Michael Kimb Jones

This ad for the original PlayStation was used in an article I read today:

When viewing the ad my mind fell blissfully back to the early 90s when gaming was still a semi-nascent industry feeding off the a mixture of youthful nerds and gadget fans.

When ads like this one started being broadcast on prime time TV everything started to change.

This ad is a typical early gaming ad, its fast paced, almost impossible to understand and never really gives away the fact that it is in fact an ad for a games console till the last moments.

Ads like were clearly aimed at what was known back then as the MTV Generation. People with short attention spans, time on their hands and money in their pockets, or at least in their parents pockets.

Most of these people were not gamers. Sure the SNES and MegaDrive/Genesis had impacted on a lot of people. But it was still very niche.

Sony were trying their best to change this, much to the detest of some gamers at the time (me included).

Ads like this are responsible for me never owning a PlayStation. This ad, and the many others like it, made no sense to me at the time. I hated seeing PlayStation ads on TV, I hated the idea that Sony, maker of TVs and Walkmans had simply jumped into the gaming market and started to change it.

Of course, gaming ads had been on TV before. But not like this. They were never ‘cool‘ or ‘edgy‘ they were a bit ‘awkward‘ and ‘nerdy‘. They were also aimed at kids and teenagers, not the 16-35 year olds which gleefully prop up the gaming industry today.

I hoped, prayed even, that Sony would fail. That they would go back to making CD players and leave the gaming world.

History tells us that this did not happen. Sony are now the current kings of the gaming world. Sure the PlayStation3 is having a few issues but my god they did a good job at brainwashing the public and bringing gaming out of basements and bedrooms and into the living room.

At the time, I did not like this change. I was in denial, I ignored the change, I said to myself ‘Sony will fall down eventually’… ‘They have to’…

Even with my eyes tightly shut I could see it happening right in front of me.

Everyone was talking about the PlayStation. Friends of mine who had never owned a games machine went and got one while I flatly refused, holding onto the idea that I was right. Sony didn’t belong in the games industry, give me Sega or Nintendo any day, not Sony? ‘What the hell do they know about games!’ I would cry out.

I was bullish and arrogant and sadly, I was wrong. And it cost me 10 years of gaming.

You see, at the time the only alternative to the PlayStation was the Sega Saturn, which was a huge failure and never really got any sort of release in the UK. So, I held out for the N64 but was eventually put off by what I saw as a messed up cartridge system and hideous controller.

So for 10 years, I waited. The PS2 came out and killed off all competition. I again, refused to play ball. I stuck to my guns and in 2001 when I purchased a 2nd hand Dreamcast. My first new console purchase since I got a MegaDrive for Christmas back in 1991.

Unfortunately, I have regrets. I missed out on a huge part of gaming and entertainment history simply by being pig-headed and small minded.

I should have swallowed my immature pride and joined the club.

I saw the winds of change and ignored them. I ignored Sony and in return I got nothing.

Sega quit the console industry after the Dreamcast. Although it was an excellent machine they had lost too much money and could no longer compete with Sony.

Nintendo went south for a while with the GameCube, a laughable failure by anyone’s margins.

Microsoft thankfully jumped in to replace Sega in the industry and they are doing terribly well. In fact, I purchased an Xbox soon after the Dreamcast re-ignited my appetite for modern gaming.

I now have a Dreamcast, Xbox, GameCube, Xbox 360 in my collection. But I never had a PlayStation or a PS2. Even when games like GTA and Ico called me, I held out. I ignored them.

Will I buy a PlayStation3? I doubt it. Not because of my Sony issues (I actually own a PSP), but because its a bad console.

The PS2 and PlayStation were good bits of kit, revolutionary even. But Sony have ever so slightly lost the plot with their new console release. I am sure they will find their way back to an extent, but they have lost the exclusive edge which they held for the 10 years when I ignored them.

Unlike with their previous efforts I do not feel as if I am missing out by not owning Sony’s new console.

The industry is a more level playing field these days and its better for it.

Better even than back in 1991 when all I did was play Splaterhouse and Sonic all day. Something which I would never believe true a few years ago.