(Post 06/12/2005) In the 10 years since Sony launched its first games console gaming has become a multi-billion pound entertainment and leisure business…

Gaming has ensconced itself in popular culture, and this is in no small part due to Sony's first PlayStation console, which went on sale in Japan on 3 December 1994.

It had its own early pin-up in the form of Lara Croft, and it spawned a term for those who grew up in this popular culture. "We are the 'PlayStation generation'. We make beats on whatever we can," claimed London rapper Dizzee Rascal after accepting the 2003 Mercury Prize.

Game icon Lara Croft drew in many PlayStation fans

Growing up

The PlayStation opened up gaming and technology to a whole new audience. It drew together the right hardware, design, and games, at the right time.

"PlayStation introduced the idea that gaming can be for grown-ups," explains games researcher and Guardian games blogger Aleks Krotoski.

"It moved the games console out of the little boy's bedroom into the family front room, where everyone had access, and everyone could play."

Sean Dromgoole, games analyst at Some Research, agrees that right from the console's grey beginnings, its design and functionality opened up the appeal of gaming.

"It took gaming consoles from being toys to being grown-up bits of kit, gadgets, functional consumer items like hi-fis were.

"But it did it with style. It managed to keep it technologically interesting."

What Sony also did, however, was to target the right people at the right time, just as technology was getting better.

It was very clever, says Mr Dromgoole, about marketing it initially at early adopters - people who liked to own things first.

Sony's PlayStation console family has been dominant for a decade

'Cool cachet'

Until the PlayStation hit Japanese stores in December 1994, the world of games consoles had been dominated by Nintendo and its Super NES console, Sega and Atari.

By the following year PlayStation had gone on sale worldwide and by January 1996, global sales hit 3.4 million.

Sony shipped its 100 millionth PlayStation earlier this year, helped along by the 2000 launch of a smaller version of the original, the PSOne.

The millennium also saw the release of the second generation console: the PlayStation 2. By March 2004, Sony had sold 70 million PS2s

According to John Houlihan, editor of Computerandvideogames.com magazine, PlayStation's contribution to how the culture of gaming came at a crucial time and its influence since has remained powerful.

"The market was growing but games back in those days were regarded as preserve of kids," he says.

Sony wanted to bring gaming into mass popular culture, not just geek culture, with the aim of making the games console the main multimedia entertainment system in homes.

"It offered a 'cool cachet' to gaming. It suddenly went from being sad geeks allegedly spending all their time in the bedroom and bought it into the living room much more," says Mr Houlihan.

Sociable games like the EyeToy have encouraged diverse gamers

Wider appeal

As early console gamers grew and grew up, that culture of cool stuck.

"Technology pushed the medium forward because they were cutting edge for a long while with the original PlayStation.

"But also the audience of kids who played games on other consoles did not want to stop doing that as they grew up."

This explains why the original PlayStation has had an organic life of more than 10 years.

The social impact of the console, as a "breakthrough" product, cannot be underestimated.

"Homes are as likely to have a games console as a DVD player," explains Ms Krotoski.

"Games are now an alternative form of mainstream entertainment, appealing to an audience as broad as the television-viewing public," she adds.

The console also triggered more expansive thinking about the possibilities of interactive multimedia, adds Ms Krotoski, as well as invited competition from Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube.

Being part of the mainstream has also meant gaming's appeal has widened further and many more women and casual or social gamers have taken up the control pads.

"Certainly recent releases like SingStar [a karaoke game] and the dance mat-controlled games have encouraged people who wouldn't have considered picking up a controller to get in on the fun," says Ms Krotoski.

"With a more diverse audience, the designers of games have had to re-think their theories of design.

"Games which appeal to older players are different than those which appeal to kids. Greater depth of storyline, graphical immersion and more mature content have become an integral part of the gaming experience."

Next generation

Since its launch, PlayStation has dominated the console market over Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox.

But the next 10 years are set to be and even bigger battlefield and anything could happen in a fast-moving business.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all intend to launch their next generation consoles next year.

The new consoles, expected in the shops sometime in the next two years, will have more processing power, emphasise online gaming, pack in voice recognition and motion detection technology, so that play can become a more social experience.

How games consoles respond to the growth into online environments, and how they enable players to play in ever more social ways, will be a vital weapon in the battle over the next five years, says Mr Dromgoole.

"Sony won't have it all their own way," agrees Mr Houlihan. "Next year we are looking at three console launches, so the future is up for grabs."

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