To celebrate 20 years of PlayStation, Sony is taking us back to 1994 when it launched the first one. Those who first saw it remember the original grey design and might remember how vastly different it is from today’s black models.
Well, those days are back! During its PlayStation Awards ceremony, Sony revealed a new limited-edition model of PlayStation 4 designed to look more like the slick original. Only 12,300 of these will be sold via lottery through Japan’s official Sony Store, and those lucky enough to get one will have to pay 49,980 yen ($418).
Those interested in America can watch the PlayStation Experience on Saturday for pre-order details or through the PlayStation Blog.
It’s a shame that the release will be so limited, because this is one of the few redesigns of any console I think I might actually like to own. Very classic and classy at the same time and even better than those NES or Famicom re-releases that pop up every once in a while from Nintendo.
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“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,” says Sony Worldwide Studios Boss Shuhei Yoshida.
“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.
“The ‘PlayStation 4 20th Anniversary Edition’ is a very special model that is reminiscent of the original PlayStation, which has inspired every other PlayStation platform launched in the past two decades,” Sony Computer Entertainment president and Group CEO Andrew House said. “This limited edition PS4 offers a great sense of nostalgia to long-time PlayStation fans, while also providing a fresh experience to those who never picked up the original console.”
Of course, the ultimate honor Sony can give the PlayStation 4 is to allow it to play PS One games, but considering I can still do that on my PlayStation 3, I suppose this is about as nice as it gets.