On this day in 1995: Australia celebrates 30 years of the iconic Sony PlayStation
Since the early hours of Saturday morning, hundreds of devoted Sydneysiders have been lining up for one very nostalgic reason.
The 15th of November 1995 was a pretty quiet news day.
The US government had just shut down due to a disagreement over the budget, and it was revealed that Aussie tax payers would contribute $71m towards transforming the Sydney Showgrounds into Fox Studios.
It also marked the launch of the first Sony PlayStation console in Australia.
Although that didn’t rate a mention in any of the daily newspapers I could find in the archives, that launch may just have been the most consequential thing that happened that stormy Spring day.
What originally started as a failed CD-ROM peripheral for the Nintendo 64 had become a runaway success in Japan the year before.
Its US and European launches in September of 1995 had gone equally well, with Sony’s new console selling more units in two days than the Sega Saturn had in two months.
Subsequent PlayStation launches, of course, have been big news, attracting queues of people at midnight.
Australia is now such a key market for Sony that we get console releases the same day as the rest of the world; technically earlier, in fact, due to the quirk of time zones.
But back in 1995 Australia was perpetually late to big releases, and so Aussie gamers had to watch hopefully from afar until it was our turn.
Supply issues and a high price at launch ($699 in1995, roughly $1,491 in 2024 dollars) meant that it took a little longer for the PlayStation to get a foothold here.
According to former Kotaku Australia editor, Alex Walker, one of the things that made the PlayStation so exciting at the time was the way the console embraced music.
“From a marketing lens, they were really prepared to push the boat out and embrace the younger crowd with the music that they loved, the style, and the designs.
“It was a really big risk for them to do it, and I think that’s part of why so many people remember PlayStation so fondly, because it had that touch of cool.”
It turns out music was more entwined with the creation of the console than you’d expect.
Pat Lagana, Director of Marketing at PlayStation Australia, has been working at PlayStation since 1999, but did his internship with Sony around the launch of the original console.
He remembers back when PlayStation was just a division of the Music side of Sony.
“We were seen as this offshoot that sat amongst music, and had some people globally from the Picture side.
“We were almost this unknown entity within the business.”
Back in the 1990s, most games companies were born out of the arcade scene.
Both Nintendo and Sega had deep back catalogues they could draw from, games they already knew were popular enough to have people paying to play in short increments.
Sony didn’t have that bench to draw from, but it also didn’t have the weight of history holding it back.
A wise man once said that the newcomer always has the least pressure on them, because anything they do will be better than what they’ve done before. It’s the veterans that have something to lose.
Sony clearly embraced that opportunity and ran with it towards 3D gaming and sports.
“We were underdogs at the time,” Lagana said.
“I think we did shake things up a bit. Our marketing was quite different then. We specifically wanted that older, more mature demographic, so we weren’t just doing TV ads, we were doing promotions in night clubs and sponsoring sporting events.”
Sponsoring sporting events paid off.
After the Mount Panorama track was featured in Gran Turismo 6, the Bathurst Regional Council renamed one of the roads in the area Gran Turismo Drive.
Ron Curry is currently the CEO of IGEA (Interactive Games and Entertainment Association), but his resume includes stints working on Xbox and Dreamcast.
He was working on the Dreamcast when the original PlayStation launched “I remember sitting back and having a discussion with the Sega people and saying, ‘Those Sony people, they’re very good at making Walkmans, but what do they know about games?’
“I think at the time there was a bit of scoffing, yet here we are 30 years later and they’re a cultural icon.
“They’re not just big in video games; there’s no one in the world pretty much who doesn’t know the name PlayStation.”
According to Curry, part of the reason why PlayStation has done so well in Australia is that the company has fostered Australian talent and culture.
“Developers locally could look across the broad PlayStation catalogue and see themselves in it. “Games like NRL or Cricket that were really niche for Australia, but PlayStation picked them up.
“I think that makes a big difference when, as a local developer, you could just reach out to the local office and ask them, ‘What are my opportunities? How can you help me bring this game not just to Australia, but to the globe?’”
To celebrate this 30-year milestone, PlayStation has built a uniquely Australian monument.
“Australia has fascination for big things, such as the Big Pineapple, the Big Banana, the Big Prawn, et cetera,” Lagana said.
“So, we’ve created a six metre high replica of the PlayStation memory card in Sydney Harbour that will also house a TV screen that we will be playing back through memories
collected from the PlayStation community, of their fondest times that they’ve had on PlayStation in the 30 years.”
In addition to getting to see a 6-metre tall Memory Card just hanging out in Sydney Harbour, which is surely novelty enough, fans will have the opportunity to win some of the very limited edition 30th Anniversary PlayStation consoles, peripherals and merch.
Gamers are advised to come early, because lines are expected to be long.
It seems right that fans are coming together in person to celebrate this moment, because games have always been about bringing people together.
“When people recall their memories of the early PlayStations, they’re usually shared memories of gathering around the TV,” Walker explains.
“When the PlayStation was in use, it was a family moment. I think a lot of people forget how much these games were experienced communally.”
Some of the memories that have been shared by players and influencers online.
“PlayStation runs deep in my family. My Dad, to me and now my son. Like Kratos & Atreus, or Sam & Lou, we are stronger journeying together,” said Ryan Beetson (@HaggardMC).
“It’s more than just games. It’s memories. It’s healing.”
Influencer Tuba (@tubv.dvgli) added “In 2005, at the tender age of 5, my life’s biggest threat was my brother taking the PS2 memory card to school. EyeToy had me in a chokehold, truly ahead of its time. Before I could read, I knew that not staring at the loading screen made the PS2 load faster. It’s science, trust me.”
“Getting Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortex on PS2 and having to finish the game in one seating as a 8 yr old because I didn’t have a memory card,” another fan, Adil Ali, recalled.
“Playing split screen WWE games with my brother and cousin and then recreating it all on the backyard trampoline - the game made us feel like we were at the events,” was a favourite memory of Samuel Bell.
My personal earliest PlayStation memory dates back to when my cousin, Mark, got a PS1.
He’d saved his money from his part-time job to get the console and a couple of games.
Being the baby cousin, I wasn’t allowed to actually touch a controller very often, but I remember spending every family event sitting and watching my older cousins play Bushido Blade.
It looked like magic, and just being around it felt grown up, transgressive and exciting. That’s one of my formative gaming memories.
As for what the next 30 years of PlayStation holds, who knows?
Looking more immediately, Walker forecasts that Sony is likely to keep up the current console release cadence of a new console every 7 years, meaning we’re only two years away from the PS6, as well as a new handheld console, akin to the Steam Deck or throwing back to the PS Vita.
Until then, let’s all enjoy the unreasonably large memory card currently at Sydney Harbour.
Alice Clarke is an award-winning freelance journalist with almost 20 years experience writing about video games and technology. You can find her at @alicedkc.bsky.social
Originally published as On this day in 1995: Australia celebrates 30 years of the iconic Sony PlayStation
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