Samantha Sackin -- 213.629.4974
Fleishman-Hillard

E3, LOS ANGELES, MAY 10, 1995 -- Speculated upon for months, one of the most highly anticipated dates in video game history is now official -- Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA), is announcing today that Saturday, September 9, is the ship date for the PlayStation, the company's CD-based next generation system.

Worth its wait in gaming gold, the PlayStation has been touted for months by the video gaming press and hugely popular in Japan, where 300,000 systems were sold in just one month when the PlayStation was introduced there last December.

"We've worked extremely hard to get to this day, so there is a lot of pride and anticipation about bringing the PlayStation to the North American video game market,² said Steve Race, president of SCEA.
Also available at launch, and sold separately, will be the PlayStation¹s unique memory cards. The portable cards plug into the front of the PlayStation and allow players to save games at any time. Each PlayStation memory card will allow players t o swap characters, teams and levels with friends; creating a whole new gaming experience that other systems simply do not offer.

The PlayStation is already proving itself worthy of the highest expectations. Nearly a million units of the game system have been sold in Japan since its introduction just five months ago, and its aggressive pricing for the North American market should raise competitors' eyebrows.

Further strengthening its position, SCEA believes it is the right company, in the right place, at the right time. Today, consumer demand is evolving into higher expectations of the video game industry, and the company is perfectly poised for gaming's ne w wave by providing the definitive next generation video gaming system.

The PlayStation is a CD-based game player built around a custom-made proprietary chip exclusively created for the system. Multiple specialized processors working in tandem enhance such game elements as graphics and sound. The system's ability to create images and audio from a minimum amount of compressed data dispenses with the need to rely on large amounts of information, thus eliminating delays so games can be enjoyed in real time.

PlayStation's game architecture provides a dramatic increase in processing power

(more than 500 MIPS - millions of instructions per second), duplicating the power and speed in high-end workstations, from which PlayStation derives it name. As a result, the system is capable of generating full-screen, 3-D graphics at 30 frames per seco nd (the same rate as television), for realistic, real-time movement of game characters.

Created with such special effects as shading, fogging, digital lighting, rotating and scaling and a variety of camera angles, life-like characters are able to move freely in a full 3-D environment. The system is also capable of displaying "stream-t hrough-video" for even more realistic gaming that was previously available only in arcades.

More than 150 software developers and publishers -- including virtually every industry leader -- have partnered with SCEA to produce game titles for PlayStation. A sampling of the key companies providing titles in a wide variety of genres include: Accl aim, Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, Electronic Arts, Sony ImageSoft, Interplay, Konami, LucasArts, Mindscape, Psygnosis, Namco Hometek, SSI, Time Warner Interactive, Viacom and Virgin.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America, a division of Sony Electronic Publishing Company, is based in Foster City, Calif. The company markets the PlayStation for distribution in North America, produces and markets PlayStation software for the North Amer ican market, and manages the U.S. third-party licensing program. Sony Electronic Publishing, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, is headquartered in New York, with operating divisions throughout North America and Europe.