A little over ten years ago, Sony cut the ribbon on a new virtual shopping plaza: the PlayStation Store. Opening for business alongside the PlayStation 3, the inaugural digital storefront was as rudimentary as these things get: it was essentially a web page with a couple of games for sale and some trailers. Who could have imagined back then that it would go on to become one of the division’s largest revenue streams?
To celebrate the anniversary of the PlayStation Store, we’ve put together a look back at how the marketplace has evolved over the past decade, from its humble HTML beginnings right the way through to its current format. Watch on for a full account on the history of the PlayStation Store, and do let us know which version you like best in the comments section below.
[source bit.ly]
Comments 17
Enjoyed this video - as someone who was a 360 owner last gen, seeing how the Store developed as opposed to the 360 was interesting. I'm sure the redesign must have annoyed PS3 owners when they migrated over to the eventual PS4 store version.
@Rudy_Manchego Thanks for watching! And yeah, the 2012 redesign was very controversial, primarily due to all of the issues.
@Rudy_Manchego compared to the 360, the evolution of the user interface is thankfully not covered in adverts. Apart from that dastardly buy game £49.99 when you have the disc in the tray. Grrrr.
@get2sammyb Odd choice not to code it into the OS and go back to an app, especially when it was still growing the store in 2012. That said, I've not really had any complaints since moving the PS4.
@themcnoisy Oh boy the adverts... the adverts. Even now when I boot up my 360, which I occasionally do for media in the spare room, it is still pushing me to buy things on the opening page. Having actual video adverts playing for things. That was a big change I noticed moving to PS4.
Thanks for this, Sammy. It's weird I couldn't quite remember how bad the store was but remember it being very slow and frustrating (and still is now on PS3).
Also wondered what my first digital buy was (I'm still more of a physical collector). Just looking at my purchase history now and I can see that the first thing I picked up was actually the Crash Bandicoot trilogy, at the end of 2008.
There's also a lot of demos on there, as well as it showing that the first DLC I downloaded was the expansion level for Heavy Rain.
My first "proper" PS3 digital games were WipeOut HD and LittleBigPlanet - both of which were given for free after the infamous network hack of 2011.
In short, it looks like I hardly used the digital store back in the PS3 days - I guess not a big surprise seeing how difficult to navigate it was. Definitely shows how far we've progressed in this latest generation.
My first buy was Tekken 5. I remember it vividly. I played the heck out of it as well.
I like the PS store it was a breath of fresh air after I moved over from Xbox their's sucked, they should redo the way you search for stuff in the store though, scrolling up and down the alphabet can be a bit of a mare. The bargain's you can pick up in there are awsome as well especially for PS+'er's.
Only games I got off the store were Castle Crashers, Dead Nation, Lara Croft GOL, Braid, a weird PS mini blimp game and the free Infamous give away.
Never bothered with the free plus monthly downloads. 80gb HDD just wasn't made for it. I buy loads of digital games now though, they are awesome, especially some of the indie offerings.
Edit: oh and some PS1 classics, namely T&F, Crash 1, Wipeout and C&C:RA.
Edit edit: OH AND RENEGADE OPS!!!
Thanks for the video, I didn't know the old psn.
A decade and yet still so far to go. Sometimes when I go to purchase a game on PS4, i'll hit the final button and get an error message and get kicked to the home screen. When that does happen, half the time the game is purchased, half it's not. Doesn't show up in my library for at least an hour either if it was bought.
The PS3 store has always been a laggy, slow mess as well. Vita's store has always been good to me though. Usually if I want to purchase something, I now go straight though the website. Zero problems that way.
Good times!
I remember buying Tekken 5 and then WipEout HD not long after. My first digital games! Absolutely loved both of them, too.
The first game I download from psn is uncharted 3 free from psplus, man how time flies.
@ShogunRok @get2sammyb Tekken was was just an awesome game. Not only did we get a new Tekken at the time, but it fixed alot of problems that 4 had plus it had Tekken 1- 3 on it as well. IMO that was probably the last good main Tekken story line we got.
PS Store has always worked good for me on PS4. Don't really remember it on the PS3. But now, it sure would be nice if your cart synced between PS4/PSapp/PC. And a common layout would be appreciated, specifically if your looking for things that aren't games
Nice video!
I completely skipped out on the last console generation, so it was good to see how the original PS Store looked, I like the style of it today really, but wish they would sort out the really minor annoyance of video previews on game pages starting and then stopping 3 seconds in
The lag of new PSN on PS3 was a nightmare the last time I logged in my PS3... RIP my PS3.
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