Almost as crucial though, was Sony's determination to forge strong relationships with developers. During 1993 Ken Kutaragi and Teruhisa Tokunaka embarked on a world tour meeting top software companies and discussing the things programmers and artists looked for in the perfect console. What they discovered was that developers are an inherently lazy bunch who would like the process to be made as easy as possible for them.

Consequently, when PlayStation development kits began shipping in 1994, they were equipped with bulging graphics libraries - CD ROMs full of 3D graphics routines and helpful tools, designed to make game creation quicker and easier. Combine this with the sleek internal architecture of the hardware (as opposed to the messy intestines of the Saturn) and you get a machine that programmers loved to work with.

Sony also understood the key mantra of the videogame industry: good games sell hardware. In November 1993, the company signed an exclusive deal with Namco ensuring that fantastic arcade titles such as Tekken and Ridge Racer would be converted exclusively to the PlayStation.

In the same year, SCE also purchased Psygnosis, the Liverpool-based developer which would go on to deliver fast-paced racer Wipeout in time for the European and US PlayStation launch dates. Sony, like God, had the whole world in their hands.

So then, the PlayStation succeeded because Sony knew what people at the time wanted and delivered it in the shape of a cheap, powerful, straightforward games machine. The company also understood the need to attract third-party support, and so made the operating system as easy as possible to use. Everyone was happy.

Sega on the other hand, created a complex machine (hastily updated to compete with the PlayStation) and failed to push it outside of Japan. The lack of an international gene pool of ideas meant that the hardware was doomed to extinction...

More next week...