Hello PlayStation.Blog readers! Today is a very special moment in our history. It’s been 20 years since the launch of the original PlayStation, which released in Japan on December 3rd, 1994. It seems like only yesterday! I’m so glad that we can celebrate this moment together.
20 years is a long time! In 1994, many outsiders thought that Sony was slightly crazy to launch the original PlayStation into an incredibly competitive gaming market. Who could blame them? Sony was (and is!) famous for engineering great electronics, audio equipment, and many other consumer devices. But game consoles?!
Sony Computer Entertainment, founded by my mentor Ken Kutaragi, was a project borne out of sincere passion and deep admiration for the craft of game development. The mid 90s were an exciting time for game developers, driven by the explosion of powerful but affordable 3D graphics rendering hardware and the birth of many young and adventurous development studios. The original PlayStation was meant to embody that sense of adventure and discovery, that sense that anything was possible.
We sincerely thank you for joining us on our exciting 20-year journey. You have made every bump and scrape we took along the way worthwhile. And there’s so much more to come! :D
But I don’t want to go on for too long, because we have a big piece of news to reveal: a very special 20th Anniversary Edition PS4!
Our friend Sid Shuman has some details in the video above, so be sure to check it out and let us know what you think.
I look forward to celebrating the anniversary and all things PlayStation with you this week in Las Vegas at the PlayStation Experience.
Thanks for a great 20 years, and here’s to 20 more.
Yeah, I finally got signed back in and the item was removed from my cart.
Disappointing for sure, but I wasn’t expecting to get one anyway so it is no loss.
Congrats to those who won the battle of the Internet today, your prize is exceptional!
The store kept glitching and coming up with can’t load errors. I can’t count the number of times I typed in my address and credit card number only to be told the item had been removed from my cart. I’m frustrated to say the least especially since I jumped though all the hoops to get to it and had it in my cart. You would think that would have locked it in for me. Grrr!
sooooooooooooooo mine just died….. I started getting a different paypal conformation screen and it allowed the sony session cookie to expire!!!
For those who got their orders cancelled, did you get an email?
Huh, I actually feel depressed right now.
I tried calling to… phone must have been off the hook it went straight to a busy tone.
Jfinal: The whole store took a gigantic dump, and so even though your card could be charged, the store may not realize that the stock they had was already gone, so the server didn’t cut it off. I got my confirmations, but I’m assuming come Christmas I won’t have one.
@mulkaka73 – Nope no e-mail, just nothing.
IceDragon: My call was just pure static. From automated phone line to actual person, just absolute static. The guy said to call back. In a few hours.
WOW…So apparently i can’t buy the console cause I’m from Australia yet the eBay ‘Scalpers’ can sell it to me here???
There one going on eBay at the moment for $15,000 US.
That seems really fair…yeah no.
i can not believe you guys suck so bad at keeping a webstore running well enough to handle this. i was on the link the second it was tweeted and for almost two hours kept getting that ****ing server error message. why on earth would you release such a limited run and not get your servers upgraded to handle the obvious rush!? and then i tried to call directly and was either kicked off, left on hold with a stuttering robot voice, or simply getting a busy signal. just a real joke of webstore you guys have, suck **** for this one sony. i was kind of looking forward to adding this ps4 to my collection of all the other playstations i’ve purchased, but suddenly any other system on sale at amazon is starting to look a whole lot better. p.s. your “exclusive” ff7 announcement was lame as well happy holidays #jerks
I wonder why they took it out of my cart way earlier when people after me were able to place orders… You think it could be aliens?
All the freaking scalpers on eBay are showing their confirmation page!!
I hope they get cancelled!! This PS4 is for TRUE FANS!!!!! Not to resell!!!
The listing on the Sony Store finally turned gray. Hopefully people’s orders went through.
Pretty much @647 its sad how 3 or 4 have been placed in Ebay and already going for insane High bids…Price Gouging at its finest..
well might as well go get the white version if anything.
I wished nothing more than to get one of these, but they sold out in seconds. I wish there was still a way to get one….
Sorry I won’t get the share this moment with you Sony….
I had got an agent THREE times on the phone but there phone system is beyond crap and they could not hear me!!! So now I have had SIX PHONE LINES HOLDING FOR OVER AN HOUR for an agent…. I’m dying to give feed back!!! First they screwed Users Years ago with Other OS… Then Home Users are getting blown off… now this garbage…. yeah…. boycott sounds great to me!! and to think… I’ve said Sony was the best for every product!!!
Retrospect…
Mini Disc – 1000’s spent…. abandoned
Micro MV – 1000’s spent…. abandoned
PS3 1000’s spent…. coming close to be abandoned…
Yeah electronics don’t last forever or even half a decade in some cases but you can only scorn your clients so many times before they stop dumping money in that brand…
I must say… my $300 Samsung Smart TV blows away my $4000 Sony LCD TV
Still no answer on the phones… I’m sure they have been instructed to let all call abandon…. good thing I have unlimited talk time ;)
I had one in my cart, but it was removed /after/ PayPal confirmation. What a sad, sad joke.
Congratulations to everyone who was able to pre-order! I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to obtain one (though I didn’t really expect to), but even more disappointed that the Sony Store wasn’t prepared to handle the load on their systems. Wasted 2 hours of my life trying to check out what was apparently a non-existent item in my cart. Or maybe my cart timed out in the process? Regardless, cart is empty now. No doubt I’m in good company. The silver lining? I still have $500 in my pocket that I really didn’t need to spend on Sony products anyway. Not sure why I have come to expect more from this company, but I do.
Have to say you guys failed with the release. You knew your website would practically be ddosed yet you didn’t prepare sever for it. I managed to get one of the limited edition ps4s in my cart and submit an order within 20 seconds of your releasing the link on twitter. But nope never got one. After submitting probably over 100 orders and never getting conformation i gave up. You should have did first people to click reserved than they had 5 minutes to check out or they’d lose. Such a big fail on your part.
Yea I had my phone alert me via twitter and was on within seconds. For those who want more than 12K no way would this have been so hyped if it wasnt rare. As much as I like how it looks, being I just bought a black one I was lured by the rarity for sure.
@rot_leader – I couldn’t agree more. Same experience here. I’m sure for many of you. I expected more from Sony, especially in this case it’s not like they didn’t know what was coming after priming the market the way they did. I wasted a good chunk of my day on this only to have it and have it taken away at the last second. If I had just saw a sold out it wouldn’t have bugged me nearly as much as having it and then having the system rip it out of my hands after “it” finally decides to work correctly no thanks to any error on my side. Oh well… I’ll know better next time.
XenoPure, i guess you’re right. But at the moment I have a horrible case of the blues. I did manage to get a hold of a representative and they told me that no one was able to place orders and if it were in my cart I just needed to keep refreshing. Apparently that wasn’t true.
SONY, YOU STINK! i watched the whole keynote address waiting for the preorder details. Found out it was a twitter thing, spent hours reloading twitter, alas, on the final reload there it was, seconds after the previous reload. Clicked on the link, got the coveted price in my shopping cart, only to be met with 4 hours of reloading sony store pages due to internal error. Finally got past the ordering hoops and on the final checkout page…SORRY! item has been removed from your cart because it is no longer available. I know this is disappointing for many…the old PS 3 suffered the ylod last week. Such a preorder failure on Sonys part. Now I see one on ebay for 15,000.00! man I would have actually used mine! oh and calling SONY, yeah the lady couldn’t hear me, bad connection.
give me yours now
Sony handled this in every wrong way possible. They wanted us to watch the keynote for information and used twitter to give us a link after having us assume most were going to be sold at the PSX through a tweet. Not anywhere did it mention twitter before the keynote. Not a fair way to treat 20 years of playstation loyalty. We should have had more information. I’d pay for 2000 for the console, but not from the jerk that was able to buy it from Sony just to flip it when all of us were buying it for nostalgia. The whole PS4 marketing campaign was “for the gamers”, Sony must’ve hired some people from Microsoft to help on this release. As a fan, I’m hurt and dissapointed.
How long until we find out these confirmations are cancelled?
Looks like I’ll be dumping Sony unless they do something to rectify this terrible experience……
I have 12 PS3 Systems that might be going up on ebay sold in sets of two ( I have FIVE Plus accounts that have over 700 download items/games each ) I will be selling with Login Information for my Plus Accounts,
Also have many PSP’s….
Two Original Phats … one still has stock 1.5 Firmware!
One Black Slim
Both God of War Special Editions
Metal Gear Big Boss Edition (camo not the solid green)
Vizamals (blue) Edition
White PSP Go
Might have more….that off the top of my head….. and a Vita 3G that just collects dust like my PS4…. oh yeah a Playstation TV too…. I might just replace all Six of my Sony TV’s as well….
Think this should be one massive eBay auction or separate?
Personally I was unable to let the countless errors slow my efforts. Through many combinations of f5 and enter, I was able to get this purchase complete. I think I will have #667. Hopefully the one before me appreciates their number, as I definitely wouldn’t have.
I am just an average person who had twitter up and it refreshed itself right as I jumped on the game(starting thoughts of hopelessness).
I followed the link like anyone else. They weren’t sold out before or anything crazy. Pretty sure it was fair.
separate……you’d make more
They already have a hold on my bank account as well.
Well its been an hour and I still haven’t received a cancel notice yet, so…?
oh its coming………….its coming for us all……………………….. :(
Thanks Jfinal! wow! after 1:53 on hold…. an outsourced agent answered and hung up on me while I was asking what Sony is planning on doing to make up for this total disservice to it’s clients!
Gotta love those outsourced customer service reps.
Man………………..I’d HATE to be a Sony CSR right about now………..
@frostmoon
lol i would probably be as pumped as you. I feel your pain. But I can fairly assure you. Its not a disservice. It was rare and exclusive, and a select number of ppl who traveled to vegas for a conference had first dibs, and then it was an all out rhape of the store’s servers until they were gone.You didn’t make it. But I’m a normal person who gets his ps + off a gameshare and I made it through the 6hour nuisance. I recommend you calm down to relieve yourself of pointless stress.
Honestly this kinda thing should have been for a limited time instead of amount. I’d have given my left lung to get one but instead the thing was sold out without ever even showing up on the site! I just hate everything about special editions because their impossible to get.. Sorry to vent lIke this..I just feel cheated.
There’s still a chance to buy the console off the Canadian website next week.
“@PlayStationCA: CAN pre-orders for PS4 20th Anniversary Edition available next week on http://t.co/OmvZg3iZ7a Stay tuned for details http://t.co/rUN9AroqPp“
Ebay is SATURATED with these right now. I had one and kept getting the error screen, paid with Paypal, kept refreshing and finally thought I had an order confirmation, but later got the unavailable screen and it was removed from my order.
I SPRAY PAINTED ONE GREY – ANY TAKERS – ???
Sony you make me sick I had the purchase done in 10 seconds of the link posting and the site would not process my payment pretty crappy customer service thanks alot you are ranked below EA as to being the worst company in America. Congratulations you dont care about your fans if you did you would had done this fairly and not given out bracelets to the people at the event not everyone lives close to that area how many did you have to sell after the convention? I was a long time fan of you guys but you screwed your real fans and gave this console to other people such as Media and others at the event you guys are trash, lost my business good bye and fair well and I think everyone else should do the same.
Like I said before. I am disappointed. Unable to get the limited edition and almost all of the consoles sold are in the hands of re-sellers. Check this out:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313&_nkw=ps4+20th+anniversary&_sacat=0
Now if you had added at least 20,000 systems since its your 20th Anniversary maybe, maybeeee some good gamer could get their hands in one of this. Disappointed.
Everybody here deserves at least an explanation from SONY and the PS Team.
I think this is a slap in the face to fans. How about a word Mr. Shuhei Yoshida?
Sony really dropped the ball on this PR Stunt From making people sit at home stuck watching the keynote to finding out that twitter was where the link would be posted to gold bracelet wielders would have first dibs.. I really want to see what Sony will say about all this.
They will say “we apologize for the inconvenience but bla bla bla blobbity bla bla”..
Do you see what they’re going for on eBay crazy…
Shuhei Yoshida you read the first few pages and even replied to some of the real fans of yours How about you read all fourteen pages (as of 5:10 pm PST) and see what the Real Fans of the Playstation and sony feel double cross after this poorly PR stunt I really want to see what sony pulls out of the magic hat to deal with the backlash.
I found out about the twitter link like an hour later. Of course because I was watching the show for any information regarding the pre-orders. Then it was too late. This blog clearly says:
“How to pre-order in the US: PS4 20th Anniversary Edition will be available in very limited supply for pre-order starting Saturday, December 6th. Please watch the PlayStation Experience keynote starting Saturday morning at 10:00am Pacific Time to learn more. Canadian users can follow PlayStationCA on Twitter to learn more details for availability in their region.”
It says please watch the Playstation Experience keynote. I sat in my computer from 1pm ET until like 6pm to find out there was a link for the preorders.
Can I sue you guys for misinformation?