retailers got pissed off.
Realistically, only the Saturn was a meaningful competitor. The Jag and 32X were dying already even without the PlayStation to worry about. The 3DO launched too early and once the PlayStation came out, its games looked woefully inadequate. Sony had their shit together, they emphasized third-party development, their system was easy to develop for and strong on the 3D graphics in high demand in the era, and at only $299 was far cheaper than the Saturn and the same price as the aging 3DO. Sony's biggest threat was still a year away from launching: the Nintendo Ultra 64.
The Saturn put up a fight for a while but ultimately folded halfway through the generation to Sony's juggernaut. Nintendo's system was even cheaper and more powerful than the PlayStation, plus it had the long-established Nintendo name and Nintendo IPs. One would have thought that once it did finally launch, Sony would be relegated to second place. In fact, they were - for a few months after the N64 launched. Super Mario 64 was something better than anything you could get on the PlayStation at the time. But Nintendo's paranoia about piracy ended up costing them untold numbers of sales. Cartridges may have been nearly unpirateable, but 16 megabyte cartridges that cost 20 bucks to make weren't going to cut it when even Bubsy 3D came on a 700 megabyte disk that cost pennies to make. Third parties did the math, and the CD was the format of choice.
As the cartridge's limitations became apparent, especially after 1997, the PlayStation was able to provide longer, richer games than the N64. Even the graphics caught up to the N64, as, you know, 700 megabytes of storage space meant that more complex graphical assets could be stored. Sound also could be better on PlayStation because it could be full CD quality because, you know, 700 megabytes of storage space. The scale of the space available was literally like moving from a Tiny House to a mansion.
Nintendo provided triple-A games on those tiny cartridges, and the N64 was the only console that wasn't Sony that survived to see the PS2 launch. But after the 2000 holiday season, the N64 died fast and Sony nearly had a monopoly during 2001 until the Xbox and GameCube launched late that year.
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