The Sony PlayStation is turning 20 years old on December 3 and with it comes a special edition of the PlayStation 4.
Kotaku reported that the 20th Anniversary Edition PlayStation 4 will only be limited to 12,300 units worldwide. In an article by IGN.com, there will be a special arrangement for South East Asian customers to avail of the console, to be announced at the Anime Festival Asia 2014 (AFA) Press Conference in Singapore on December 4.
In the same Kotaku.com report, the upcoming PlayStation 4 has a striking resemblance to the original PlayStation released way back on December 3, 1994 in Japan. The new console features the original grey finish and controllers and will be available at a price tag of $499. Pre-orders are going on at Sony.Store.com beginning December 6 in the United States. Beginning December 3, Japan will be offering the console at $418 at the Sony Store. In Europe, the PS4 20th Anniversary Edition will sell for €499. According to Adam Boyes of Sony, the anniversary console will be available at discounted rates at The PlayStation Experience beginning December 4 in Las Vegas.
The PlayStation Experience commemorates the console's 20 years in the industry. Shuhei Yoshida, president of worldwide studios at Sony Computer Entertainment, will also be at the big event, based on a report by PC World. Since its first release in 1994, the gaming console has become the bestselling unit around the world.
In the same PC World report, Yoshida shared about PlayStation's development in the past two decades.
He said, "It's been an amazing journey. I still remember when we were working on PSOne before the launch. We were a total newcomer in the game industry and I was one of the small groups who visited Japanese publishers and the major companies at that time."
Yoshida added in the same PC World report, "But the other major companies were very open to share their feelings about Sony, telling us that, 'The video game industry is different from your industry and it won't be easy.' Some companies had management that told us if you sell a million units of PlayStation, we will consider making games for your hardware. So considering how we started, it's amazing when I meet people who are in their 20s and we talk about PlayStation games like Crash Bandicoot, which I was producer on, and PlayStation has become a synonym for video games. It feels like a very short journey for me and many of us involved because there is always something big that we were working. Over the course of the years, so many people in the world have enjoyed PlayStation as a part of their life."