*In regards to Zero Divide:* I have come to the conclusion that it was likely not a PS1 launch game. I had made a mistake and left a game that was definitely a launch title out of the PS2 video that I put out before this, and didn’t want to take any chances with this one. Some sources list Twisted Metal and Zero Divide as launch games, and while I’m positive Twisted Metal wasn’t, I couldn’t verify the latter, so I put it in (I also thought it’d be a better way to close things out than Total Eclipse.) Still, in my videos since then I’ve put disclaimers about games like that. I hope this clears things up, and I’m sorry for the inaccuracy.

Sony doesn't want to admit it, but Piracy was the main reason that made the Playstation famous. You could see Pirated PS Games everywhere back in the day, while you could rarely see Sega Saturn being pirated. :)

In Europe we also got Wipeout, what a game and the soundtrack summed up the 90s and vibe of the PS1 very well, at least in Europe it was associated with rave culture

You had to be there to appreciate console 3d graphics. CRT tvs would mask a lot of the faults we can see on modern screens and for the time this was mind blowing

I'm so glad i got to live through Nintendo, Genesis, to SNES, to 3d gaming.. I was like 13 when playstation 1 came out, I had battle arena toshinden, and twisted metal, destruction Derby.. jet moto, formula 1 96.. man those were the freaking days.. then with n64 and Goldeneye, with the rumble pack!

I had never heard of Zero Divide but man does it look awesome. I'm also very surprised to learn that Tekken wasn't a launch game (though it's within the launch window so...). Great and fair coverage of each of these games!

10/10 video. Can't stress enough how good this is for such a small channel. Get a patreon and make these monthy, unless you hate success!

You could also unlock two special cars in RR by meeting certain conditions, can't remember what though.

thats insane to see an f-22 raptor in a game so old, really puts into perspective how far ahead of its time that plane was

Hey, thanks for making this channel. Its surprisignly difiicult to find genuine channels that really talk about gaming history even if its just a few titles or during a niche generation in gaming, keep uploading thanks

Thanks for taking me down memory lane! We had most of these launch titles in 1996, and Battle Arena Toshinden was very fun and I logged many hours on that game, and the red bar supers were awesome, which was new since SF Alpha wasn't out yet. Extreme sports was hella fun!! It's pretty easy to get first place, the hard part was doing it with all sports types. Power server tennis blew, lol, but we could not deny the hilarity of the Agassi and Sampras knockoffs, just hearing the names made us laugh. OMG, Ridge Racer taught me how to drive!!! I got a madcats steering wheel and logged too many hours on this game. Beating the black phantom car and unlocking it was so much fun!! We made so much fun of Kileak, we never actually played it, it was horrible. When Doom came out, Kileak was a distant memory. Zero Divide was fun, but we had Street Fighter Alpha by that time, so we never played ZD. NBA Jam was fun, but we logged many hours of that game on the 16-bit consoles. I really thought War Hawk was a launch game, guess it came out later. Now that was fun, more fun than Ace Combat imo. Rayman was hella fun, but really hard. We had Lemmings too, so we played that a ton over Rayman. We didn't play Raiden much, and we never had Total Ecplise Turbo, or maybe it was the other way around 😂. Nonetheless, amazing part of many childhoods, and I'm just glad I got to experience the birth of true 3D gaming. These kids don't know how good they have it! 🤣

Thanks to everyone who's been watching my videos! I'm gonna try and hopefully get these out a bit more frequently. I have one more Launch Games episode in the works (this time on a non-Sony system) that I plan to get out sometime in April, and then hopefully finish and get out the '97 episode of PlayStation Top 7 in May. *Update: the next Launch Games episode is coming along pretty smoothly and I should be finished with it before the end of the April. As I mentioned before, it won’t be on a Sony system. I’d love to hear any guesses on what it will cover.

Idk why, but I always thought Jumping Flash was a launch game for the ps1, I totally remember that game around the time ps1 came out. Great video 👍 I remember how "real" these games looked at the time 🤣

You know so much about games and their history. Really interesting stuff here. I want to play all of them.

ESPN Extreme Games 1 was a game I played more than any others when the PSX first came out. My friend and I played it constantly, and it had replay value where harder difficulties put more obstacles on the tracks. They did the same with 2Xtreme where harder difficulties made the game way better. Games rarely do that now, they just up the health values of enemies. My friends and I got so good at 1xtreme and could get first place every time we played. It’s still a fun game for its time. Tekken was another big launch game I remember playing right around release. Also ngl I think the 2D graphics hold up way better than the 3D graphics of the PS1’s day. But people really wanted those 3d graphics for some reason.. I always found Ridge Racer to be a boring racing game with its one track and no car damage models. So I think that’s why I enjoyed extreme games way more. You could do that music disc swapping trick with most early ps1 games, it was kind of a feature of the console back then, used to do it in Tekken all the time. Eventually games just needed to load all the time though so people forgot about it and stopped using it. I did own Total Eclipse too, I got it as a gift one year.. I felt so bad because it was one of the worst PS1 games i had ever played. Apparently the ps1 version was super sped up so it was nearly impossible to play well Bloody Roar was my favorite fighting game on PS1, it was sooo much fun

Rayman was quite a special game. Beautiful and imaginative.

Rayman was absolutely epic. Kileak was ahead of its time.

Battle Arena Toshinden was my 1st 3D fighter (then Tekken) when I got my PS1, and I was thinking about this a few weeks ago - not remembering the name. Thank you. Total nostalgia trip. I lost friends with ESPN Extreme Games. And Ridge Racer was my first racer. (Also, the T-Rex Demo was great as a kid who love Jurassic Park)

I love the funky fresh Longboxes but the standard jewel case is just so cute and efficient.

Man, I used to love Raiden and Extreme Games. Great video, lots of nice nostalgia!

I find it interesting that the launch line up for the PS1 was completely different depending on which region you were in

I have a soft spot for Zero Divide. The soundtrack itself is phenomenal and the mini phalanx game is a great bonus.

these videos deserve way more attention, you clearly put a lot of effort into these man keep it up!

Pre-Tony Hawk gamer here...played a lot of 2Extreme. Kinda terrible in retrospect, but it's what we had before THPS blew up. Good content, man.

This is high quality content this is impressive how you did this video. I must say I didn't expect these titles to be ps1 launch titles I always thought it was games like driver or tekken and other big hitters I love this nostalgia

Hey man, great channel. I remember playing the espn game non-stop with my sister, thinking "why the hell is this game so impossible" keep the channel growing!!!! With gratuity from Indiana

I really liked ESPN extreme games as a kid. It was hard, but satisfying to mess around in.

Lot of variety and games in the launch Apart from the tennis game they all same decent and would keep you happy and busy

Good memories, for sure. Ridge Racer was the best. "Whew! That was a great counter! you must be one genius of a driver! You gotta teach me!" Freakin' loved the enthusiastic announcer and the music... Even that crazy Gabber "Rotterdam Nation" BGM. _Especially_ that.

I bought my Playstation less than a year after launch yet NBA Jam T.E. is the only launch title I ever owned. I think that's a strong statement about how quickly the library expanded and improved. Compare that to PS3 and beyond when the first year offered very little to get excited about.

This was a damn good video and a nice trip down memory lane. Thank you.

Wow! I jumped from the Genesis to the PS1 right at launch and had some of these games. I loved Toshinden; Ellis was my jam - her desperation move/ultimate/whatever flurry was amazing to land. I thought Kileak was pretty good, but it got really difficult really fast if I remember right, plus I had not yet tried first person shooters at the time... later PS1 weirdo-shooter Jumping Flash was WAY more fun.

Such a great console. I have so many good memories of it. I couldn't believe my eyes how good it was.

I still my OG playstation and most of these games... those are the only things that matter to me

ESPN Extreme Games is a great game ! And can be played with 2 players ! Only problem is that it's hard indeed...

Not 100% on this, but I don't think Zero Divide and Air Combat were available on launch day. I think Air Combat was released later in September and Zero Divide in December. Thoroughly enjoyed this video though.

I have not heard that song from the Demo CD for the video intro in soooooo long. Thank you for the instant waves of nostalgia back to childhood. I remember messing with the T-Rex demo where you could make him roar, walk, etc.

been trying play ps1 games in chronological order even if for just a few hours, this video is just what I needed and entertaining!

Air Combat was brilliant! It reminded me of the old school 2d shooters iso. Like river raid

Zero Unit really looks impressive!! nice visuals and many cool features

No love for Total Eclipse's phenomenal soundtrack? This oversight is criminal! Great video, nonetheless. Thanks for all the hard work you put into this.

The Battle Arena Toshinden soundtrack is just so good

Still playing Air Combat today. Me and my dad played the shit out of it in the 90s. We are still playing it who can finish it faster on each difficulty 😅

The Raiden Project is one of the best games overall on PSX. And one of the best SHMUPs ever made, in my opinion atleast. And it has really good music too.

If I recall correctly, Rayman was the best selling PS1 game of all time in Europe, which I find to be crazy

I dig this video, thanks for sharing. I still have my copy of Battle Arena Toshinden and you are SPOT ON with your info on it lol. I do wanna go back and play Ridge Racer now, Ive never played it. Also, Zero Divide looks really cool.

One of the first game that my dad bought for us is Raiden for PS1. Game so much fun that every time I come home from school, I would glue myself to play that game

The Raiden Project is soooo similar to Striker Gunner for the SNES that I'm actually shocked it's not a sequel/remake.

I played Air Combat for the first time recently and it holds up well, my only complaint was that it was a bit short, I beat it in 4 hours.

Hearing Ellis's theme during the toshinden segment sent me right back to 95 when I got my playstation.

I absolutely loved Total Eclipse: Turbo as a kid. I could never get very far, but I can remember being scared of the squid guy who’d laugh at you when you got a game over. Went back and played it on an emulator later, don’t understand why I liked it so much 😂

Just discovered your channel, really enjoyable video, very nicely presented 👌🏼 I had a PS1 not long after launch with Ridge Racer and Tekken. It was such an exciting time for video games with a clear vision of what the future held for us... and the future was PlayStation. Thanks for sharing, great memories 😃

Wow, and people thought the PS2's launch titles sucked. This makes the PS2's launch look like the Dreamcast.

I love how on air combat it says “ bingo! “ For a kill , when bingo means you better turn that plane towards your home strip to land or you will run out of fuel

Thanks for letting me know about Zero Divide, cool stuff

Great video! I was lucky enough to get a PSX early on. I loved the original demo disc it came with. Great times! Subbed

RiiiiiiiIIIIIdge RACER!!!!! Lives rent free in my head for decades.

The part when you mention the Tips and Tricks magazine got me to remember all the time I spent writing down codes for Mortal Kombat. I think that magazine was wrapped in plastic but there would always be one open for me to lift the codes.

This was so early in 3D polygons that developers were still experimenting with things we take for granted today. Stuff like how the camera should behave, or how the controls should work relative to the display. Hence the bizarre cameras in the tennis game. They also knew nothing of the hardware's reach. Comparing late stage cycle PS1 games to these launch titles is amazing. It's nearly a generation by itself. The best comparison ever was the Ridge Racer bonus disc that came with Ridge Racer Type 4 late in 1998, four years after the original game shown here. It was the same game, albeit with fewer cars on circuit. However it ran at way higher resolution and double the framerate. It was amazing how much more performance they extracted from the same hardware when familiar with it.

I played a ton of the following as a kid who had an early PS1: Battle Arena Toshinden Tekken 2Xtreme Ridge Racer Jumping Flash Destruction Derby and of course Crash Bandicoot

Andy Legacy lol... that's Andre Agassi.. and the Sunrise guy is Sampras.

Ridge Racer was a BLAST! Still one of my favorite racking games!

i had 2xtreme back in the day and played it CONSTANTLY. god i loved it so much and there was absolutely no substance to it lol

We had Battle Arena Toshinden and Destruction Derby when we got our PSX. So many hours on both for me and my brother.

Last 25 years went so quick

Played only Ridge Racer out of these, but I had many Games on the PS1 back then. Good Times.

I still have Ridge Racer and Raiden Project to this day! 27+ years of owning these classics.

Oh man I traded my Pocket Pikachu to a friend for Battle Arena Toshinden in ‘99, but had no idea it was a launch title. I freakin loved that game, despite its clunkiness. I still have it too!

7:25 I do miss when games insulted the player lol Then Portal 2 called the player character fat and they weren't allowed to do anymore.

After watching this of course I had to go and read about the development of the PS1. Great video and a great history!

I do remember the PS1 launch being this quiet. Took a minute for things to heat up

In retrospect, this was not the best line up. But it didn't seem that way back then. It was a giant leap going from 16 bit to consoles like the Panasonic 3DO, the Saturn, then the Playstation only a few years later. It was an exciting time. Today, games look incredible but also seem to be in stasis graphics wise.

Ridge Racer had one track but, if my memory serves me, the track can be played normal, reversed, and mirrored. I think that was how they claimed it had 3 tracks. I could be wrong but I remember something to that effect.

If i remember correctly, I thought that mirrored, reversed tracks, and a combo of the two, were unlockable in Ridge Racer? This was the game that I bought at launch, and played it to death. Was a long time ago now though, so perhaps my memory deceives me!

Such a great video. 🎉🎉🎉

Great list and good commentary. I really liked this video. I remember a number of these games being the first 3D & 32 bit gaming I ever played.

Great video! Enjoyed from beginning to end!

Dude Zero Divide! I remember playing this game, but couldn't remember the name. "Your units gone".

I remember of not liking the PS1 back then... Not until I see Capcom fighting games like SFZ. I could not believe the arcade game was almost perfectly ported on the console... Yet, I felt the Saturn was still better... But everything changed in a very special, magic night in 1996. 😌 That was the night I saw Resident Evil.

I'm one of the rare people that liked the Street Fighter Movie game. I haven't played it since those days but something about the timing and mechanics was appealing.

Commenting to game the algorithm, you’re gonna go far kid 🎉🎉🎉

I recall Zero Divide was overlooked due to the "Rise of the Robots" debacle forever tarnishing the robot fighting genre. Ellis from Toshinden was my waifu in 1996. Interesting I also associate "launch titles" in the UK as March 1996 as Twisted Metal, Warhawk and Ridge Racer. Since I was the very first in high school to get a PlayStation via a Mega Drive and games that held their value for a GAME store trade-in. A full 9 months before Christmas that year 1996. By March 1997 we had the UK launch of the N64 for further consumer confusion.

Damn I had the Windows version of Zero Divide, I completely forgot I played that game until seeing this. That wasn't the nostalgia hit I was expecting from a PS1 video.

I loved that you could insert a music cd while playing Ridge Racer. I swear that listening to The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony knocked seconds off my lap time.

Raiden Project is still notable for being one of the better versions you can get of Raiden & Raiden II without an actual arcade board. Before this version of the game, there were fun ports on several platforms, but this version is significantly more accurate to the original arcade version. While it didn't show off the 3D capabilities of the Playstation, the 2D sprites are beautifully detailed and it also has a very memorable synth rock soundtrack. Many arcade fans of the 90s will instantly recognize several of the level themes. In my opinion, it is still recommendable and worth playing today if you are a fan of shmups. It's a classic game and an archetypal example of what shmups were like before the genre transitioned to higher shot counts and "bullet hell" shooters became the most popular style of the genre a few years later.

Imagine playing air combat and then finding a similar game on Sega genesis and its G-Lock. That was my childhood

There was 14 cars in Ridge racer, the Black devil car and the white angel car had to be unlocked through winning certain races.

Neat video! I remember playing almost all of these, as my granny got me a PSX right at release in the UK (Early enough that it ended up dying because of the plastic rail housing issue). I have to say ESPN is not what I could call 'good' but I played it on a whim a few months aback and still had fun? It's just a pretty chill time speeding along kicking people off their luges. If it had more content and a better season or competition mode or something it'd actually bump it up enough that I could recommend it.

Rayman was a launch title?! I sincerely didn't know

Nice chilled video, subscribed!

the PS launched with NBA Jam holy shit.. this game was insanely fun

This line up was exactly why I was in no rush to abandon my snes lol

I've still got a Large Cardboard copy of Descent... It's my Favorite MS-Dos game... I didn't care for it on PS1 but still had to have a copy of it when I found it at a Flea Market for $2.00

man ridge racer was soooo fun...all about unlocking that black car!

I think the PS1 is the only system that blew me away when I first played it. The jump from SNES was massive. You knew it was something special. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved every PlayStation since and I’m always impressed with the leaps in technology but that initial leap in the mid-90s was the biggest.

when my parents took me into the game shop i was wanting a sega saturn, the guy who worked there said that was a mistake the ps1 was the future so i ended up with that and when i told my friends at school some hadn't even heard of it but i got the last laugh

I didn't know SF:TM or Raiden Project were launch titles! Very cool.

OMG LOL I can’t believe ps1 came out in 1994! And I can’t believe nba jam tournament edition was a launch title! Great oral report btw legend of games

2Xtreme and 3Xtreme were kind of big deals, but no one I knew at the time had ever heard of or seen a 1Xtreme or knew ESPN XTreme Sports was related.

I always thought that Crash Bandicoot and Krazy Ivan was launch titles too, but then again, I was pretty younh when we got our PS for christmas