The PlayStation (officially abbreviated PS) brand is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Spanning the fifth, sixth, and seventh generations of video gaming, the brand was first introduced on December 3, 1994 in Japan.[1] The brand consists of a total of three consoles, a media center, an online service, a line of controllers and a handheld as well as multiple magazines.
The first console in the series, the PlayStation, was the first video game console to ship 100 million units after 9 years and 6 months of its initial launch.[2] While its successor, PlayStation 2, is the best-selling console to date having reached over 140 million units sold as of September 30, 2009.[3] Sony's current console, PlayStation 3, has sold over 41.6 million consoles worldwide as of September 30, 2010.[4] The first handheld game console in the PlayStation series, PlayStation Portable (PSP), has sold a total of 60 million units worldwide as of March 14, 2010.[5] In addition, two new pieces of hardware are being developed as part of the PlayStation brand, a successor to the PlayStation Portable unofficially known as the PlayStation Portable 2 (codenamed "Veta") and a smartphone unofficially known as the PlayStation Phone (codenamed "Zeus").
Other hardware released as part of the PlayStation series include the PSX, a digital video recorder which was integrated with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, though it was short lived ...
