Originally conceived in Japan in 1986, the first PlayStation was the result of Nintendo trying to work with disc technology. With the invention of CD-ROMS in 1985 by Sony and Philips, Nintendo approached Sony to develop a cd-rom addon to the SNES. For the next few years the two companies worked on the system and planned to announce it in 1991, but after realizing their contract with Sony gave them control over any titles produced in the format Nintendo secretly cancelled all plans for the system. In May of that year the chairman of Nintendo, Howard Lincoln, went on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show and announced a partnership with Philips instead of Sony.
Sony ultimately decided to keep working on the system and created a stand-alone console to compete with Nintendo. By 1992 Nintendo and Sony had worked out their differences after a federal lawsuit over the original contract, and Sony moved forward with developing the system on new software and hardware in 1993. The first PlayStation was released in Japan on December 3rd, 1994 and in North America September 9th, 1995 with an original price of $299. A successful launch was fueled by titles such as Battle Arena Toshinden, Warhawk, and Ridge Racer. The original PlayStation production run lasted over 11 years. The longest in the video game industry.
