The original PlayStation launched in Japan on Dec. 3, 1994, meaning that Sony’s video game brand is celebrating its 30th birthday. Once dismissed as an also-ran beside powerhouse console makers Nintendo and Sega, PlayStation has since become a dominant player in the video game industry. But it hasn’t always been easy; Sony has enjoyed the highest of highs and some rough patches as a console maker.
For PlayStation’s 30th anniversary, we present our ranking of the best PlayStations, considering Sony’s consoles and handhelds not just for their lasting impact on the market, but their game libraries, hardware design, and controllers. And their crimes.
1. PlayStation 2
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Sony’s PlayStation 2 is not just the best-selling console of all time, it’s one of the best consoles of all time for about a million good reasons. It helped bring online gaming to the console masses, thanks to games like SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs, Final Fantasy 11, and a long list of sports games that supported online multiplayer. It was backward-compatible with thousands of original PlayStation games. It was more graphically advanced than any other console on the market. It was a moderately priced DVD player, helping the burgeoning video format replace VHS tapes. And it had a sleek, grown-up look; the PS2’s physical design made it look more like a piece of mid-range AV equipment and less like a kid-friendly gaming console.
But the PlayStation 2’s biggest strength was its software. The system was home to groundbreaking new game franchises, like God of War, Guitar Hero, Yakuza, SSX, and Kingdom Hearts, as well as landmark sequels like Grand Theft Auto 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2. Beyond the blockbusters, game developers experimented with bold new ideas in games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Katamari Damacy, EyeToy Play, and Kill Switch. More than 4,000 PS2 games were released, making the system’s library one of the largest and most varied ever.
It was also just… cool. Armed with a chip slickly named the “Emotion Engine,” PlayStation 2 overshadowed its competition on virtually all fronts, winning the console generation handily against Nintendo and Microsoft — and taking Sega out of the console-making business for good.
2. PlayStation
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Only slightly less impactful than the PlayStation 2 was the original PlayStation. Sony’s first foray into console hardware was a revolution for 3D gaming — and console gaming as a pursuit that was finally deemed mature, thanks to a huge list of original, grown-up franchises. Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, and Tekken launched the PlayStation to success. Snatching franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest from creaky rival Nintendo was a coup, thanks in no small part to Sony embracing CD-ROMs as the PlayStation’s storage format. The PlayStation’s game library was overstuffed with original ideas like PaRappa the Rapper, Vib-Ribbon, Vagrant Story, and Bushido Blade.
While Sony innovated in focusing on 3D graphics and optical storage, it wasn’t afraid to steal a few good ideas. After launching with a so-so digital game controller, Sony shipped the dual-analog-stick-equipped DualShock, taking inspiration from Nintendo’s N64 controller and Rumble Pak.
The OG PlayStation also boasts arguably the best console revision in history, in the form of the PS One, a gorgeously soft, diminutive reimagining of the dull gray box Sony originally shipped.
3. PlayStation 4
Photo: James Bareham/Polygon
After some missteps during the PlayStation 3 era (and a series of blunders from rival Microsoft), Sony’s PlayStation 4 felt like a balm. Unlike the overly complex and expensive PS3, the PS4 felt like a back-to-basics approach for the PlayStation brand. It was priced right at $399.99, focused on social interactivity through services like Remote Play and Share Play, and was refreshingly unfussy. Sony eschewed restrictive digital rights management schemes in a very public way, using some of its friendly faces to illustrate that the arrogance of the previous PlayStation generation was gone (but not forgotten).
The PS4 library felt similarly friendly, focusing on established and fan-favorite PlayStation franchises like Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Metal Gear Solid, and Final Fantasy. But Sony also made strong moves into supporting indie gaming, bringing more varied gaming experiences to the PS4 — a return, in some ways, to earlier, more experimental PlayStation eras.
Of course, the PS4 also has one important key exclusive: Bloodborne.
The DualShock 4, the PS4’s default controller, was also excellent. It’s still one of Sony’s best gamepads, thanks to its tight construction, responsiveness, and built-in Share button — a smart innovation during an era when social media was just beginning to flourish.
4. PlayStation 5
Photo: Henry Hargreaves for Polygon | Graphics: James Bareham/Polygon
Lessons learned from the PlayStation 4 era carried over to the PlayStation 5, which lags behind its predecessor on this list for one big reason: The PS5 is the ugliest console Sony has ever released.
But the PlayStation 5 is a more than capable machine, with an excellent controller, the DualSense, and a solid if slowly growing library. With Sony embracing PC ports of its first-party games, the PS5 is lacking in must-have console exclusives. And you know what it doesn’t have? A native version of Bloodborne that runs at 60 frames per second. Seriously, what gives?!
Beyond aesthetics, there’s not much positive or negative to say about the PlayStation 5. We could ding it for its price, which isn’t budging and is only going up in certain parts of the world. And we could levy that same criticism against its mid-cycle upgrade, the $699 PlayStation 5 Pro, which has one of the least convincing value propositions of any video game console released in recent memory.
5. PlayStation Portable
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
PlayStation’s first foray into handheld gaming — PocketStation notwithstanding — was an incredible little machine in 2005. It was an internet-connected 3D handheld that could play audio and video, meaning you never had to be without easy viewing access to Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man 2 on UMD. The PSP as an all-in-one multimedia device often outshone its actual gaming capabilities. PSP games often felt like lesser versions of PlayStation 2 games, without great reason for those games existing on a handheld rather than a big-boy console.
On the other hand, the PSP had Lumines. It helped popularize Monster Hunter as a massive gaming franchise. It had Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Acid, and other fascinatingly weird spinoffs of AAA franchises. But it was ultimately defeated by the Nintendo DS, a game system that took advantage of its own unique hardware capabilities to deliver new gaming experiences.
6. PlayStation Vita
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
I loved my PlayStation Vita. Just not as much as I did its predecessor. The Vita was arguably little more than a stronger PSP, only with a gorgeous OLED screen (at launch) and a funky, huge touchpad on the posterior. The only thing I remember about that rear touch panel was how unsettling it was to poke my “fingers” through the PS Vita screen in Media Molecule’s Tearaway.
But as an indie-gaming machine and a home to backward-compatible PSP games, the PS Vita remains a beloved but ultimately unsuccessful little powerhouse.
7. PlayStation 3
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Outrageously expensive (“Five hundred and ninety nine U.S. dollars”), massive in size and weight, and derisively likened to a George Foreman grill, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is hubris in console form. Powered by the ambitious and complex Cell processor, the PS3 was clunky inside and out. The DualShock 3 is also one of Sony’s worst controllers, only slightly better than the alternative the PlayStation maker threatened us with early on.
But that software library! PS3 was home to Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto 5, The Last of Us, Journey, Rock Band, Demon’s Souls, Batman: Arkham Asylum, LittleBigPlanet, and many more modern classics. For that, it deserves to be fondly remembered. But for the console itself, and its slimmer, still-unattractive revisions? A bit of a dud compared to previous PlayStation generations.
8. PocketStation
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Having never played a PocketStation myself — the wee handheld/memory card device was a Japan-only release — I don’t have any opinion on it, other than that it looked really cute, like the PS One. The PocketStation is also somewhat responsible for helping to popularize Toro, the mascot cat from video game Doko Demo Issyo, who is also cute.
PocketStation: Its legacy is, in a word, cute.
9. Nintendo PlayStation
Nintendo and Sony’s infamous falling out over the Nintendo PlayStation, a console that was never officially released, helped birth the PlayStation brand. For that, we can appreciate the Nintendo PlayStation, a system that gets rightfully dinged on this list for literally having no exclusive games!
The Nintendo PlayStation is simply a fun relic. It looks more like a workstation than a video game console. Certainly not worth the asking price of $300,000!
10. PlayStation 2 (for killing the Dreamcast)
Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
The PlayStation 2 doomed the Dreamcast, thanks to pre-release hype over the technical capabilities of Sony’s successor to the original PlayStation. When Ken “Father of the PlayStation” Kutaragi unveiled the PlayStation 2 to the world in 1999, he promised it would vastly outperform Sega’s already-flailing-in-Japan Dreamcast, all but rendering the Dreamcast obsolete months before its U.S. launch in gamers’ eyes.
It certainly didn’t help that third-party publisher Electronic Arts promised never to support the Dreamcast, while going all in on PlayStation 2 software.
Yes, the Dreamcast was technically inferior to the PS2. Sega’s system used the proprietary GD-ROM format, not the larger DVD format. The PS2 was also backward-compatible with hundreds of original PlayStation games, while Dreamcast owners had to build their game library from scratch.
Thus, the PS2 squashed the Dreamcast’s chances, putting an end to Sega’s hardware efforts and ending a brief but joyous period of perfect arcade ports and delightfully weird video games like Seaman and Jet Set Radio. Sure, the PS2 had its share of wonderful games and innovations, but at what cost?! The whole damn Dreamcast, that’s what!
