Platform Distribution
After the end of World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in Nihonbashi. He was joined by Akio Morita the next year and the two of them founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo in 1946 and built Japan's first tape recorder called the Type-G. Ibuka travelled to the US in the early 1950s and heard about Bell Lab's invention of the transistor.
He convinced Bell to license the technology to his Japanese company. Ibuka and Morita wanted to apply the transistor to communications while the American companies wanted to instead use it for Military applications. And all though the American company Regency Electronics and Texas Instruments built the first Transistor radio, Ibuka's company made it commercially successful.
After branching off into the American market the name Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was no longer deemed suitable for an international market and so Morita decided to come up with a better name. The company became Sony. Derived from the latin word for sound; 'sonus' and the English slang word 'Sonny' as they considered themselves to be 'sonny boys' which was a loan word in the early 1950s meaning smart and presentable young men.
Sony is now a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation with it's headquarters in Tokyo. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics products for the consumer and professional markets.
The founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka derived the name from the latin word 'sonus' meaning sound and the English slang word 'Sonny' since the considered themselves to be 'Sonny boys', a loan word into Japanese with in the early 1950s meant smart and presentable young men.
Sony Corporation is the electronics business unit and the parent of the Sony group. It is engaged in business through its six operating segments - Consumer Products and services groups (consumer electronics, game and network services) Professional, Device and Solutions group 9B2B products and services), Pictures, Music, Financial Services and Sony Ericsson. These segments make Sony one of the most comprehensive entertainment companies in the world.
Sony Computer Entertainment is one of these segments of Sony that specialises in many areas of the video game industry. It is part of the Consumer Products and Services Group and was created on 16th of November 1993. It was created prior to the launch of the PlayStation console. Sony Computer Entertainment is responsible for the research and development, production and sales for both the hardware and the software of the PlayStation line. Not just Home consoles but handhelds included. It also acts as a developer and publisher of video game titles.
In May 1991 the SNES-CD was to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show. Nintendo had originally requested for Sony to develop a CD add on for the SNES. Nintendo realised that in the original contract Sony would have complete control over the technology and secretly cancelled the plans and made a side-deal with Philips Electronics to make a different disc-based add-on.
This may have been a setback for Sony but the decided to develop a console from the existing technology, called the PlayStation. The two companies originally reached a deal where the PlayStation would be able to port SNES games but Nintendo would own the rights and receive most of the profits from the games. The SNES would continue to use the Sony designed audio chip. Sony began to rework the PlayStation concept to target a new generation of hardware and software and the SNES port was removed.
In 2000 the most successful video game consol of all time was released. The PlayStation 2 has sold over 150 million units as of 2011 and in its first week alone it sold over 900 000 units. The consoles development was announced in March 1999 and it was released on March 4 2000 in Japan. It's main competitors were Sega's Dreamcast, Xbox and the GameCube. Directly after it's release it was difficult to find a PS2 in stores due to manufacturing delays. Many people purchased the console online through eBay and one person even paid over one thousand dollars for one. One of the consoles main strengths is its backwards compatibility.
A three way struggle was predicted between Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's Gamecube but the PlayStation had good third party support and had many good titles coming out during the Christmas season so Sony dominated the sales.
Unlike the consoles such as the Dreamcast, Sony did not put emphasize on online gaming. When the Xbox was released, Sony released that Sony realized that going online was the best way to go and then started to release a network adaptor and first party titles that could be played online. One of which being SOCOM: Navy Seals.
Sony began to move onto the Handheld market when the PlayStation Portables development was announced at E3 2003 and was finally unveiled on May 11 2004 at the Sony press conference before E3 2004. The system was released in Japan on December 2004. The PSP is the only handheld console to use an optical disc format. The console also had a large viewing screen and multi-media capabilities. It also has connectivity with the PlayStation 2 and 3, other PSPs and the Internet. The sales quadrupled in the week following the release of a slimmer remodelled version of the PSP.
The third home video game console produced by Sony. The PS3 competes with the Xbox 360 and the Wii as part of the seventh generation of game consoles. It was released in Japan on November 11 in 2006 and his the international markets shortly after that. The console features an online gaming service known as the PlayStation Network and has multimedia capabilities. It can connect to the PlayStation Portable and can use the Blu-ray Disc as a primary storage medium.
The console was officially unveiled at the E3 2005 conference along with a 'boomerang' shaped prototype of the Sixaxis controller. Although an actual working console was not present at E3 or Tokyo Game Show in September 2005, demonstrations were available at both events on software development kits and comparable PC hardware. Video footage based on the predicted PS3 specifications were also shown, the most notable being the Final Fantasy VII tech demo.)
The prototype shown in May 2005 had two HDMI ports, three Ethernet ports and six USB ports. However when the system was shown again a year later at E3 these were reduced to one HDMI port, one Ethernet port and four USB ports. This may have been to cut costs.
In 2006 an online network for the PS3 was announced at the PlayStation Business Briefing in Tokyo. Back then it was called the 'PlayStation Network Platform'. It was confirmed that the service will always be connected, free and would include multiplayer support. When the software was eventually launched users could only register through the PSP or PS3. This has long since been changed and allowed users to sign up from the PlayStation Network website. Through the PSN users are able to download some PlayStation and PSP titles for $5 to $15 depending on the size of the game data. Users can also purchase titles using a form of electronic money in the form of PlayStation Net Work Cards.
The Vita is the successor to the PlayStation Portable and was released in Japan on December 11 2011. The console has two analog sticks, a 5 inch OLED multi-touch capacitive touch screen and supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optional 3G.
Another big part of the development of the games consoles is also the development of the controller; the Dual Analog controller was first displayed under glass at the PlayStation Expo 96-97. It was released in Japan April 1997and coincided with the release of the analog capable titles Tobal 2 and Bushido Blade. It was advertised to allow more precise and fluid control of the games' fighters, with the rumble feature contributing to a more realistic experience.
The DualShock is a line of vibration-feedback controllers that were introduced in Japan in the late 1997. They were launched in North America in May 1998. It was first introduced as a secondary peripheral for the original PlayStation and a revised PlayStation version came with the controller. Sony subsequently phased out the digital controller that was included with the console as well as the Dual Analog Controller. When the PlayStation 2 was announced the DualShock 2 controller included with it was almost exactly the same externally as the previous version except for the colour.
Moving on from controller that plug into the game console, The PlaStation Move is a motion sensing game controller platform for the PS3. The move uses the PlayStation Eye camera to track the controllers position and inertial sensors in the controller itself to detect motion. It was first revealed on June 2 2009 and was released in mainland Europe and Asian markets on September 15 2010.
The predecessor to the PlayStation Eye camera was the EyeToy; A colour digital camera similar to a webcam. It was released for PlayStation 2 in 2003. The camera uses computer vision and gesture recognition to process the images taken by the camera, allowing players to interact with the games through the use of motion, colour detection and sound through the built in microphone.
The PlayStation Moves main competitors are the Kinect and the Wii Remote Plus. The Kinect is a motion sensing input device created by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 and Windows PCS. The Kinect builds on software developed by Rare and on range camera technology by PrimeSense, which developed a system that can interpret precise gestures meaning it offers completely hands free control of electronic devices. This is possible by using an infrared projector, camera and a special microchip to track the movement of objects and people in three dimensions. The Wii MotionPlus is an expansion device for the Wii Remote controller that allows it to track complex motions more accurately.
Some of the users for the Kinect and the Wii have been reported to 'hack' the software. The results of such are very intuitive and can be extremely low cost. This can be achieved using downloadable software and help from the large community that has been built to share these hacks with the rest of the world.
If Sony were to release a development kit for the Move.Me the many things that it can be used for would be astounding. For example the Wii remote can be used to create an interactive whiteboard that can be used in schools and the Kinect can even help the blind to replace a seeing-eye dog but is more convenient because a dog takes time to be trained for certain routes, costs a lot of money to take care of and gets tired quickly. The Move.Me could be used for this sort of thing as well as simulation software to train people for certain sports, such as canoeing and fencing. It would be a safe substitute.
The Move.Me would need to develop a community much like the Kinect and the Wii Remote have, it would be beneficial for finding out new ideas for the software and getting inspiration on how to take the technology to the next level.
Another idea is to get small indie companies to come up with ideas or 'apps' like the Apple Store. Or make the software for the Move.Me easier to use so that users who code for a hobby could come up with ideas and upload them an equivalent of the App store or other distribution networks such as Steam and Xbox Live that encourage indie developers.
Bibliography
History of the PlayStation 2
(http://www.gameconsolesedu.info/PS2.php)
History of PlayStation
(http://us.playstation.com/ps-news/e3-15anniversary/)
History of the Sony PlayStation - Kick-starting the Disc Revolution
(http://classicgames.about.com/od/consoleandhandheldgames/p/History-Of-The-Sony-Playsation-Kick-Starting-The-Disc-Revolution.htm)
Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks.
(http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html)
NAVI - Navigational Aids for the Visually Impaired.
(http://hci.uni-konstanz.de/blog/2011/03/15/navi/?lang=en)
PlayStation Network
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Network)
History of the Sony Corporation
(http://www.sony.co.uk/article/id/1060176719725)
History of Sony
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony)
PlayStation
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_console)
PlayStation 2
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2)
PlayStation 3
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3)
PSP
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psp)
