What is "playstation"

The (officially abbreviated to PS, and commonly known as the PS1 or PSX) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The console was released on 3 December in Japan, 9 September 1995 in North America, 29 September 1995 in Europe, 15 November 1995 in Australia, and for Korea in 1996. The console was the first of the PlayStation lineup of home video game consoles. It primarily competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn as part of the fifth generation of video game consoles.

The PlayStation is the first "computer entertainment platform" to ship 100 million units, which it had reached 9 years and 6 months after its initial launch. Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, preferred Sony's console over the competition from Sega's Saturn, saying "our game designer likes the Sony machine". In 2000, a redesigned, slim version called the PSone was released, replacing the original grey console and named appropriately to avoid confusion with its successor, the PlayStation 2.

In 1999, Sony announced the successor to the PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, which is backwards compatible with the PlayStation's DualShock controller and games, and launched the console in 2000. The last PSone units were sold in winter 2004 before it was officially discontinued in March 2005, for a total of 102 million units shipped since its launch 10 years earlier. Games for the PlayStation continued to sell until Sony ceased production of PlayStation games on 23 March 2006 – over 11 years after it had been released, and less than a year before the debut of the PlayStation 3.

PlayStation is a series of video game consoles created by Sony Computer Entertainment. As of 2013, there have been a total of four home consoles and two handheld consoles released.

• PlayStation (console) (PS or PS1), the first console in the series, after which all subsequent consoles are named
• PlayStation 2 (PS2)
• PlayStation 3 (PS3)
• PlayStation 4 (PS4)
• PlayStation Portable (PSP)
• PlayStation Vita, a successor to the PSP
• PSX (video game console), a PlayStation 2 based digital video recorder
• Portable Sound Format, a ripped soundtrack from PlayStation games (originally known as "PlayStation Sound Format")
• Sony Play Station, a cancelled console related to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that was to use the SNES-CD media format

This may also refer to, outside of gaming:

• PlayStation (yacht), a catamaran

is a series of video game consoles created and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The brand was first introduced on December 3, in Japan with the launch of the original PlayStation console. It now consists of four home consoles, as well as a media center, an online service, a line of controllers, two handhelds and a phone, as well as multiple magazines.

The original console in the series, the PlayStation, was the first video game console to ship 100 million units, 9 years and 6 months after its initial launch. Its successor, the PlayStation 2, was released in 2000. The PlayStation 2 is the best-selling home console to date, having reached over 155 million units sold as of December 28, 2012. Sony's next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006 and has sold over 80 million consoles worldwide as of November 2013. Sony's latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling 1 million consoles in its first 24 hours on sale, becoming the fastest selling console in history.

The first handheld game console in the PlayStation series (called the PlayStation Portable, or PSP), sold a total of 80 million units worldwide by November 2013. Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, which launched in Japan on December 17, 2011 and in most other major territories in February 2012, had sold over 4 million units by January 2013. PlayStation TV is a microconsole and a non-portable variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. Other hardware released as part of the PlayStation series includes the PSX, a digital video recorder which was integrated with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, though it was short lived due to its high price and was never released outside Japan, as well as a Sony Bravia television set which has an integrated PlayStation 2. The main series of controllers utilized by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, which is a line of vibration-feedback gamepad having sold 28 million controllers as of June 28, 2008.

The PlayStation Network is an online service with over 110 million users worldwide (as of July 2013). It comprises an online virtual market, the PlayStation Store, which allows the purchase and download of games and various forms of multimedia, a subscription-based online service known as PlayStation Plus and a social gaming networking service called PlayStation Home, which had over 41 million users worldwide at the time of its closure in March 2015. PlayStation Mobile (formerly PlayStation Suite) is a software framework that provides PlayStation content on mobile devices. Version 1.xx supports both PlayStation Vita, PlayStation TV and certain devices that run the Android operating system, whereas version 2.00 released in 2014 would only target PlayStation Vita and (optionally) PlayStation TV. Content set to be released under the framework consist of only original PlayStation games currently.

7th generation PlayStation products also use the XrossMediaBar, which is an award-winning graphical user interface. A new touch screen-based user interface called LiveArea was launched for the PlayStation Vita, which integrates social networking elements into the interface. Additionally, PlayStation 2 and original PlayStation 3 consoles also featured support for Linux-based operating systems, though this has since been discontinued. The series has also been known for its numerous marketing campaigns, the latest of which being the "Greatness Awaits" commercials in the United States.

The series also has a strong line-up of first-party titles due to Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, a group of fifteen first-party developers owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment which are dedicated to developing first-party games for the series. In addition, the series features various budget re-releases of titles by Sony with different names for each region; these include the Greatest Hits, Platinum, Essentials, Favorites (this in Latin America) and The Best ranges of titles.