PlayStation 25th Anniversary: Sony celebrates birthday ahead of PS5 release

It’s almost guaranteed you spent more than a few hours of your childhood on one of these – which means we’ve got some bad news for you.

Happy 25th Birthday PlayStation!

Yes that’s right, the console that many gamers have grown up playing is celebrating its silver anniversary and, although 25 years have passed, the start-up sounds of the older consoles still send players back to their childhood … just try not to feel too old now.

With the 25th birthday falling in line with the 2019 PlayStation awards, and The Game Awards 2019 just around the corner, gamers around the world are eagerly anticipating a new announcement about the PlayStation 5.

The video game industry has certainly come a long way since the launch of the PlayStation on December 3 1994, from advancements in graphics and animations, to changing console and controller hardware, the rise of online multiplayer gaming, more ambitious game storytelling and so much more.

While it still feels like only yesterday that the PS4 was first announced, it’s already been six years since it first hit shelves. So get ready to take a nostalgia trip down memory lane as we take a look at just how far the PlayStation has come in the past 25 years, and what the future has in store for Sony.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PLAYSTATION CONSOLES

The original PlayStation first launched in December 1994 and cemented itself as one of the best consoles of the era, eventually becoming the first to sell over 100 million copies.

The PS1 featured arguably some of the best games of all time, including the likes of Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Tomb Raider, Tekken 3, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 … too many to name them all really.

The OG PlayStation we all remember. Picture: Supplied

While the original console was incredibly bulky by today’s standards, a slim version of the console was released in July 2000, shortly after the release of the PlayStation 2 in March 2000, which is so far the highest selling game console of all time with over 155 million copies sold worldwide.

In 2004, Sony launched its first foray into the handheld games consoles with the PlayStation Portable (or PS) bringing some solid success, before the launch of the PS3 console in November 2006. The PlayStation 3 was the first of the home consoles to ditch the external memory cards, as well as being the first to introduce wireless controllers and integrate online social gaming networks.

The slimline PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. Picture: Supplied

While the PSP was a success, selling over 80 million copies worldwide, sadly the same cannot be said for the PS Vita, which launched in 2011 and was discontinued in 2019 with estimated sales of under 20 million copies.

The Vita unfortunately did not share other models’ success. Picture: Supplied

Announced in February 2013 ahead of its November launch, the PlayStation 4 has also managed to sell over 100 million copies so far in the 6 years since its release. While the PS4 has been a groundbreaking console, Sony have admitted it is nearing the end of its life cycle and now PlayStation gamers are eagerly awaiting more news of 2020s PlayStation 5.

PlayStation 4 featured Virtual Reality headsets. Picture: Supplied

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT PLAYSTATION 5 SO FAR

Sony has officially confirmed that the PlayStation 5 will be released in the holiday period of 2020, so we should expect to have the new console between October and December of next year (just in time for Christmas).

One of the biggest pieces of news is that PlayStation 5 will support backwards compatibility with PS4 games, so not all your games will go to waste with the launch of the new console.

Sony has also revealed details about the new PS5 controller, which is set to replace rumble vibration technology with haptic feedback to make games feel more immersive. Controllers will also have adaptive triggers to have a more realistic feel of the in-game movements, actions and resistances.

The graphics will unsurprisingly look better than ever with the new console containing ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware to help with complex lighting and sound effects in 3D environments. While the games will look better, we can also expect improved audio, with the PS5 set to feature ‘3D audio’.

Sony have also confirmed that the new solid state drive (SSD) would drastically improve load speed and efficiency, and games will also take up less space while continuing to use standard 100GB Blu-ray discs.

While we still don’t have a good idea of what the new console could look like, unconfirmed images of potential PS5 designs have been ‘leaked’ on the internet and social media.

Here Is The Leaked PlayStation 5 Dev Kit!!!! Most Developers Already Have It!!!!🎮🎮🎮🎮 #PlayStation5 #PlayStation

Credit: @charlieINTEL pic.twitter.com/kTEDHPw0rR

— 4 Gamers Gaming (@4GamersGaming1) October 8, 2019

Given the timing of the 25th birthday of PlayStation, I think it’s safe to assume we could see some new announcement for the PS5 in the coming days, so be sure to watch this space.

Wilson Smith is a games writer for news.com.au. Continue the conversation with him on Twitter at @wilson_smithdt