The sounds, the graphics: the new update for PlayStation 5 brings everything back to how it was in 1994. There’s no shortage of homages to PS2, PS3 and PS4 either. It is with this blast from the past that Sony has decided to celebrate 30 years of PlayStation video games.
If you turn on your PlayStation 5 now, it will appear the home screen of the first PlayStationthe white one with the orange Sony diamond in the center. It’s a nostalgic homage to 30 years of PlayStation. Once the console is launched, you can choose the interface theme based on your preferred generation. They are all there: PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4. Here, what really stimulates the nostalgia effect are the sounds, perhaps when moving from one menu to another, identical to those of the old consoles. All this is free and for a limited period. To activate it, just download the latest update and restart PlayStation 5. Then the blast from the past is useful.
30 years is an important anniversary, which Sony has decided to celebrate by focusing on strength historical and emotional value of its videogame icons. In the past few hours, official PlayStation accounts, as well as iconic game designers for the history of Sony consoles, such as Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding), have welcomed trailers and content aimed at paying homage to Sony’s cultural videogame imagery. A demonstration of how important the emotional component is in video games, which is based on memories, nostalgia, but also on the ability to imagine the future.
The video game according to PlayStation
The first PlayStation arrives on December 3, 1994 in Japan. The following year in Europe, the United States and Canada. Its entry into the video game industry, dominated at the time by Nintendo and Sega, represents a revolution. Beyond technological improvements, such as support for CD-Roms and 3D graphics, what made PlayStation important is its idea of a video game, to be expressed through characters and stories that were mature compared to the competition. Hence the birth of irreverent symbols such as Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, but also of heroes with their darkness, such as those known in Final Fantasy, Silent Hill, Resident Evil and the aforementioned Metal Gear Solid. And what about the graphic detail seen in Gran Turismo and Wipeout.
The story of the first horror video game ever produced: it terrified children of the 80s
PlayStation has therefore inaugurated a trail in which video games become a profound and innovative way of telling fantasies and reality. This approach is still present in the soul of PlayStation, as evidenced by the new generation of protagonists where they appear Kratos, Aloy, Joel and Ellieto name a few. Characters who have gone beyond the idea of heroes to get closer to the idea of being human. It is with the evolution of its icons that PlayStation has managed to accompany gamers over the years. In a historical moment in which the sector is surrounded by crisis and the uncertainty of the future, the past seems like a lifeline to remember values and emotions and rally the community around itself. PlayStation understood this well.
