The origins of PlayStation are a direct result of a deal gone bad with Nintendo. To make a long story short, Sony was planning on making a disc-based Nintendo console, but Nintendo backed out of the deal at the last minute and partnered with Phillips. After that betrayal, Sony launched the PS1, and the rest is history. We’re now enjoying the best PS5 games, with new and old PlayStation franchises keeping the console popular. But which of Sony’s consoles had the greatest impact on the gaming industry? We need to take more into consideration besides great games when ranking a console, and the result is by no means scientific. Based on the cultural impact, reception, and nostalgia, these are all the PlayStation consoles ranked from worst to best.
7. PSP
The first PlayStation handheld had an uphill battle to climb. Nintendo had been crushing the handheld market since the late ’80s with the Game Boy, and the PSP had to go up against the DS. This ended up being a lesson that more powerful hardware and graphics weren’t enough to sell a system. Technically speaking, the PSP was amazing. It had almost all the power of a PS2 in your hands. The controls lacked two analog sticks, making a lot of games somewhat awkward to play, but those that were designed around it played great. The real issue was that it had no killer app. It had a ton of great games, no doubt, but nothing that made the system a must-buy.
6. PS3
Where better to start with the PS3 than its reveal? Right out of the gate, Sony killed all sense of momentum it had from the PS2 generation by revealing the now iconic $599 price tag. But even ignoring the price, the PS3 had much bigger issues. The launch controller felt cheap, had unsatisfying triggers, and ripped out rumble in favor of barely functioning motion controls. The real nail in the coffin was the cell processor. This machine was notoriously difficult to make games for, even within Sony first-party, and nearly all multi-platform games ran worse on the PS3. We do have to give Sony credit for turning the generation around with a price drop, revision, and closing the generation strong with some amazing games, but most will look back on this system as the company’s greatest blunder.
5. PS Vita
The world wasn’t ready for the Vita. On paper, this should’ve been the perfect handheld. It addressed every complaint there was about the PSP by adding a second analog stick, access to the PSN, even better graphics, and tons of great games. In fact, there were a ton of Vita games that had cross-buy on PS3, which is almost unheard of. It did include some touch-control gimmicks, but they didn’t detract from games that didn’t choose to use them. The only real reason the Vita failed to find a massive audience, even against the underpowered 3DS, was Nintendo’s stranglehold on the market.
4. PS4
After the PS3 generation, Sony couldn’t afford to make another misstep. The PS4 is a very safe console, but a needed return to form for the company and way to refocus on what had turned things around for it during the PS3 era. That, of course, was exclusives. The PS4 library is one of the strongest in PlayStation history, both in terms of existing franchises like Ratchet, Uncharted, and God of War releasing their best entries, but also new favorites in Horizon and Ghost of Yotei. The PS4 wasn’t afraid to get weird, either. Tons of experimental games were released, but Sony even made a huge bet with PSVR. While it didn’t set the world on fire, it was the best-selling VR unit at the time and had a lot of cool experiences.
3. PS1
It is hard to divorce nostalgia from how impactful the PS1 really was, but maybe we don’t have to. This was the first time anyone heard the name PlayStation, meaning it had to start from nothing against the titans of Sega and Nintendo. Thanks to Nintendo opting to stick to cartridges for the N64, PlayStation games were able to look and sound better than anything else on the market. Outside of Nintendo’s exclusives, all the big games were on PS1, such as Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, and Tomb Raider. The amount of freedom that CDs gave to developers led to tons of games rushing onto the system in every genre. In terms of hardware, the PS1 gave us the template for all modern controllers, and the system itself doubled as a CD player.
2. PS5
At first, we were going to put the PS5 lower on this list for being not much more than a better PS4. However, that feels a little disengenuous. Outside of graphics, the main improvement of the PS5 on the technical side is its SSD that, to be fair, we don’t think we could live without now that loading times are all but eliminated. Games are coming out a bit slower, so the library might not be as strong by the end as the PS4’s, but we also need to recognize that the PS5 can play every PS4 game. In fact, thanks to PS Plus, you can play a ton of PS1, PS2, PS3, PSP, and VR games. Add in the ability to stream games from the cloud on your console, phone, or PlayStation Portal, and you realize just how great this console is. If you are a fan of PlayStation, the PS5 feels like a celebration of its entire history.
1. PS2
Nothing will ever rock the world like the PS2. This was a perfect storm of timing, technology, games, price, and competition that will never be replicated. It wasn’t quite the cheapest console at the time, but it was the cheapest DVD player by a long shot. Sony wanted to replicate the value it gave the PS1 beyond just a game console as a CD player with the PS2 and made the genius choice to make it also play the newest video format, DVDs. This gave gamers around the world the perfect sales pitch to get a PS2 into the house with non-gamers. The PS2 would’ve sold okay just for that, but it got to 160 million because it was the golden age for game development. This generation might be the time when budget and technology were at their most balanced. Major games could be developed in around two years, look and play great, and not cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce. The PS2 library might still be the best of any single console to this day.
