PlayStation
video gaming brand owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment
PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The brand is recognized primarily for its series of home video game consoles, though it also includes handheld devices, online services, and other media products.
The brainchild of Sony executive Ken Kutaragi, the brand began with the first PlayStation home console released in Japan in 1994 and worldwide the following year, which became the first console of any type to ship over 100 million units, which made PlayStation a globally recognized brand. Since then there have been numerous newer consoles—the most recent being the PlayStation 5 released in 2020—while there have also been a series of handheld consoles and a number of other electronics such as a media center and a smartphone. The main series of controllers utilized by the PlayStation series is the DualShock, a line of vibration-feedback gamepads. SIE also operate numerous online services like PlayStation Network, the PlayStation Store, and the subscription-based PlayStation Plus, which may also offer non-gaming entertainment services; the PlayStation Network has over 103 million active users monthly as of December 2019.
The series also has a strong line-up of first-party games due to PlayStation Studios, a group of many studios owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment that exclusively developed them for PlayStation consoles. In addition, the series features various budget re-releases of games by Sony with different names for each region; these include the PlayStation Hits, Platinum, Essentials, and The Best selection of games. It is also known for the four iconic PlayStation face buttons (, , , ) and has been known for its numerous marketing campaigns, the latest of which being the "Play Has No Limits" commercials.
History
Origins
PlayStation was the brainchild of Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who managed one of the company's hardware engineering divisions and was later dubbed "The Father of the PlayStation".
“PlayStation” enters the record as video gaming brand owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what PlayStation, video and gaming can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“PlayStation” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, PlayStation, video and gaming provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1323662. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2020 and 2019.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “PlayStation”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow PlayStation primary sources, PlayStation archive and PlayStation research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “PlayStation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.