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Looking Back On Sony's Hardware Evolutions
In preparation for whatever Sony is planning on showing us tonight, we're looking back on all of Sony's previous home console iterations. Maybe looking back at these will give us an idea of what to expect, or maybe it will just be a fanciful trip down memory lane.
PlayStation - The system that brought Sony into the world of home console gaming released in 1994. There is a generation of gamers that probably doesn't know there was a time when the PlayStation didn't have two control sticks.
PS One - Sony's first redesign, the first of many more to come across all of its hardware releases, shrunk the system down, and made it more reliable.
PS One Combo - Sony added a portable screen technically making it Sony's first foray into mobile gaming before the PSP. That is, of course, if you had a mobile power source.
PlayStation 2, PlayStation 2 Slim - The PlayStation might have got Sony's foot in the console gaming door, but the PlayStation 2 and its slim redesign in 2004 are what made Sony one of video games' biggest power houses.
PSX - The PSX may have never made it to America, but it still counts as Sony hardware. It was half-PlayStation 2, half-DVR, and it was very expensive. It was also the birthplace of the XcrossMediaBar, which has been the standard operating system for most of Sony's hardware for some time. Even Sony products that that don't play games like Bluray players use the XcrossMediaBar.
Sony BRAVIA KDL22PX300 - After the relative non-success of the PSX, Sony tried combining the PlayStation 2 with a more familiar piece of living room hardware: the television. This Sony Bravia TV had a built in PlayStation 2. It released four years after the PlayStation 3, which may have been too late. People had already had moved onto the next big Sony thing.
PlayStation 3 - The PlayStation 3 is an impressive piece of hardware, even if it did come up short on a few things. The system was bulky with a controller that forgot how to rumble for a few years, but it's hanging on as long as it can.
PlayStation 3 Slim - The first redesign made the system significantly lighter, quieter, and sleeker. The controller had also remembered how to rumble by this point.
PlayStation 3 Super Slim - Presumably, the last redesign for the PlayStation 3 came as a bit of a surprise to everyone. It appeared in 2012, and although Sony had not been hinting at a new system around the corner, rumors were already starting to creep onto the Internet.
And that brings us today, where Sony is set to reveal the next generation of hardware very soon. Are we going to see the same evolutions and changes we saw above from system to system? Or will Sony's next system radically defy all of our expectation?
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