PlayStation, the gaming console that forged the 21st century

Released in 1997, Gran Turismo was the beginning of a series that has sold over 90 million copies. The original game alone sold around 10 million units – nearly matching the sales of the console it ran on, the first PlayStation. This figure is three times the number of its direct competitor, the Nintendo 64, even if you round the latter up generously. The first PlayStation was a groundbreaking success, born out of a failed collaboration with Nintendo, and Gran Turismo has been the definitive racing simulator since the ’90s.
 

The original PlayStation's catalog boasted franchises that became both commercial blockbusters and cultural landmarks: Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and Tomb Raider. The latter made such an impact that Lara Croft even appeared in the visuals for U2's 1997 PopMart Tour – a time when the band could still claim to be the world's most relevant rock act.

The first PlayStation launched in Japan in December 1994, just in time for Christmas. It hit the US and European markets the following year. Alongside the Walkman, it remains one of Sony's most iconic products. While the Walkman had a bolder aesthetic, the PlayStation’s design channeled a minimalism made of circles and rectangles reminiscent of Dieter Rams’ Braun products, with softened edges characteristic of ’90s industrial design and a light gray, futuristic – almost metabolistic – color. A device with compact shapes and a rare elegance, especially compared to today’s gaming consoles. Then the revolution: no more cartridges but CD-ROMs instead. It is useless to say that a widespread game piracy inadvertently boosted its popularity. 

The arrival of the PlayStation revolutionized entertainment standards. Final Fantasy VII exemplifies this shift, arguably holding the title of the most nostalgically revered video game in history. Previously exclusive to Nintendo consoles, the Japanese RPG Final Fantasy series had introduced complex storytelling and serious themes, unusual for commercial games aimed at families. 

Final Fantasy VII was distinctly 1990s in its tone, therefore serious, intense, and steeped in themes of that decade – rebellion, individuality, ecology, neo-luddist and anti-corporate sentiment. It capitalized on the technological leap of the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and the other consoles of that generation: 3D graphics. Sony exploited this innovation to overturn the moral foundations of videogames, transforming them for the first time into a medium for adults. The mid-game death of a major character shocked a generation of players – something like that unimaginable on the Super Nintendo.

The PlayStation was not a toy for children. It targeted teens and young adults, the first generation to see video games as a serious medium, something inconceivable for older peers. Scholars like Ian Bogost and Jesper Juul, writers like Douglas Coupland, and recent popular novels like Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow have all explored this cultural shift. The PlayStation has evolved over the years – now in its fifth generation – but its identity was clear from the very beginning. Sony's gaming brand has consistently been associated with culturally significant mainstream titles like The Last of Us – which later became an acclaimed HBO series – Horizon Zero Dawn, the God of War reboot, and the complex yet visionary Metal Gear Solid series. The mastermind behind the latter, Hideo Kojima, is arguably the only true superstar in the gaming world. In 2019, he delivered Death Stranding, an extraordinary work of speculative critique on modern society, featuring renowned actors such as Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, and Léa Seydoux, the game was released exclusively for PlayStation.
 

Death Stranding features an outstanding soundtrack dominated by the late independent artist Low Roar. This connection between PlayStation and music has been a hallmark of the brand so that so that for the launch of the original console, Sony set up demo stations in UK nightclubs. WipEout – a cult classic fast-paced futuristic racing game released in 1995 – boasted a soundtrack featuring the best of the burgeoning British electronic scene, including The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, The Prodigy, and Orbital.

The graphic identity of WipEout drew heavily from the cyberpunk aesthetic and the techno and rave culture of its time, blending avant-garde art with cutting-edge advertising. Its visuals were the work of The Designers Republic, Ian Anderson’s studio, which also created numerous album covers for the electronic music label Warp Records, including Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin. It’s no exaggeration to say that an entire generation fell in love with graphic design thanks to this game and electronic music.

However, the fusion of visual arts and video games extends far beyond. Acclaimed artist Tom Sachs incorporated Grand Theft Auto into his work Delinquency Chamber, exhibited at the Prada Foundation in 2006, and even described the game as “the most important artwork of our time.” Exhibitions like Radical Gaming, curated by Boris Magini, and Worldbuilding, a project by the ever-present Hans Ulrich Obrist, have further highlighted the artistic potential of video games as a form of art.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley draws explicit inspiration from the “retro” graphical style of consoles like the original PlayStation, while also exploring obscure or partially forgotten games of the past. Meanwhile, Mirai’s videos, which pay homage to the PlayStation’s early aesthetics, have gained significant attention on Instagram. PlayStation exclusives such as Silent Hill (1999), Shadow of the Colossus (2005), and Journey (2012) are often cited as prime examples of how blurred the line can be between mainstream video games and genuine works of art.

Of course, PlayStation alone isn’t responsible for all this. But PlayStation was the first console to earn a place in the living rooms of family homes, breaking free from the confines of boys’ and girls’ bedrooms. This transformation was driven by its innovative design and its ability to play music and movies, turning it into a multimedia hub long before “smart” TVs became the norm. Video games became less alienated from other forms of cultural consumption, as explored by Australian scholar McKenzie Wark in Gamer Theory. 
 

Wark belongs to a group of theorists who examine the intersection of video games and the economic and social systems of the new millennium. They see the gamer as a metaphor for the digital age and contemporary hypercapitalism – seen as escapism, video games have become a mirror of a society that builds its realities through media, technology, and culture. They are no longer just an escape; they are a lucid reflection of our current outlook on life. It’s the gamification, baby: we’re all gamers now.

This is the “influential idea,” as British writer and critic Alfie Bown calls it in the introduction to The PlayStation Dreamworld, a Lacanian analysis of gaming and its cultural impact. Bown argues that “it is less a question of games becoming like reality but of reality becoming like games.” Today’s world is unrecognizable compared to thirty years ago. Though this is certainly not PlayStation’s “fault,” the console remains a cultural watershed – a symbol and a tool that helps us make sense of our experiences. PlayStation never intended to explain the world, but without understanding PlayStation, it would be incredibly hard to understand the reality we live in today.