Celebrating 15 Years of PlayStation

Guillaume de Fondaumière, co-CEO and executive producer, Quantic Dream

What were you doing 15 years ago?

Pretty much to the day 15 years ago, I was sitting at a bar in Frankfurt with Paulo Coelho - a then unknown Brazilian writer - and we were discussing the crazy idea of creating a videogame together. Two years later this very first game I produced came out (Pilgrim, published by Infogrames).

What were your favourite games on the original PlayStation?

My favourite game on the PlayStation at that time (1995) was certainly WipeOut. The most vibrant memory however remains Final Fantasy VII which released two years later. That was a real revelation.

Which titles would you say have been the most influential?

Apart from the aforementioned FFVII that so hugely impressed me with its lavish graphics, great (if sometimes idiosyncratic) story and...length, I would name Tomb Raider because it demonstrated that a games IP could become a universal mainstream entertainment franchise. And Resident Evil, one of the very first games to introduce (B-movie-esque) cinematic video footage in an attempt to immerse the player into a story.

What has been the legacy of the original PlayStation?

Thanks to the DVD player and the console's top notch architecture, the PlayStation democratised 3D in games. With its winged shape and the abundance of well-positioned buttons, its DualShock controller was as user-friendly as it was precise and powerful. In other words, the PSX was a perfect mix of sophistication and accessibility. That is, I think, its legacy.

David Amor, co-founder, Relentless Software

What were you doing 15 years ago?

15 years ago I was finishing a Space Hulk game on 3DO at EA. The office stopped work when the parcel from Japan arrived. Without any games, we stared at it for fifteen minutes and then decided to put a screwdriver to it.

What were your favourite games on the original PlayStation?

The game I remember most fondly for PlayStation was Ridge Racer. Western driving games didn't really cut it for me, so to have an arcade-perfect Japanese driving game at the PlayStation's launch was a big deal. That game put blisters on my thumb. To take a hundredth of a second off my lap time was a good use of an evening.

What has been the legacy of the original PlayStation?

The legacy of PlayStation is immense. I could mention many things, but I think the most important is that it made videogames culturally acceptable. Until that point there were Nintendo games that shouldn't be played by the over-25s or PC games for men with beards in their forties.

The PlayStation came along and suddenly it seemed that it was okay for anyone to play videogames. I don't know if it was the marketing, the games or just the stars aligning, but it exploded the market massively.