Officially abbreviated as PS is a Japanese video game brand that consists of five home video game 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 brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a division of Sony, with the first console releasing as the PlayStation in Japan released in December 1994, and worldwide the following year.
The original console in the series was the first console of any type to ship over 100 million units, doing so in under a decade. 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 by the end of 2012. Sony’s next console, the PlayStation 3, was released in 2006, selling over 87.4 million units by March 2017. Sony’s latest console, the PlayStation 4, was released in 2013, selling a million units within a day, becoming the fastest selling console in history. The next console in the series, the PS 5, is expected to be released by the end of 2020.
The first handheld game console in the series, the PSP, sold a total of 80 million units worldwide by November 2013. Its successor, the PlayStation Vita, which launched in Japan in December 2011 and in most other major territories in February 2012, selling over four million units by January 2013. PS TV is a microconsole and a non-portable variant of the PlayStation Vita handheld game console. Other hardware released as part of the PS series includes the PSX, a digital video recorder which was integrated with the PS1 and PS2, 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 PS2. 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 by June 2008.
