During the 2018 holiday shopping season, Sony launched the Playstation Classic. This miniature version of the original Playstation followed the release of similar mini consoles by rival Nintendo.
Looking at the sales success of the NES Classic and the Super NES classic, this seemed like a “no-brainer” for Sony.
As Sony started dropping hints at the upcoming release, hype built quickly. Once the game list leaked out though things rapidly deflated. Only 20 games would be built in and Sony said there would be no method of loading any additional games.
To further damage the potential of the little console, Sony loaded a mix of NTSC and PAL games on the device. Modern television sets do not have issues decoding PAL signals but due to the slower refresh rate of the PAL signal the games are visibly sluggish compared to the NTSC versions.
As a result of these decisions, sales of the unit were much lower than anticipated. By the end of the Christmas season many retailers had dropped the price of the unit by nearly half.
This was a bitter pill for Sony considering the rival Nintendo units are still nearly impossible to find at MSRP today, 18 months after release (for the NES Classic).
While browsing through Walmart early last week, I saw a few of the Playstation Classic consoles on display for $39 CAD. That’s $90 less than the original launch price. I hesitated at first because of all the bad reviews the machine received but my hesitation was brief and I grabbed one anyway.
Inside the box you’ll find the main console, two controllers, an HDMI cable and a USB cable. No power supply is included in the box. I have a small collection of iPhone chargers. Plugging the USB cable into one of those works like a charm. The system turns on with the same dramatic tones as the original. It immediately hit on my now 24 year old nostalgia for the original console.
The 20 games chosen by Sony do represent a good selection though:
- Battle Arena Toshinden PAL
- Final Fantasy VII [A]
- Intelligent Qube
- Jumping Flash! PAL
- Metal Gear Solid
- Mr. Driller
- R4: Ridge Racer Type 4
- Resident Evil: Director’s Cut PAL [B]
- Revelations: Persona
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo [C]
- Tekken 3 PAL
- Wild Arms
- Cool Boarders 2 PAL
- Destruction Derby PAL
- Grand Theft Auto PAL
- Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee PAL
- Rayman
- Syphon Filter
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six PAL
- Twisted Metal
For $39CAD, this is a pretty great selection of games. I personally don’t notice the reported sluggishness of the PAL versions. Maybe my 45 year old self is a little sluggish too! Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil and Rayman are all games that will take you 20+ hours to complete. Metal Gear Solid is an experience that you will not soon forget. I still quote lines from the game 20 years after I first played it.
Are all my favourites there? No. Gran Turismo is noticeably absent. As is Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider. These were fantastic games that helped cement the Playstation as the dominant console of its generation.
However, all is not lost …
After a brief round of Google searching I found that many intrepid Playstation Classic owners had been digging under the hood of the device and found a way to take care of the console’s biggest problem: its lack of content.
With a little spare time and a USB drive you can add any PS titles to the machine you wish.
Before I continue though, this process involves downloading ROM images of games posted on the internet. I do not condone this behaviour and I will not post any links to the game files. You will have to find them on your own.
I followed the steps I found on the internet and within 30 minutes was playing one of my favourite PS games. The process isn’t perfect and there is some stuttering during the video based content but the games themselves play perfectly.
As with anything like this your experience may differ from mine. If you want to restore the system to normal just remove the USB drive and power the unit back on. Everything will be as it was out of the box.
If you are an older gamer like me and want to relive some of those early Playstation experiences I can’t help but recommend the Playstation Classic. At its current price it’s a steal.
NoShade's 