PlayStation Revolution Review: Fascinating history of Sony consoles shines over low-key bits

With the PS5 en Xbox Series X Launched just months away, it’s the perfect time for a nostalgic look back at Sony’s early days in the video game industry. From bedrooms to billions: The PlayStation Revolution celebrates Sony’s 26 years of making consoles.

The documentary is directed by Anthony and Nicola Caulfield, whose series From Bedroom to Billions previously covered the rise of the British video game industry and the Commodore Amiga. It hits on streaming, Blu-ray and DVD on 7 sept.

Veterans of the late ’80s and early’ 90s console wars will immediately feel at home with this documentary. Sega and Nintendo were locked in the fight, so newcomer Sony got into the game by partnering with Nintendo for a SNES extension called “Play Station.” When the two companies dropped out, Sony reworked the name for their first console.

1994 flashback

Covering the original PlayStation and the rise of Sony in the industry, the documentary is completely gripping for anyone with a keen interest in video games, pop culture or business. It marks spectacularly how the Japanese gaming company changed from something you leave with youth to an era for supposed adults through archival material, old marketing material and interviews with people who lived through that era.

People like ex-Sony Computer Entertainment exec Phil Harrison and former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske (a name readers of Blake J. Harris’ Console Wars will know well) provide fascinating insights into the business and marketing successes of those early days, with lead PS5 architect Mark Cerny and other developers making easy-to-understand technical points about the challenges of programming console games in 3D for the first time.

Fans of Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy 7 will be happy to talk to Shinji Mikami, Hideo Kojima and Yoshinori Kitase about the PlayStation entries of those series as well. The technical leap from the 16-bit SNES generation to Sony’s 32-bit console created new opportunities for cinematic gaming experiences that looked like nothing gamers had seen before, and created these young legends whose influence continues no this day.

The documentary indirectly highlights how male dominated the sector. We will not see women until Tomb Raider artist Heather Stevens discusses her role in developing Lara Croft’s first adventure.

Next-gen

Unfortunately, after spending more than two-thirds of the 2-hour, 40-minute runtime on the original PlayStation, the PS2 – de highest selling console of all time – gets less than 30 minutes. This section marks the technical leap forward with images from classics such as Jak and Daxter, Grand Theft Auto 3 and God of War.

That also meant that it was more difficult to program games for the new console, which meant that not many third-party games were ready for the PS2 launch in 2000. The movie also reminds us of the importance of the PS2 one of the cheapest DVD are players on the market.

De PS3 time makes it even worse – the filmmakers take the time to acknowledge that the comparison of console does not compare and it somehow only gives a segment of 10 minutes. En Microsoft’s Xbox, which rose as Sony’s main competitor during the PS2 era and whose Xbox 360 threw up a piece of the market share of PS3 is mentioned only once. We do not get much insight into the PS4 though, beyond some commentary on the incredible success and a segment about PS VR that feels more like marketing than analysis.

Portable gaming devices from Sony, the PSP en PS Vita, are not treated despite the enormous popularity of the PSP. (It was skipped by DS from Nintendo.) These omissions have become especially nice since the PocketStation, an oddity memory card peripheral that was released only in Japan gets a mention.

Honest success

PlayStation Revolution is a fun journey as it covers Sony’s first launch in the video game industry and the excitement of the mid – 90s. Less satisfying is the way it shines over on console consoles, the company’s failures and the impact of competition despite the documentary’s long runtime. It might have felt more like a multipart series that looked the same every time.

If you’re a gamer who’s been on the PlayStation journey since the original console or just want to see how Sony went to war with Nintendo and Sega in 1994, the original segment of the documentary will be a be nostalgic treatment. Just do not expect the same level of insight into future generations.

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