The first “virtual entertainment” was released back in 1972. They looked more like a mixture of modern video games and board games. You could play them on consoles. To play them, they had to be connected to a miniature black and white TV, on the screen of which a special color sticker with a schematic drawing replacing the game graphics was previously pasted. And it all looked like this.
Those naive years passed and after a huge period of time of just over 40 years, in 2013, stickers were no longer needed, TVs grew to gigantic sizes as wide as a wall, and games became so good that virtual stadiums ceased to differ from real ones.
Such changes spoke not only about the quality of the video games themselves, but also about the capabilities of the consoles themselves, since their games reflected their power.
Between 1972 and 2013, the electronic entertainment industry took 8 giant steps. They changed it beyond recognition. The most significant of these steps was the 7th generation of consoles, which gave players around the world the best console among equals.
Pavel Vasilevich is with you and today you will find out why the 7th generation console Playstation 3 is considered a symbol of change.
1 What is Playstation 3? Playstation 3 became Sony’s third home gaming console. In 9 years, every 83rd person on Earth bought it. Its advertising slogan read: “Welcome to change!”. Change became the basis of Playstation 3. No one imagined that they could bring the console both for the better and for the worse. At different times, the console was considered both the crown of technology and a useless coffin.
It all started in 2005 with two simple questions: “What is this Playstation 3 like??” and “When will she come out?“To answer them, millions of people read the news feeds of famous gaming publications from cover to cover. There was criminally little information about the console. What was even worse was that it was impossible to obtain.
In 2005, there was a rumor that Sony was ready to share big news. My fifth sense told me that this would be the announcement of a new console. According to gaming journalists, the gaming giant will definitely not waste time on a petty announcement of its system on TV or at an insignificant gaming exhibition. It was necessary to wait for the biggest gaming events.
At the end of https://queenvegas-casino.co.uk May 2005, Sony revealed its cards. Visitors to the Los Angeles gaming exhibition Electronic Entertainment Expo, known by its abbreviated name E3, received an answer to their main question. It was announced that the Playstation 3 is already in development, and it definitely will not appear in 2005. We could only hope that Sony would not waste time and its console would be released in 2006.
In addition to scant news about the console, visitors to the exhibition were able to see the “beauty” Playstation 3 itself.
At the main Sony stands there was a stylish convex box made of silver plastic complete with a strange device that vaguely resembled a joystick. The new console smelled of the future and change.
However, not all such a future fit into the imagination of the gaming community. No one could argue with the fact that the console looked great, but its joystick was quite the opposite, it looked like a bagel. Frankly speaking, it would be convenient to eat it instead of playing with it. I couldn’t believe that Sony engineers seriously decided to replace the good old Dualshock 2, which won the love and respect of all players of the outgoing 6th generation, with this inconvenient thing.
You’ll find out? There are some similarities between them.
Curious to know! It’s worth saying a few words in defense of the joystick. The new Playstation 3 controller wasn’t bad at all. He was unusual for his time and therefore was not appreciated. I’m willing to bet that somewhere in the distant future, like 2054, when tastes change, a Playstation 8 will be released with exactly the same curved pointing device, but no one will think it’s weird.
The Western press gave him the offensive nickname “joystick banana”. This device never saw the light of day.
Bananas and bagels… As you know, appetite comes with eating. The players got what they wanted. They saw the Playstation 3 at the exhibition and learned that it would not be released soon. Do you think they had enough?? It wasn’t enough. The more players learned, the more they wanted more.
The announcement of Playstation 3 was not the only ace up the Japanese company’s sleeve. As you know, any console needs good games. Sony had them.
Surprises awaited players at every turn. Projects from famous developers from Konami, SquareEnix and Guerilla Games took part in the demonstration of future games for Playstation 3. Their video games were incredibly good. I wanted to try each of them myself and right at the exhibition. There was one problem – Playstation 3 had not yet come out. In fact, all the games shown were non-existent projects for a non-existent console and therefore it was impossible to play them. And what is impossible is of interest. This made me want to get a new console even more.
The Guerilla Games team managed to boast of the best graphics for the future Playstation 3. The young company announced the start of development of a sequel to Killzone. Their previous game, which became the best shooter for Playstation 2, was going to get a sequel on its successor, making Playstation 3 friends with the shooter genre and making Killzone 2 the most beautiful game in the world.
You didn’t know this? A huge scandal was associated with the showing of Killzone 2 at E3 2005. It turned out that the game recording shown was in fact just a beautiful “cartoon”. The reason for the exposure was her too beautiful graphics. According to game critics, only consoles from the distant future, such as the Playstation 4, could achieve such a level of “picture”. It was all the more pleasant for the Amsterdam craftsmen from Guerilla Games when they released Killzone 2 on Playstation 3 in 2009. The game, indeed, turned out to be so beautiful that it could only be compared with an expensive Hollywood film.
Konami also had something to show. The famous gaming company announced the start of work on Metal Gear Solid 4. The roguish Hideo Kojima once again broke his promise not to make a new part of his famous series and launched work on the game at full capacity.
The most charming was the video presentation from the craftsmen from SquareEnix. They, like no one else, know how to correctly pull the invisible strings in the hearts of players. After the presentation, even seasoned players could not contain their pleasant excitement. Japanese developers have released a remake of the opening screensaver of Final Fantasy VII, a cult game from the Playstation 1 era using 7th generation technologies. For many, it became a discovery of childhood, similar to what Minecraft has become today.
E3 2005 became a successful springboard to the rise of interest in the Playstation 3, after which there was a giant abyss. What could happen next? Will interest in Sony’s new console rise higher or fall to the ground?? The answer to this question was waiting ahead.
2 How did it happen that the XBOX 360 became the best replacement for the Playstation 3? The hot announcements at E3 2005 so impressed the players that they no longer wanted to play on the aging Playstation 2, XBOX and Gamecube. How could you play the old games when you knew that there would be something incredible on the Playstation 3?? On the other hand, we had to wait for a console with its games for a long time, a year or even longer, but I wanted a new one now. What could the players do??
Their wishes were heard. Fate unexpectedly presented a third option. Those who wanted the cool graphics of the future no longer had to wait a whole year. It so happened that the American company Microsoft chose the fall of 2005 to release its new console XBOX 360. The players turned their attention to her. The graphics on it turned out to be no worse than at the presentation of Playstation 3 games. What else do you need?? That is why in the fall of 2005 the American system became the best replacement for the Japanese.
In addition to beautiful graphics, the new console had other advantages that could interest the gaming audience. It had the ability to play over the Internet and support widescreen TVs. After the proposed capabilities of the XBOX 360, it was unknown whether the unreleased Playstation 3 would be able to offer at least such innovations?
Could any of the existing consoles offer anything that the new Microsoft console could do?? The direct competitors of the Redmond platform were the aging Playstation 2 and Gamecube consoles. They could offer old graphics, crooked and glitchy internet and support for outdated TVs. Such a dubious set forever discouraged the desire to play them. With the release of the XBOX 360 there was a technological leap from the old generation to the new. It became clear that the future was already in the 7th generation. The future was NextGen.
You didn’t know this? The phrase “NextGen” appeared in 2005 along with the release of the XBOX 360 and means “Next Generation”. It was invented for advertising purposes in order to highlight the new generation of consoles from the general mass of consoles. By chance, this combination became the most used in the gaming world.
As for the Sony console, after the release of the new “Mikov” system, only the most notorious optimists continued to wait for it. XBOX 360 outperformed Playstation 3 and the latter was at the bottom for the first time. Sony management needed to hurry up with the release of its new system, otherwise it would no longer be needed by all players who, by the time the Japanese console was released, would be playing with all their might on the XBOX 360.